The Nashville Statement, and Let's Not Try So Hard to Love People to Hell

 The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood released The Nashville Statement, a new Christian doctrinal missive on modern sexuality, in August 2017. Since its release, there’s been much controversy and confusion on the subject.Here is what you need to know.

The Nashville Statement, which was written by the members of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a Louisville-based organization formed in 1987, is a Christian organization’s response to modern sexuality and how sexuality should be viewed through a biblical lens.

The statement expresses concern at the deteriorating reliance on God and faith and is comprised of 14 points covering issues from abstinence to traditional marriage to transgenderism — all based on a biblical understanding of human sexuality.

“As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian,” the statement’s preamble begins, “it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being.”

“We are not our own,” it continues. “Our true identity, as male and female persons, is given by God. It is not only foolish, but hopeless, to try to make ourselves what God did not create us to be.”

• Article 1 affirms that God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman and says the institution is to be held as sacred as God’s relationship with His church. It goes on to say that homosexual or polygamous relationships were not designed by God, and thus, are not of God.
• Article 2 condemns infidelity and relationships outside the parameters of a Christian marriage.
• Article 3 states that Adam and Eve were created distinctly male and distinctly female and in God’s image, meaning that, despite their differences, men and women are equal in dignity and worth.
• Article 4 reiterates that differences between genders are what make God’s human creation unique and “are meant for human good and human flourishing.”
• Article 5 says that the differences between male and female reproductive organs are what determine the distinctions between the male and female genders and that “physical anomalies” or “psychological conditions” do not nullify God’s design for the two genders.
• Article 6 affirms that all men and women were created in God’s image and are equal in God’s eyes — including those born with a “physical disorder of sex development” Such disorders, the article says, do not make those afflicted incapable of obeying and walking with Christ.
• Article 7 tackles homosexual and transgender self-conceptions and states that male and female are designated only by God, for His holy purposes, according to Scripture.
• Article 8 says that same-sex attraction does not put “a person outside the hope of the gospel.”
• Article 9 condemns sexual immorality — whether heterosexual or homosexual — as a result of sin’s distortion of God’s intended purity and marital covenant.
• Article 10 states that approving transgenderism or homosexuality is sinful and a “departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.”
• Article 11 reminds Christians to speak the truth about sexuality in love to both men and women alike and to avoid speaking in a way that dishonors God’s design of His children.
• Article 12 speaks of God’s transformative power to change lives, professes that Christ can enable His followers to fight sinful desires those walking on a sinful path is absolute, and declares that God’s grace can forgive all sexual sins.
• Article 13 says that God’s grace enables people to forsake transgenderism and understand that they have been divinely created as male or female and that there is a “God-ordained link” between biological sex and gender self-conception.
• Article 14 affirms that Christ’s death and resurrection provides the opportunity for forgiveness of all sins and that no sinner is beyond God’s reach for salvation.

Who signed the Nashville Statement?

• John Piper, pastor, author, and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary
  ● Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
  ● Francis Chan, best-selling author and pastor
  ● Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family
  ● Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council
  ● Dennis Rainey, founder and former president of FamilyLife
  ● Thom S. Rainier, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources
  ● Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom
  ● Paul Nyquist, president of Moody Bible Institute

Others who signed the statement include Christian professors, authors, pastors, speakers, CEOs, magazine editors, counselors, and more.

Nashville, Tennessee, Mayor Megan Barry blasted the statement in a Tuesday tweet.  “The so-called ‘Nashville Statement’ is poorly named and does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville.”

Civil rights activist DeRay McKesson wrote, “The God I know does not support the #NashvilleStatement.”

Pastor John Pavlovitz had a vulgar reference for the Nashville Statement. He wrote, “I have my own statement on the #Nashville Statement. It could be lots of words but honestly I could probably narrow it down to just a finger.”

Additionally, The Human Rights Campaign decried the statement as “a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ people.”  They added, “Faith should be welcoming and accepting.”

Greg Carey, Professor of the New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary, even penned an essay for The Huffington Post, in which he effectively called the Nashville Statement irrelevant.

“Why draft a big statement, and why publicize it?” Carey asked. “The answer is simple. Pretty much nobody cares what [the Christian right thinks] anymore. The day is past when the media seeks out right wing preachers to weigh in on social values. Their public audience shrinking, their public presence waning, and their credibility shot to hell, the Christian right needs attention.”

Despite these, the articles contained in the Nashville Statement are a simple declaration of Christian orthodoxy on human sexuality, sin, sexual orientation, and identity.

Those Christians who penned, signed, and distributed the statement are, like many Christians, unanimous in their belief that the Bible is the absolute Word of God and that, according to the Bible, God declares sexual immorality — to include homosexuality, transgenderism, infidelity, and more — sinful.

In the Bible, God has also stated that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman and that any sexual relationship outside of the bonds marriage is sinful.

However, if you read the entire statement, nowhere does it call for governmental, societal, or even religious intervention against those who disagree with the missive — it simply expresses the Bible’s views and offers God’s love and acceptance for all, regardless of their human behaviors.

Matt Walsh’s Take

Outrage erupted this week when a group of Evangelical leaders released what is being called the Nashville Statement..

I am thrilled that this was published and I applaud the Christian leaders who signed it. The basic principles espoused are right, good, and fundamental. They’re rooted in Scripture and consistent with what Christianity has taught for 2,000 years.

The Nashville Statement is, in a word, redundant. But its redundancy by no means renders it unnecessary. To the contrary, though these concepts are as old as time and well known to any half-serious Christian, we live in a society where they must be shouted from the rooftop again and again and again. Every Christian leader, if he is to consider himself a Christian leader, must be clear and unequivocal. Many Christians could not tell you how their own pastors feel about this subject, because they’ve never once heard it addressed (I have attended many such churches). This is a shame and a scandal, and it explains why many of those same Christians eventually come to the conclusion that matters of sexual morality are unimportant, and a Christian is free to decide for himself what is acceptable and what is not.

