Qms:The Irony of Christadelphian YEC

QMS: Questioning Mainstream Science
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(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.