Wheres Toto Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I always considered myself fairly well read and aware but I had never even heard of people still believing in a young earth until I joined homeschooling groups. I always thought it was up there with the flat earth, geo-centric universe ideas. It seems most common among Evangelical Christians in Bible Belt areas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in GA Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I always considered myself fairly well read and aware but I had never even heard of people still believing in a young earth until I joined homeschooling groups. I always thought it was up there with the flat earth, geo-centric universe ideas. It seems most common among Evangelical Christians in Bible Belt areas. :iagree: I still remember when I was in my early 20s and at a huge southern Baptist church (I did not grow up in the South) and the pastor was talking was talking about how dinosaurs were definitely on the ark. How did they fit? They were baby dinosaurs! I had never heard of such a thing and couldn't believe it!! I thought everybody over the age of five knew that dinosaurs and humans did NOT live at the same time! Jenny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monk17 Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 The second largest publishers of text on a 6 day creationist belief is Islam. They may be approaching the largest I haven't read the statistics in a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cricket Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 While I appreciate those links, they don't answer the original question regarding mainstream Christain churches. One is a story about an ex-Catholic priest that clearly has left the mainstream. The other is an article by a very conservative denomination using anecdotal stories of 5 pastors who have had a crisis of faith to justify attacking the concept of there being many paths to god. The poster I was questioning said there were mainstream Christian denominations that didn't believe in God. I would really like to know which denominations those are?? This blog was interesting - Christians Atheists. My point above was that I don't think you will find a mainstream Christian church that formally state they don't believe in God. The only denomination I can think of would be a Unitarian Universalist church. For what I understand, many of those members do believe in God but I don't think belief in God is a requirement to join the church. However, I don't think other Christian denominations would consider them a Christian denominaton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurie4b Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Thanks for reading...I am not looking for any kind of debate or explanation. Now that I'm looking at various homeschool groups/co-ops, etc. and many of them are associated with Christian churches, I'm just wondering if I can safely assume that they do not believe in the theory of evolution and are creationist. Of course I could ask... but I'd rather not! And not interested in discussing it with them! So I guess these are the groups I'm wondering about: - Mainline Protestant denominations - Evangelical Protestant churches - (I know the Catholic Church does not have a firm position on this) I'm not wondering about ultra-liberal Christian churches! Thanks, and again I'm not really looking for debate/explanation, just kind of a yes or no if you'd be so kind! Thanks so much. Our evangelical Protestant church believes God created the world. Church members believe various things about exactly what that looked like: literal 7 day creation, days=1000 years approach, young earth, old earth, theistic evolution (God started the process and used evolution to achieve the result.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I think most members of the Church of England would not be creationists. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I should say too that I find it's generally only Americans that I hear assuming that being a Christian must mean being a creationist. You'll probably find the odd creationist in most countries but I think that for the most part, at least in the modern sense of it, it's a product of American Christianity as opposed to Christianity as a whole. Belief in 6 day creation isn't an American thing. There are lots of American evangelicals who do believe it, but there are also plenty of Germans, Brits,.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friederike in Persia Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I think most members of the Church of England would not be creationists. Laura Hi, just saw your post. The Anglican church has various wings, of which the evangelical one is a strong one and many vicars who will have gone to seminaries within that stream and many members of more evangelical congregations will believe in 6 day creation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravelingChris Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 We are not YE Creationists and we don't go to churches where this is the standard. We do go to a co-op where the church has YE beliefs but most of the participants go to churches that aren't YE in belief. At my current church, there are people who are YE but certainly not most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Hi, just saw your post. The Anglican church has various wings, of which the evangelical one is a strong one and many vicars who will have gone to seminaries within that stream and many members of more evangelical congregations will believe in 6 day creation. However I believe that the evangelical wing has been growing from a very low base. As the Anglican communion in the UK (the only one that I have any experience of) is aging, I think it likely that most Anglicans, who came to the church in the 1950s and 1960s, are not creationists. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 (edited) Belief in 6 day creation isn't an American thing. There are lots of American evangelicals who do believe it, but there are also plenty of Germans, Brits,.... I don't think it's only an American thing but outside the US it's generally more of a fringe belief. I didn't mean to infer there were no creationists outside the US but that they were "the odd creationist," and that creationism was not anything approaching mainstream and not involved in public discussion and politics the way it does in the US. Edited March 27, 2010 by WishboneDawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizzyBee Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I grew up Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, which is very conservative. They were creationist, but I don't know if their position has changed since then. But considering that the church I grew up in was still having church services in German until the 1950's, I'd be surprised if their stand on creationism has changed. :001_smile: I next attended an Independent, Fundamentalist church which was old earth creationist, as in they believe there is a long gap of time between Gen 1:1 and 1:2. I have been Southern Baptist for 23 years, and there is a broad range of beliefs within the SBC. Our current church is firmly 6 24-hr days creationist, and it's one of the few things that bothers me about our church. Not so much that they believe it, but that they are dogmatic about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annabel Lee Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I really don't want anyone to think of me as a creationist and I really don't want Christian to equal creationist. The term has very specific implications in terms of science, politics and religion. I am not a creationist. I am a Christian who believes God is the creator and accepts the science of evolution and an old universe. I suppose we just have different definitions of "creationist". To me, that just means that God is the creator - no matter how, when, where, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I'm just wondering if I can safely assume that they do not believe in the theory of evolution and are creationist I take it from the above that you do not believe / approve of the theory of evolution, is that right? So is your concern that your child might be taught this? In which case, could you just ask for an overview of what topics might be learned / discussed? You could do this without mentioning your thoughts about evolution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I suppose we just have different definitions of "creationist". To me, that just means that God is the creator - no matter how, when, where, etc. I think my personal definition of it is sort of beside the point. If I call myself a creationist people are going to think certain things about my beliefs that are not only wrong but pretty much the opposite of what I really believe. I think there are some things where I have to cede to societies definitions and this is one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommyrooch Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Grew up mainstream Protestant (dad was an American Baptist preacher and is now a Congregational preacher) - no problem with evolution - was NEVER a topic of discussion or debate growing up. :iagree: I grew up Southern Baptist (very conservative) and no one in the church ever had a problem with evolution. It just wasn't a topic of discussion or debate for us either. I was taught that God created everything and that it didn't really matter about the "specifics" as long as we recognized that he did it and gave him the honor and the glory for it. That's pretty much as far as the topic ever got. In fact, I had NEVER even heard of Creationalism/young earth until I became a homeschooler. In my experience, it is the homeschooling community that really pushes Creationalism/young earth beliefs, not the chruches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommyrooch Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Who wants to start an internet "not-necessarily-six-day-creationists who are okay with Harry Potter and wearing bikinis" church with me? Me! Me! Me! :hurray: But only if it can include that it's okay to occasionally play Bingo (yes, the gambling kind ;)) for fun and it's okay to dance with hubby and have a drink at dinner (yes, the alcoholic kind ;)) at dinner. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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