St. Paul proclaimed that he is “not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,” yet a significant number of pastors, priests, and Christian scholars have revealed themselves to be profoundly ashamed of it. So, as the throngs of unbelievers lash out at the signers, these “progressive” Christians peeked out of their hiding places to admonish those who wrote it and those who agree with it for their lack of “love.” They sensed another opportunity to score points with the world by condemning Biblical truths as “unloving,” and they took it, like they always do.

As just one example, an alleged priest named Father James Martin responded with some sweet and sappy declarations of his own, meant to counteract the terrible and bigoted Nashville Statement. He proclaimed that “LGBT people are some of the holiest people I know” and that “God loves LGBT people,” etc. Yes, obviously it’s true that God loves LGBT people, but the clear insinuation is that one cannot believe God loves LGBT people and also affirm Biblical teachings on sexual morality. He sets up a false choice between love and truth. This is the game that Satan plays in our culture, and men like James Martin are more than happy to be his pawns in it.

Indeed, the Martins of the world are far more dangerous than blatant heretics. To my knowledge, Martin has never flat out said that the Bible is wrong in its teachings on sexual morality. Rather, he shouts down any conversation about sexual morality by insisting that God loves gay people, as if anyone has disagreed with that notion. This is the most common method employed by the “Christian leaders” who wish to pervert and destroy Christianity from within. Instead of publicly contradicting Christian teachings about sexuality and gender, they simply refuse to discuss the subject except to proclaim that God loves everyone regardless of what they do in the bedroom. This is supposed to be the “loving” approach.

It isn’t.

It’s the coward’s approach. The traitorous approach. The selfish approach. The most efficient approach for ensuring that as many people as possible remain in their sin as they slide into Hell. I won’t call it hateful. It’s worse than hateful. It’s indifferent. What most defines “progressive” Christianity is its utter indifference to the fate of human souls. It abandons sinners to their sin. It leaves them in their confusion and intentionally feeds into the lies they tell themselves.

It is perhaps the worst thing that has happened on Earth since the Fall, because it has packed Hell so full that I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a waiting list to get in the door. The greatest things become the worst when they are corrupted. Satan was the highest angel in Heaven before he became the ruler of Hell. Christianity — stripped of its truth, refashioned to encourage the very sins Christ died to free us from — turns into a kind of elevator transporting souls quickly and directly into the eternal fire. Loving? This sort of “love” will be little comfort down there.

The Nashville Statement is truly loving because it is truly Christian. It is a thousand times more loving than any pointless, crowd pleasing sermon about tolerance and inclusivity. In relaying a few fundamental truths in a plain and uncompromising way, it loves by shedding light into the darkness. That, after all, is what love ought to do. There is no other kind of love.

Acknowledgement:  Glenn Beck and Matt Walsh

Corrupting God's Image Through DNA, More Proof of an End-Times Sign

 You may recall my blog on DNA (March 9, 2019), how in Genesis 6:1-4, during the time of Noah, I proved, Scripturally, that those verses speak of fallen angels who took on the form of men and married women, and had sex with them.  This was a violation of God’s law, since an angel’s seed and DNA was celestial (and immortal), but her ovum and DNA were earthly. So their babies were not truly human; they were not in the image of God—they were a perverted hybrid of angel and human.  Genesis 6:4, using the New International Version, calls their children “Nephilim,” a Hebrew word.  This was translated “giants” in some Bibles, but the word means “fallen.”  Their children were, as Scripture shows, huge men.

Nine hundred  years after Noah, it happened again, on a lesser scale--there was a  member of the tribe of Rephaim (the word means "giants") named Og of Bashan. He was called, in Deuteronomy 3:11, the “last of the giants.” He had a bed that was iron and was 9 cubits deep.  Assuming Moses, the writer of Deuteronomy, used the measure he was familiar with, the Egyptian royal cubit of 20.63 inches, the bed was 15-1/2 feet deep.  So he was likely close to 14 feet tall.  Using a weight-to-height ratio (first created by Galileo) for men, his weight was estimated at 3,125 pounds.  This explains why, 40 years before Og, when the Hebrews were spying in Canaanite lands, they came away frightened, even suggesting not attacking the Anakites (Numbers 13 is the record of this).  We speculate that it wasn't because they were cowards (although they lacked faith in God's power); we feel that they meant what they said when they said “we were like grasshoppers in their sight.”  Several whole tribes were giants.  This means there was another invasion of earth by fallen angels, like in Noah’s day some 900 years before.  Scripture hints at it in Genesis 6:4 when it says:  "There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward..."

