Accommodation of divergent beliefs
| ATHEISM | AGNOSTICISM | DEISM | THEISM | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evolutionary Creationism | Old Earth Creationism | Young Earth Creationism | ||||
| without "gap" | with "gap" | |||||
General Principles
"Fellowship: is Christ Divided?"
In 1989 The Christadelphian Magazine published this letter from more than a hundred respected members, making the case that nobody is "entitled to demand the endorsement of every single word" of the BASF. This view is still common.
Bro George Booker
Beliefs and assumptions about the creation of the universe, and about human origins especially, are naturally important in a community of faith. But to what extent should belief be unanimous, and how can shared beliefs be defined? George Booker describes the two extremes:
How should we define first principles? The possible answers to such a question range from the grossly simplistic (and therefore unworkable) to the far-too-detailed (and also therefore unworkable).
On the one hand, it might be suggested that John 3:16, for example, is sufficient as to belief:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
But such a response tells us only that belief in Christ is essential; it does not define or limit that belief in any practical way. All who profess to be Christians can — and do — accept John 3:16.
On the other hand, the statement that ‘all the Bible must be believed’, while commendable in one respect, proves totally impractical in application, and means essentially: ‘One must believe all that I believe — nothing more and nothing less — in order to be saved!’ Along this road lie the cults, with their dictatorial leaders.
Along this road also lies a perpetual restlessness of mind — in which satisfaction and comfort can never be attained, because they are tied to constantly changing goals.
He goes on to quote Robert Roberts' last word in his magazine The Christadelphian, saying that the way to find the wise middle course is to discriminate between true principles and uncertain details that do not overthrow them:
Can we not ... know “how far we ought to go and where we ought to stop...in our demands on fellow-believers”? ... “[Men of God] are afraid on the one hand of compromising the truth in fellowship; and on the other, of sinning against the weaker members of the body of Christ. The only end there can be to this embarrassment is found in the discrimination between true principles and uncertain details that do not overthrow them.”
When it comes to what people believe about human origins, this necessary discrimination relates to the nature and cause of the human condition, and how belief in the Lord Jesus Christ can save us from it.
Bro W F Barling
The real issue before us is whether (to use two much abused terms) “creation” and “evolution” are contradictory, or complementary, explanations of God’s activity as the Maker of all things.
Traditionally, we have vigorously declared them to be contradictory. Now, a growing number among us are not so certain that this is so. What is not generally realized is that this section of our community is not an organized, self-confident group bent on converting the remainder to a new opinion, but a number of perplexed individuals, deeply loyal to the community, desperately anxious not to offend those who do not share their anguish—let alone transfer it to their minds—but who feel that they must be intellectually honest. What they ask of their brethren and sisters is not a change of viewpoint but a change of attitude. None would rejoice more than they if incontestable evidence were finally produced to warrant the most literal acceptance of the opening chapters of Genesis. Meantime, what they seek is not approval but tolerance. If a repudiation of the notion of slow change as God’s method of creation is demanded of them, then their loss to the community is inevitable. So too, alas, is the loss of many potential candidates for baptism who share their perplexity and, feeling that the Brotherhood will not tolerate them with their mental reservations, are being driven, in their desire to give themselves to Christ, more and more towards evangelical groups with less exacting theological demands to make on their converts than we have.
— Barling W.F. "Letter: The Origin of Man"
The Christadelphian Magazine (1965) 102:463–464
Bro Alan Fowler
QMS: Questioning Mainstream Science
← to QMS index
(extract from a letter to the Testimony Magazine, June 2002 by Bro Alan Fowler)
It is ironic that Christadelphians, with our understanding that much of the Bible is not written in literal language, have correctly rejected the Trinity, a literal devil and the literal flesh and blood of the Catholic Eucharist, but nevertheless have fallen in with the extreme young earth interpretation of Genesis l on the basis that they are following the literal truth of the Bible. All our pioneers and all the editors of The Christadelphian Magazine have accepted that the earth is extremely old, so what is the explanation for this recent capitulation to an American fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis 1?
Let me assure my critics that I have no objection to alternative interpretations of Genesis 1, nor do I insist that my understanding is necessarily correct. But I am deeply concerned with the attitude of those who insist that young earth creationism is the only interpretation of Genesis 1. Since the vast majority of earth scientists believe that the evidence points to a very old earth, and that young earth creationism is anti-science, they will inevitably be led to believe that the Bible is also anti-science and so fail to realise that it contains vastly more important truths, concerning their salvation. So here is another irony, in this case a tragic one: geologists may become atheists because well-meaning Bible believers force them to make a false choice between the Bible and the evidence of their eyes.
Beliefs about Origins and accommodation of divergent beliefs
- Are there any correlations between our various beliefs about how God creates, and our approach to accommodating different beliefs in the ecclesia?
Young Earth Creationism (YEC)
Follow links from Mark 16:15-16 for arguments against fellowship with believers who accept evolution, or ecclesias that welcome them.
Others see a belief in human contemporaries of Adam and Eve as inimical to the Christadelphian faith:
In summary then this debate about a secondary line of evolving beings existing as contemporaries with Adam and Eve is not just a fanciful idea – it is contrary to the principles of our Statement of Faith and a departure from the Christadelphian faith.
If the Genesis account is metaphorical there is no literal serpent, no tree of knowledge of good and evil, no lie, no fruit, no sin, no sentence of death; Jesus Christ, our Saviour and his Gospel of salvation have no rationale or basis, as set forward by the Apostle Paul in Romans etc.
