What keeps me awake at night is my work colleagues who told me that they lost their faith when they learned just how extensive, overwhelming, and completely unambiguous the evidence against young-earth creationism and a global Flood, and for evolution, really are. And how, in some cases, it led to a complete breakdown of trust in everything they were hearing in their churches, because they started asking, “What else are they lying to me about?”
How do I share my faith with people such as these?
I hear ya.
And what keeps up at night is the guilt I feel for being a contributor to their disenchantment—because years ago I was an aggressive advocate of “creation science” and “flood geology”, the pseudoscience and misbegotten apologetics of The Genesis Flood (1962, Henry Morris & John Whitcomb Jr.) and Duane Gish.
Moreover, I ask myself what I can be doing now to make sure that I’m not misleading people in other areas of theology. I’m not so much looking back on a trek out of “bad” theologies into “good” theologies but rather being dogmatic beyond my ability to soundly support my position from the evidence. For example, my church background was heavy on Dispensationalism (a la the Scofield Study Bible), so I started out as a Dispensationalist by virtue of simple osmosis. By the time I was in seminary, I had become a 3.5 to 4.0 point Calvinist. Thirty years later I hadn’t so much rejected my Calvinism as trumping it with a much broader Molinist perspective. Now, with the advantage of retrospection, I wince at the naivete and ignorance of my youth. I was a prime example of Dunning-Kruger long before those two were out of preschool.
Please don’t misunderstand my observation. I am NOT saying, “I’m sure glad I’m not one of those ignorant ______'s anymore!” Not at all. I’m lamenting the fact that my dogmatism went far beyond my grasp of the complexity of the underlying topics. Most of all, even as a young professor I who was far too reliant on the Argument from Authority fallacy, where I naively assumed that my favorite scholars (and favorite pseudoscholars) had the last word on the associated topics. I was not at all putting in enough time and effort into the researching the evidence and analysis presented by those who opposed my viewpoint.
Looking back on my Young Earth Creationist past, I gave countless people the impression that the case for my particular Gish-Morris-Whitcomb brand of creation science was unassailable and the only truly “Biblical” position which must be defended by every True Christian™. Sadly, I must share responsibility for the massively expensive boondoggles like the Ark Encounter and the celebrity Christian pseudoscience peddlers even a lot of non-Christians (and ex-Christians) can name. I’m sometimes kept up at night thinking about my contributions to the damage to faith which Mr. McKay describes when he cites the question: “What else are they lying to me about?” Yes, my position of long ago was sincere but (1) the damage was real nonetheless, and (2) I helped make things easier for those who came after who are prone to misrepresentation, quote-mining, and worse and make their living thereby.
Once more, to emphasize the point, I’m not simply criticizing those with whom I disagree. For example, I disagree with Hugh Ross (Reasons To Believe) on various science and Biblical exegesis topics but I have great respect for how he conducts his ministry and how he engages evidence. His is not a blind dogmaticism. I have learned from him—and not just about the underlying scholarship. I’ve observed him reflecting and living out the teachings of Jesus Christ in the very best ways.