Back in Noah’s time, we suspect that the giant Nephilim were generally considered demigods;  Scripture called them “mighty men of renown”, and they likely led people into more violence and more sexual immorality.  The violence would come from the nations that had some of these men would try to conquer their shorter neighbors, for booty.  And the immorality?  It would be easy to suspect that the women would be attracted.  The Nephilim  had sex with possibly many women--the prospect of sex with a 10 or 15-foot tall man might have been a great curiosity and turn-on for the women (there are plenty of other verses about perverse sexual immorality being the order of the day in Canaan--which you can imagine by their types of gods).  Many scholars believe the children of the fallen angels were demonic (they had disobeyed God and were corrupting the human race, a goal of Satan).  After all, these were children that weren’t really human, but a hybrid of human and a demonic fallen angel.  The earth, over time, likely became filled with “people” who had some fraction of demonic DNA in them.  It's even possible that a complete tainting of humanity was possible, since people consistently lived over 800 years, and the astounding extension of procreation makes the spread of gene corruption skyrocket.  (When AIDS was the “talk of the town” in the 1980s, we read repeatedly how fast sexually transmitted disease travels, even among us limited-age humans).  In Noah's time, God was fed up with this evil, as Genesis 6 records, and His flood killed every single soul on the earth except eight—Noah and his immediate family. Was God capricious for killing millions of people?  Don't forget, the huge number of people indulging in this deviancy had been the result of rejecting God’s image of a human, preferring the demonic image of a hybrid.  It’s possible the majority of people who were not really human were not even redeemable for  heaven. For further proof, note that Noah, in building the ark, preached countless times of the great judgment to come for a massive number of curious onlookers (wouldn't everyone nearby want to see a massive boat on land?)—yet he converted not a single soul, or else they would have been on the ark.  Note also the greatest compliment God has for Noah's family—in Genesis 6:9, he was “perfect in his generations.”  The word "perfect" is not a word of morality; it is a word of physical perfection--or DNA perfection. There was no demonic  hybrid in him.  That fact was evidently rare.  When man took on demonic DNA—he chose ultra-violent and evil lifestyles, not redeemable, and not human.  This is what God wiped out.

In that blog I also made a connection to the End Times, pointing out that recent science has been able to change and merge DNA again, and how this could be corrupted by men for wrong uses.  I also pointed out what Jesus said in prophecy (Matthew 24:38,39). Paraphrased, it was: “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be again,”—in the end times.  Well, after reading a fascinating book by Douglas Hamp, “Corrupting the Image,” I have some follow-up that would do you well to stretch your mind and consider.

Hamp anchors his thesis on Genesis 3:15:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

The enmity comes from this:  The woman’s Seed (capital "S," in decent Bibles) refers to Christ—and “your” (at this point He was speaking to the serpent’s, or devil’s) seed then refers to the opposite, which has to be the antichrist (in many Scriptures, I John 2:22 for instance).  As Christ is the Son of God, the devil’s DNA is passed to his own son, the antichrist.   The antichrist was later called “the Beast” (Revelation 13:3b-6), I suspect, because he wasn’t really human, but even possibly a hybrid of Satan and human. The devil manages to wound Christ, a heel wound (at the crucifixion), but Christ is victorious in resurrection, and will eventually kill the serpent and his seed, once and for all. His final crushing blow to the head comes in the end times. Thus Genesis 3:15, since it comments on the antichrist, is not only a promise of a redeemer, but also an end-times prophecy.
The word “seed” needs a scientific explanation.  When a male and female “know” each other (Biblically), his seed, which in the Greek is “sperma,” combines with her seed, the ovum, the egg—and a baby is miraculously fused.  At this point, it’s called a “zygote.”  But seed is really DNA at its core.  Thus, his 23 unique chromosomes with DNA combine with her 23 unique chromosomes, with DNA, to form 46, in 23 pairs, and a baby is conceived.
At this point Mr. Hamp (whose book I am summarizing) makes some very interesting points. A little background:  Adam and Eve were created perfect (Genesis 1:31)—that means their DNA was “coded” perfectly (since that’s mainly what DNA is).  They were supposed to be pure, and immortal.  But due to Adam’s sin, he was punished with two things:  death, and a tendency to sin. This was called “original sin” by theologians.  Both of these characteristics (death and tendency to sin) were passed on to the entire race of humankind.

Now, to take this a step further:  Based on scientific study (recorded in “Science Spectra #14, 1998”), the Y chromosome, passed from father to son, is an exact copy of the same one from generation to generation.  That means every male today has the same Y chromosome as Adam.   It was also found that the Y contains the record of an “event” in the lifetime of our original father, since some of the DNA coding appears scrambled or lost.  We can surmise that all our DNA through all generations are likewise corrupted. Mr. Hamp muses, what if that “event” was the fall of Adam? What if God’s punishment of the original sin, the death, the tendency to sin--was His corruption of that Y chromosome?  Perhaps that’s the tangible record of original sin, that keeps going on, and on, through all generations.  That explains how the effects of the sin of Adam get passed down through history—and how we have the same curse of death, and the tendency to sin, that he had.
But….what chromosome did Jesus not have?  The corrupted Y chromosome—because His father was not Joseph, a man, but God (Matthew 1:18).  Mary’s egg fused with seed from the Holy Spirit.  So Jesus did not inherit the Y chromosome from a man, so He did not have original sin, like all of us. That’s why He is called the “only begotten” Son of God (John 1:18).  Now if you argue that because of this, Jesus could not sin, you’d be wrong.  He had the physical weaknesses of humankind—like us, He had to respond to threats, to torture, to famine, to scorn.  But like beginning Adam, He had a choice--not a tendency, a choice--to sin, or not to sin, in each case.  He chose not to sin all the way down His human life.  So His perfection was acceptable to the Father—and He became our Lamb of sacrifice, of substitution, paying for our sin—as a ransom to free us—if we trust Him.

