Chuck Missler

I have long prided myself on being an "enlightened, intellectual Christian". I have an 'active faith', I talk to God relatively frequently, read my bible a little less frequently, but do seriously and honestly believe the statements of faith summed up in the creeds. Along with this I have been more than a little disparaging of young-earth 6 day creationist types. Largely dismissing them as young, stupid, uneducated fanatics (which I still hold to be true in a general sense). I have also run screaming from any aspect of the creation/evolution debate. I find it to be a waste of time and energy and a huge distraction from the real work of God (loving God and people and helping others to experience God's love).

And then someone lent us a copy of Chuck Missler's 'Learn the Bible in 24 Hours'. Which is 24 hour-long lectures starting at Genesis and working through to Revelation. I would highly recommend it to anyone already fairly familiar with their Bible who would like to know some pretty cool stuff. And here's the problem. Chuck Missler is educated, well spoken, respected, intelligent, and rigorous. His science is cool. I am very much enjoying this lecture series. What he says seems to tie in with my own experiences of God. And he literally believes every word of the Bible. He is a 6 day creationist (there is some very cool physics around Relativity and Time and the speed of the expansion of the universe and the different experiences of time in different parts of the universe). He believes the earth to be 6,000 years old. He believes there was a global flood.

So here I am, my thoughts are provoked. Creation science has come a long way in the 15 years since I last cared remotelyI still don't believe it, and I'm firmly of the opinion that it doesn't make any difference to my status with God, my salvation or anyone else's whether we accept 6 day creation or God's creation through evolution or whatever. But I can probably state that I'm now more open-minded about it than I was - and isn't open-mindedness the modern-day virtue?

P.S. I'd still recommend the 24 hour lecture series even if you can't stomach creationism - just roll your eyes and sigh loudly through the lecture that deals with the early chapters of Genesis - his exposition of the rest of the Bible is very 'thinky' (as a mate of mine would say).