(as of February 2024, hidden behind paywall)
An alternative approach is to modify the Statement of Faith to exclude acceptance of evolution:
Additional "Doctrines to be Rejected" (from the Constitution of the Tea Tree Gully Ecclesia, South Australia)
- #36.[1] That the presence of all matter is seen to be the outworking of the process of evolution and that the complex forms of life on earth, including man himself, came into being by what is known as "natural selection" and are not the work of an intelligent Creator.
- #37.[2] That the theory of evolution is the true explanation of the method used by God as the Creator of the heavens and earth, and that the idea of a special creation accomplished in a six day period is unscientific and unscriptural.
- (It is unclear whether this additional clause 37 was intended to make belief in a six day "accomplishment" of creation obligatory even for those who reject evolution. What is clear, though: those who thought the addition was necessary didn't believe non-literal readings were already precluded!) – BP
- (It is unclear whether this additional clause 37 was intended to make belief in a six day "accomplishment" of creation obligatory even for those who reject evolution. What is clear, though: those who thought the addition was necessary didn't believe non-literal readings were already precluded!)
Against Young Earth Creationism
- Should Christadelphians reject the sciences, become biblical literalists, or teach ‘young earth creationism’? by bro Alan Eyre.
Old Earth Creationism (OEC) with "Gap"
Old Earth Creationism (OEC)
Islip Collyer
Bro Islip Collyer had OEC beliefs and, as he expressed in this passage, "perhaps no quarrel" with Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creationism):
The true Darwinian claims that the very appearance of man on earth is equally the result of chance. Nature, had no design of any kind. The highest form of life might just as well have been an eel or an earth worm. . . .
There are doubtless many believers in Evolution who would deny these propositions and affirm their conviction, both in Creation and overruling Providence. They are not Darwinians, and perhaps we have no quarrel with them. Everybody believes in Evolution in the sense of unfolding powers. Eggs evolve into birds, acorns evolve into oaks. Each egg after its kind, and each seed after its kind. We may examine the germ as minutely as we choose but we shall never find packed away there the bird or the tree that is to be evolved. Yet the potentialities are there, even to the tiniest of details. Run some drab-coloured hens with a game-cock, and, although we are unable to trace the slightest difference in the eggs, the markings, the quality of flesh and the disposition of the sire will all come out in the chicks.
Evolutionary Creationism (EC)
Evolutionary Creationists frequently have concerns about unbalanced promotion of non-evolutionary beliefs about Origins to young people. This particularly applies to uncontested teaching of YEC, which they believe has lead to catastrophic loss of faith in some cases. See Old Earth Ministries for a link to their cartoon which summarises this concern. (Old Earth Ministries is not a Christadelphian organisation.)
Evolutionary Creationists are also concerned by many misunderstandings and false claims about evolution, for example that it is necessarily "atheistic", or that evolutionary biologists fail in a supposed attempt to account for Abiogenesis. See EC Testimonials.
Against Evolutionary Creationism (EC)
- Transcript from a talk:
"Come over to Psalm 149, this is the language, the beautiful, poetic language of the Bible, talking about the inheritance of the saints. Here we have it in Psalm 149, this is, we have that passage in the new testament, in what we call sometimes “the sermon on the mount” [Matthew ch.5], the meek shall inherit the earth, right?, well here we have it in Psalm 149 verse 4.
- “For Yahweh taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. (the meek shall inherit the earth) Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.” Well that's the same thing, that's their couches or their recliners, so to speak, not beds as in going to sleep beds, but beds like kings would recline upon.
- “let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand;
- To execute vengeance upon the nations (heathen), and punishments upon the people;
- To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
- To execute upon them the judgement written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye Yahweh.
- Or..Hallelujah!
"Brethren and Sisters, this is the destiny that we are called to, and you and I may not think of ourselves in this way, but, think of it in the way of all the terrible things that have happened in your life, think of all the people in the world around us that affect our children, and our community, and the terrible things that they have done, over the ages, to brothers and sisters, you can think of brother Albert Merz, in Germany, who was put to death by the firing squad, you can think of others brethren and sisters, go back to the time of the protesters.
"When those brethren and sisters are raised to life, and they're going to set the record straight, but in our day, we can think of evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, who are destroying some of our Ecclesias and young people, bringing people off to their deaths. This is going to put an end to it, it's no longer going to be, and that is what our God is going to do."
- One ecclesia has appended additional "Doctrines to be Rejected" to its Statement of Faith, proscribing belief in evolution and possibly non-literal understandings of the six-day creation in Genesis.
- 1 Timothy 1:20 and other Scriptures are cited as reason to exclude people who accept evolution from Christadelphian ecclesias.
- Colin Byrnes, By One Man was explicitly written to argue against allowing believers in "God-directed Evolution" to continue as members of Christadelphian ecclesias.
The Role of BASF and similar documents
A Postulation regarding the Foundation Clause of the BASF
. . . Even if the depths of scientific knowledge are plumbed, salvation cannot be gained thereby. But in contrast, “The holy scriptures... are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works”.
The truth of this is faithfully encapsulated in the Foundation Clause of the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, which is the basis of fellowship for all Christadelphians . . .
Questioning Mainstream Science "always changing" It is therefore to the word of Almighty God that we must turn. It is His word which is the ultimate authority on these matters, not the postulations of the limited and fallible human mind so often exhibited in the ever changing genre of Science. We would therefore do well to view science through the lens of God’s revelation rather than view God’s revelation through the lens of the theories of science.
— Alfree, M and Davies, M, The Deception of Theistic Evolution pp 20-21