So we figure that fallen angels, or demons, were trying to destroy God’s image in Noah’s time.  But despite their demonic giant children being wiped out in the Flood, giants reappear nine hundred years later in the Anakim and the Rephaim tribes in the Old Testament (Deut. 2:11, 3:11 AMP), as we saw in my discussion above. That demonic corruption led people into the worst of idolatry, with sacrifices of children to their gods the worst example.  So as long as we still have the Rephaim, and Og, and other tribes of Nephilim all throughout Canaan,  God again had to resort to a brutal answer; He told Joshua to kill every member, men, women, and children, of their seven nations in Canaan, who evidently all had fast-spreading demonic DNA (Deut.20:16-18).  But Joshua did not complete the job.  There were still a few giants again, who reproduced, such as Goliath, who appears another 400 years later, and was estimated to be over 10 feet tall.
So, looking at Genesis 6:4 again:

There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward,
if we keep in mind that this indicates that the “sons of God” (the immortal angels who rebelled and became immortal demonic angels) would be operating “afterward” as well to try to corrupt God’s image, these later appearances mean they were still invading our civilization several times over.  My point is, What’s to keep them from not trying similar tricks again today?  Here’s where the theories get wild, so hang on to your seats.  Mr. Hamp has a new interpretation of a verse.  He believes that Daniel 2:43 (when Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image of four kingdoms) contains a telltale phrase for the fourth beast, the one during the Last Days.  Here is the verse, with my underlines:

As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay

He says this future will be dominated by a person who is so sold out to the devil that he will genetically be the son of Satan. (Thus Satan will counterfeit Jesus the Son of God).  Satan’s genetic son then becomes the antichrist.  With Satan’s intellectual genius and huge abilities to plan and deceive in the antichrist’s DNA, the antichrist will defeat earthly kingdoms, military or politically, and earn the worship of an admiring public as he rises to the top of the world’s military dictators.  Mr. Hamp believes that the words “mix,” or “mingle with the seed of men,” refers to another future invasion of demons  into our population, again producing demonic/human hybrid children, again fouling our DNA, again making people not human, not carrying God’s image—and leading them into gross violence, idolatry, and evil--like it was in Noah's time, it will happen again (as Jesus said, Matthew 24:37).
Here's where Mr. Hamp's theories get "out there." He believes the antichrist will make his greatest deception ever, in an area you wouldn't believe. We’ve all heard of UFOs.  An intelligent person would not think seriously about them, right?  Wrong.  Please read these testimonials:  Captain Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, said “We all know that UFOs are real.  All we need to ask is where do they come from?” Ronald Reagan said in a 1987 speech to the U.N, no less, that an alien force (he didn't mean migrants) was among us.  In 1966 Gerald Ford recommended an official investigation of UFOs.  Jimmy Carter said he had seen one in 1976.  General Douglas MacArthur admitted in 1955 that the next war will be an interplanetary war.  And the list goes on.  (See pp. 189-194 of Hamp’s book).  Well, Mr. Hamp would like to suggest an answer to Capt. Mitchell’s “where from” question:  UFOs are demons camouflaged to be "aliens." Keep in mind, they are able to move through dimensions—from spiritual to our four dimensions.  Mr. Hamp is convinced that this whole planned UFO arrival is designed so the antichrist will announce to humanity that we were "seeded" by advanced life on other planets.  Perhaps they will say they abandoned us, because we have this strange religion, "Christianity," and those Christians do not believe in the evolution of man. Those Christians are not optimists about man’s nature or future.  The antichrist will introduce some aliens (really demons) for worldwide TV viewing.  They will be light-emitting geniuses with special powers—powers that he will show off (II Thess. 2:9).  If you want these fabulous powers, if you want to evolve into transhumanism, just come in for an injection of his recombinant DNA, take the mark as proof, and you will have the power to evolve into something beyond your earth's limited pleasures. He will even declare eventually that he is God, and we can become gods too (II Thess. 2:3-4). (Later, when some people are leery of doing it, he will suggest that Christians so limit man's horizons that we'll punish them: you won’t be able to buy anything unless you take the DNA and mark.)  But the truth is, if you do it, you will have taken on demon DNA.  You are no longer human.  You have rejected God’s image.  So you will be destined for hell, the same harsh treatment that earlier rebellious Nephilim generations got.  God says so in Revelation 13:17, 14:9-12:

…no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast…Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” ¹² Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Well, I am not sure what to think about his UFO theory, but it is possible to weave such a story with UFOs, even to tempt saints if they have to go through the tribulation of the last days before rapture as I believe.  Families could be pulled apart, with some members yielding to the temptation of evolution into special powers, into acceptance—while other members reject it as against Scriptural commands—and having their life persecuted.  Despite this paper's wildness, we never know the future's details.  Far-out other theories have been soberly put forth--witness the fear of AI (artificial intelligence) by some of the world’s most brilliant minds, such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates (at the Vanity Fair summit, also studied on Glenn Beck). Musk says about the headlong AI research, “we are summoning the demon.”

It is certainly true, above all else, that we must avoid the mark of the antichrist. When the “Beast” shuts off buying unless you take his mark, it will be a huge temptation for those who simply want to feed themselves or their family.  It will take patience and faith in Jesus, who can perform miracles for us.  Just keep looking at the big picture:  Christ is the winning side in this global battle (Rev. 19:19-21). We cannot give our body to the devil’s keeping, no matter how glorious that makes us, if we would at the same time be giving our soul to hell—for eternity.  If you’re a rational person, just answer this:  Which is more important?  A short-term pain of you possibly sacrificing your body at the end, or an eternal pain of fire and brimstone in hell?  Choose carefully.

Acknowledgement:  Corrupting the Image, book by Douglas Hamp, 2011

Initial Salvation Easy, but Final Salvation Not So Easy

 

Scripture contains seemingly contradictory claims about receiving eternal life. Some of its verses, those we’re usually more familiar with, say eternal life is possessed right now to those born again. Such as John 5:24: 

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

I John 5:13 agrees:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

As these Scriptures suggest, all you need is simple belief in Jesus as God, and believe what He said, and you have eternal life immediately. What is belief? As one author says, “when a person extends a trusting, submitted faith in Jesus Christ”—in what He did to save us from hell. This author has added the words "entrusting" and "submitted" to the mix.  More on that later. We will call this "easier" definition of gaining eternal life Initial Salvation.  A theology called Calvinism teaches that that's all there is, on your efforts, to salvation.  God does the rest through you and for you.

But there are other less-well-known Scriptures that say that actual receipt of eternal life is not a "have now," but delayed until our life’s end—and what we have now is just the hope, or expectation of eternal life. Such as Titus 3:6-7 (New King James):

…whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Or Jude 21:

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life

The probable solution to this apparent contradiction is that salvation has two parts, the initial salvation, and the final salvation.  The latter, I believe, is when we show the world, by abiding in Christ to help our behavior, that we truly are saved. But it's possible to reject Jesus' directions.  So the hope of eternal life can be interrupted, or even snuffed out, by continuing in worldly or ungodly behavior.

Calvin did not believe that.  He said that the "elect" could not lose their salvation.  But that begs the question, "how do we know if we are one of the elect?" 

Initial salvation is what's most often evangelized; but anything interrupting final salvation is the one we don’t hear about too much: The Scripture points out, as you will see below, that entering heaven is only for those who die in a righteous state.  This state is not automatic.  This means they have been intentionally abiding in Christ, and are reliably obedient to His commands since initial salvation. If we don't do that, it is possible to lose initial salvation--but it is also possible to regain it by sincere repentance and renewing a desire to stay close to God in obedient thought and action. 

We must also get specific on what is "belief?"  John 3:16b, NKJ version, says:

...whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But the same section, in Pure Word, which attempts to give a fuller definition of every word--even though it paralyzes the flow of Scripture--gives the following for John 3:16b:

...in order that whoever is continuously by his choice Committing for the Result and Purpose of Him, should not perish, but definitely should, by his choice, be Continuously having eternal life.  (Committing means putting your entire being under the orders of another.)

Note that this requires intentionality by us.  Phrases like "by his choice," and "committing" say that.  

Thus, belief, as properly defined, means complete submission to His commands, a continuing relationship with Our Lord.  Doing that means there will be fruits in our lives, which happens to be a requirement if we want to avoid hell.  John 15:5-6 clearly says that, when we define "abide" as having an intentional relationship to obey Him:

 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

This is the aspect of salvation that’s hard for many people to swallow, because it suggests that to be truly saved from hell, it's not so easy as an immediate go-to-heaven card; we have to go from merely belief as a mental assent—onward to radical changes in behavior and thought being necessary. This much-ignored life-journey to final salvation is called “conditional security.” Final salvation is conditioned on our behavior, on works, after we're initially saved.

Since you’ll have a harder time accepting the idea of required works of righteousness, or the conditional security of Final Salvation, I have lots more verses as proof for you to ponder.

• Romans 2:6-7 God will give to each person according to what he has done. 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life

• Galatians 6:8b-9 the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

• I Timothy 6:19: storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life

"Laying hold" suggests striving, works. This is more evident in the next verse.  The phrase "fight the good fight" suggests the striving to do the works of righteousness (I am not denying the grace of God in salvation, nor the work of the Holy Spirit to help us defeat our worldly impulses to attain fruit.)

• I Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

• Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

• Mark 10:30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life

These verses thus say continuing to maintain our eternal life is future, and a process of godly thought and behavior.

But since life is a mixture of sin and good works, we feel uncertain about whether our sin will keep us out of heaven.  And don’t we hate uncertainty; we'd rather have an easy formula, a one-off kind of deal, like just believing in the initial salvation, and then we're done.  So obviously Calvinism, which guarantees that initial salvation=final salvation, is popular.  But is God a God of uncertainty?  Many people decide that's not possibly a part of His character.  But who are we to make up God?  We must seek Scripture, always, for His character traits.  

With this “new” (actually, old) idea of true salvation being conditioned on our behaviors, we have a different answer to the question, is it possible for anyone who has accepted Christ (has “initial salvation”) to LOSE IT between initial and final salvation? Calvin, whom people follow (whether they know his background or not) believe the answer is NO, based partlyon the 5th point of Calvin's famous TULIP, the letter "P": Perseverance of the Saints. As the Westminster Confession (now remember, this is not the Bible) declares (Chapter 17, para.1): “They whom God hath accepted in his Beloved…can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.” They further insist that such does not depend upon our own free will but “upon the immutability of the decree of election.” Thus, once we accept Christ, they believe we must have been one of the elect, and we're "locked in" to eternal life.  We have Unconditional security. God will not let us fall away from salvation, they say. This belief system has been popularly called, “once saved, always saved” (OSAS). Most popular evangelists adhere to this Calvinistic belief system.  When I search Google, it vastly outnumbers any other argument.  But it is unscriptural.

We believe Scripture (like those cited above) confirms, in part, an opposite belief system, called Arminianism. Some of their important beliefs are:

• Christ's atonement (paying the price for our sins at crucifixion) was made on behalf of All people--vs Calvin, on the other hand, who insisted His atonement was Limited (the letter "L" in TULIP) to those God arbitrarily picked as saved.  Note the word "arbitrarily:"  If our works have anything to do with God's choice as to who is in "the elect," it would Violate Calvinism, which clings to the idea that our works of righteousness count Nothing. Thus His choice of who to save had to have been "arbitrary."  To those God did not pick as "elect": God is effectively saying,  You're on the way to hell.  Could God pick your eternal spot as hell before you were born?  Calvin says so.  But, No way.  I believe Calvin's theory of limited atonement is blasphemy.  When it comes to an important subject as salvation, I don't think the word "arbitrary" fits.  Another point of Arminianism:

• God allows his grace to be resisted (i.e., free will) by those who freely reject Christ--vs. Calvin, who insists on the letter "I"--Irresistable grace.  For those whom God has picked, the Holy Spirit, they say, will draw us irrevocably to Christ.

And now, to the most important point,

• Believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace through persistent, unrepented sin.

It is the last bulleted point that’s the main bone of contention to Calvinists. Arminianism believes it’s possible to lose eternal life between initial salvation and final salvation. Calvinists believe that when you're initially saved, you're locked in.  So which theology is correct—Calvinism or Arminianism?  As Scriptural verses above show, the answer is Arminianism--we need to depend on His grace to help us fight sin and worldliness and obey His commands and show fruit to be assured of heaven.  We must intentionally abide with Him; i.e., have a relationship with Him.  Final salvation takes a striving, a laying ahold, of submitting to God's will.  That's what those verses clearly say.  Don't rely on commentators, who are expert at twisting the Word into a pretzel to confirm their chosen theology.

IF God wants you to believe eternal life is sure and certain for believers, if Initial Salvation is all there is, and heaven is guaranteed (such as believed by Calvinists)--then Scripture would be 100% full of secure statements for the believer and have no listing of conditional behavior. But that means we have to wave away and ignore all the Scriptures above (and more below) about dire results for evil behavior. Are we to believe that all of Scriptural conditional statements are lies? We would also have to accept glaring contradictions in Scripture that we began this discussion with, right? No, wrong. The simple solution is, salvation has two aspects: Initial and Final. And you could lose it in between. Arminianism requires a holy life to achieve heaven. This is totally backed up by Scripture, as we saw many times above. As Hebrews 12:14 says:

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord

As I just hinted, here are more verses that are seemingly "in contrast" to one another.  They strongly suggest that salvation Must be in two parts, to avoid claiming that God's Word contains contradictions.  

Luke 7:50:

Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Versus Matthew 10:22, spoken to already-saved disciples:

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved

I John 4:4 sounds like we’re already overcomers, so there is no stopping us, it’s all done by Jesus:

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 

But then there’s Rev. 2:10b-11, which seems to show that WE have to strive at overcoming to get there in the future:

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

Why does God do this, saying, "you're saved," then saying, "you have to overcome to be saved?" Perhaps, as Romans 6:11 seems to interpret, there is value in psychologically "reckoning" ourselves as overcomers--this helps us become overcomers. God also doesn't want us to fall into complacency.

Same contrast in verses about sonship: Here’s a verse that says we are sons now: Galatians 3:26

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus

But here’s some verses that say “wait, there’s some conditions here, some things you do before you can finally be a son:” Rev. 21:7,8

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death

The "overcomers" are those who have not committed the terrible sins listed in verse 8.  By the way, some sins are clearly worse than others, as Scripture points out.

And here’s just a few more verses which also condition eternal life: Hebrews 3:14

For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end

Hebrews 5:9

And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him

The word “obey” is in continuous sense. You’ve got to keep on obeying.

Sobering verses on the importance of sin depriving you of eternal life, and on how important it is to cut off all such behavior to keep it.

These next verses have hyperbole to make a point that we should be willing to sacrifice anything to avoid sin and to obtain Christ.  Mark 9:43-44, 47:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— 44 ‘where Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’ 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out….

Luke 13:23-24

Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?”
And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

How can we feel eternally secure, when Scripture says we could:

Wander off, I Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows…

Turn back: John 6:66

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

Fall away Luke 8:13

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away

And how could a God who doesn’t want anyone to perish, as II Peter 3:9 shows....

The Lord is not slack… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

And how could God, whose will is perfect in its attainment, how could He allow people’s faith to be shipwrecked? I Tim 1:19

having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck

The answer is, only by placing conditions on our security.

Now you can’t be shipwrecked unless you were first on the ship! (The ship is an allegory for salvation). He simply gave us the free will to turn aside from the faith--and thus lose the salvation we obtained.

Consider how Christians are likened to a salt that can lose its saltiness, Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out, 

Christians are compared to virgins (in Matthew 25:1-13) whose lamps run out of oil (note: they possessed the Holy Spirit--the oil in the lamp, then ran out of it)—and what do they hear Jesus say? As verse 12 sadly points out, “I do not know you.”  This does not mean, "I never knew you."  The groom would have known the bridesmaids.  He's saying, "I knew you, but your life has changed so much, it's like I don't know you now."

Calvinist teachers want us to be relaxed, less anxiety-prone. They tell us, “you’re assured, just love God; good works will flow out of thankfulness.” If good works are so automatic, why are so many verses comparing the Christian life to being:

• A soldier in a battle (II Timothy 2:3,4): You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier 

• A wrestler, Ephesians 6:12a For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age

• Willing to shed blood, as it were, to defeat sin: Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin

• Willing to even leave our families (see my blog on "Defeating the Taliban"), Matthew 19:29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 

• A slave to God: Romans 6:22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life

When the rich young ruler popped the big question about obtaining eternal life to Jesus (Luke 18), what did He do? Did Jesus want to make it easy to understand, to win him? Did He tell him it’s just faith in Him, nothing else? NO! As Luke 18:18-23 records, He gave him a rough time defining the word “good,” then He gave him a rough time on how he should be saved, testing him by running through some of the 10 commandments first (!), then gives him an almost impossible restriction to cease his focus on materialism.

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 23 But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. 

Does Jesus, at the point of seeing his sorrow, beg him to reconsider, urge him, tell him how much he could lose? Does He water down his tough final restriction? NO! He is done speaking to him. His words in vv. 24,25:

And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

These ideas might shock you about God (Jesus is God). But don’t, whatever you do, reject them outright, dismissing them that “I’m taking verses out of context,” etc etc. Considering the volume of verses above, that cannot be the case.  There are things about God here that we should explore, take a fresh unbiased look at ALL of His Word. Attaining and keeping eternal life might not be as we were taught!

Acknowledgement to Brother Dan Corner, preacher, writer, and watchman on the wall.

Christian Colleges are Compromised

 You may recall that last week I reviewed a Ken Ham book, Already Gone. It showed some surprising poll results and discussions.  Now I am reviewing another book by the same author, published two years later, called Already Compromised, with some more eye-opening poll results.  In this book, Mr. Ham’s intent was to survey 200 different Christian colleges, interviewing the president, the vice president, the head of the science department, and the head of the religion department—800 people.  But many ducked out or were impossible to reach, so his results were for 312 people. Over 2/3 of the people were from schools associated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, colleges that require all of their professors to sign a personal statement of faith.  The other 89 respondents were from schools that were religiously affiliated through an association with a religious denomination.  The responses were pretty much the same for both groups.

What Mr. Ham found, was, these professors and administrators did not have enough spine to uphold God’s Word, so that they were unclear or compromising in their answers.  They seemed to have “one foot in the door” of the secular world’s wrong and sinful answers to these questions.  Let me give you an example of what I mean:  To the question “Do you believe in the inspiration of Scripture?”  98% said “Yes.”  Wonderful.  Until you think, “What watered-down meaning could “inspiration” have?  “I was painting under the inspiration of Michelangelo.”  So that’s a poor word choice.  So they also asked, “Do you believe in the inerrancy” or “in the infallibility of Scripture.”  Ah-ha—now only 74 to 81% agree.

Of course, the professor/administrator might be counted as one of the 74-81%, and yet argue, “I believe in the inerrancy of the original manuscripts,” which, of course, we don’t have.  They could still assume the process of making copy upon copy through the centuries would necessarily lead to errors and end the inerrancy.  Well, they haven’t read the latest results from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where some of the documents were made around 100 AD (a jump-back of many centuries)—so these are almost the original manuscripts.  When compared to the formerly oldest manuscripts that we then had, they found that any differences when comparing Biblical texts, even centuries apart, were minor and did not affect even one doctrinal point of doctrine or history.  None of the texts we had before challenges any archeological find or historical data. This proves one thing:  Men did a great job of copying—perhaps their respect for God, plus the frequent "rest times" supervisors required of them, did it--or, perhaps God inspired them to the necessary rigor.

So, based on the 74% who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, we know already that ¼ of these college professors and administrators were ready to waffle on the Bible’s doctrines.  More could waffle when they question current manuscripts.  We found the same kind of silliness in answers shows up in the following question “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes.”  Wonderful.  But then a couple questions were asked about the details of Genesis.  Now before I get to them, I should say, if you question the Book of Origins, you open the door to questioning anything you don’t like about the Bible, and you also open the door to secular and sinful belief systems.  Satan has done a great job convincing most of mankind about evolution (which takes more faith than Creation).  But if mankind believes we just evolved from primates, then we can dismiss God from our lives.  But if we are Created In the Image of God, as Scripture says, then we are accountable to Him for our actions—and what the Bible says about hell and abiding in Jesus to escape hell—are true.  So you see how important to believe in Genesis.  Besides, Jesus confirms the truth of all the stories in Genesis that He commented on; so if you disbelieve them, you are in effect calling Jesus a liar—a dangerous space to be in.

This first detail question comes from the 6 days of creation, in Genesis 1:5ff:  Scripture records each of these creations and ended with “so the evening and the morning were the first day” and “so the evening and the morning were the second day,” and so on.  Why does God point out “evening” and “morning?”  Simple.  So we would get the distinct impression that Creation was done in 6 24-hour days.  In Hermeneutics, we are told to take the Bible literally, whenever possible.  Well, here’s an easy one:  When it says “evening” and “morning,” does that mean one 24-hour day?  Of course.  We don’t have any trouble with “day” anywhere else in the Bible.  It’s easy to say, the Day of the Lord doesn’t mean one 24-hour day, and how 99% of uses of the word “day” are simply speaking of 24-hour periods.  So why do we have so much trouble with “day” in Genesis 1?  It seems that God must have thought, “21^st century people are trying to escape accountability, so I’ll have to accentuate the point of what “day” means by saying “evening” and “morning.””  Well, these professors and administrators didn’t get the message.  So, as we said, “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes."  BUT to the question “Do you believe God created the earth in six 24-hour days?”  less than 60% said “yes.”   These are Christian colleges!  40% don’t believe in a literal hermenuetic translation of the Bible.

Well, they might argue by quoting the Gap theory.  They might say, "well, in Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth was in the distant past, which creation included angels; but the angels fell, and must’ve created a mess, because in Genesis 1:2 it says “The earth was without form, and void…and the Hebrew words “without form and void” suggests that the earth was ruined and disorderly.  Well, that couldn’t have been the way God created it, which He created in perfection.  So God created the earth itself (no men yet) in the distant past, not in 24 hours; then a mess, then He started over by creating light on the first day of re-creation, etc."  That gives them room to believe in a billion-year old earth AND six 24-hour days.  The real problem is, it creaks the door open to evolution.

So, I might give them a pass, if that’s all they believed on the Gap theory. But every single lecture I’ve heard on the Gap theory, they “fill in” the Gap by saying the Gap was millions of years, and that’s when dinosaurs ruled, and they died, and left their bones, and that’s why their bones seem millions of years old.  (And they might throw in the evolution cycle in the Gap, too.)  The problem with these “Gap fill-ins” is, they assume death happened before Adam sinned—but death couldn’t have been in the picture until after Adam sinned—as Scripture points out when it contrasts him to Jesus--he brought death, Jesus brought life, etc (Romans 5, I Corinthians 15).  So it seems to me that these interviewees are swayed against Scripture by secular dates for the world, the “radiocarbon” method, and so on. But those methods have a record of inaccuracy.  And, besides, couldn’t God have created the earth with age built in?  Or, couldn’t a world-wide Flood involve the kind of pressure to create coal and oil deposits?

Oh, yes, the Flood.  Secular theorists make fun of Noah’s Flood.  But did you know that there are oral stories about a flood in every society in the world?  And don’t anthropologists say that if there is a similar story everywhere, then the story has a basis in fact?  That the Flood happened everywhere? Well, the Christian professors and administrators haven’t heard that.  They’re spending too much time listening to the secular views here, too.  To the question, “Do you believe in the flood of Noah’s day?”  91% say “yes.”  Wonderful. BUT when asked “Do you believe the flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral (i.e., a fable), only 58% said it was worldwide!  Again, 42% don’t believe their Bible.  Wait a minute; doesn’t Genesis 7:19-21 say:

And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ ….and the mountains were covered. ²¹ And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.

When you read this, these 42% have no excuse for ducking out of the Bible; folks, either they believe the Bible, or they don’t.  Clearly, some 42% don’t. Like I said, if they bend the knee to the satanic secularist in Genesis, they’ll listen to them first anywhere else it’s important.  If the Flood was just local, then God’s purpose…destroying every living person on earth (except Noah’s)…would be frustrated.  As Genesis 6:7 says:

 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

 The problem here is much bigger than you might first imagine.  First, by not believing Genesis 7:19 about the Flood being worldwide, they are forced not to believe Genesis 6:7 either.  Making God out to be a liar twice—again, a dangerous place to be.  But even bigger is, this is a slander on God’s character.  They refuse to believe that God would kill every person on earth (except 8 people).  But the Bible explains God’s reason, which they evidently also don’t believe, in Genesis 6:5-6:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

 God will judge unrepentant sin harshly.  We don’t appreciate how much He hates sin, how holy He is.  We don’t appreciate how much we sin, how little we even think about it, or how much it offends God.  Or how much of a price Jesus paid, or how bad hell is, or how much we’re saved from.  We can’t thank God enough until we spend some time thinking on these things.  But distorting God’s Word, eliminating some of it, and then teaching only part of God’s character, is a terrible sin too.  These non-believing interviewees have formed a God that says, "Aw, shucks" to sin.  A grandpa God.

We should be very careful to believe and obey what His Word clearly says, and that responsibility goes especially for teachers of His Word.

 Ken Ham believes the term “newspeak,” from Orwell’s classic 1984, is being replicated in today’s colleges.  Words mean different things to different people.  When they asked the professors/administrators “What does your institution teach about the Bible?” only 35% gave a straight answer, “It is true” (but do they mean Literally true? Hmm.)  25% said “it is inspired by God,” which could be good, depending on what they mean by “inspired.”  But 23% said “it is a book of guidelines,” which seems to suggest that one could take it or leave it without reprisal (thus making Man the judge of God). And 9% said “we teach it then dissect it,” which (considering what “dissect” really means) strongly suggests some negative comparisons would be taught on its clear commands by God—again, making Man the judge of what doctrines are good, what doctrines are bad. If you are charitable to their meaning of the word “inspired,” you get 35%+25% giving the correct answers—thus 40% are on the wrong side, again.

Another surprising poll result was found by comparing the heads of the religion departments and the heads of the science departments.  Take a gander at the results below:

Question:  “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral?”  Only 57% of the religion department heads believed it was worldwide.  And 12% believed it was “nonliteral,” or a fable. Like Jack and the Beanstalk.  These folks ought to pray about their eternal futures. But the poll questions below is where the real surprises come in:

Question:  “Do you believe in God creating the earth in six 24-hour days?”  Only 57% of the religion departments said “Yes,” BUT 71% of the science department heads said “yes.”

Question:  “Would you consider yourself a young-earth, or old-earth Christian?”  The religion department said “old-earth” 78% of the time, but the science department were less enthusiastic about this theory, which can throw in the Gap theory, the progressive evolution, the theistic evolution, etc. They said “old-earth only 35% of the time!

What I think we’re getting about this data is, the science department keeps track of the incredible detail in the DNA, and how generations of species all stay within their families, and how the universe is finite, and how the earth is in a perfect environment in 34 different ways, just to support Man; and they have more often seen that Darwin’s theories are all sketchy--hokum and bombast.  The religion department probably gets a lot of criticism for supporting the Bible, and have wavered in their support even more.  Maybe they don’t know the latest discoveries of science, which favor Creation.

I need to mention that Mr. Ham does not mince words on professors that garble on Scripture, quoting 12 men, and their big-name colleges, in the Appendix.  He also has high praise for one college, in West Virginia, no less, that gets it.  And he names all the colleges that participated in the survey in a website as well.  You Christian parents--you want to read that before you begin supporting your son or daughter in a "Christian" college.

Now let’s give Ham’s summary quote:

 ....If you send your students to a Christian college or institution, three out of four times in school they will likely be in front of a teacher who has a degraded view and interpretation of Scripture…Like it or not, we are at war—a war of worldviews… What most families are not aware of, however, is the depths to which these secular influences have infiltrated Christian institutions.”

The future looks even bleaker.  With his question, “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or non-literal?” the Presidents of the institutions said “worldwide” 87% of the time; but the Vice President (the future president, in many cases) agreed only 43% of the time!  My question is, where are they getting these vice presidents from? Are they not asking penetrating questions? Let’s assume the VP is younger.  Does this mean younger people are all more skeptical, or that they’re hiring VPs now from secular schools, or that seminaries have gone corrupt over the years? None of these possibilities are good signs.

Another shocker was in the question “Do you believe in the inerrancy of Scriptures?”  78% of the VPs agreed, but only 21% of the presidents! This does not correlate to their answers regarding the Flood.  It really suggests the VPs are vastly confused, claiming to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, but flatly disagreeing with Scripture’s plain teaching on the Flood.  Since the VP is usually behind the hiring of faculty, a confused VP cannot be counted on to hire those who believe in the Scripture being God’s Word.

Mr. Ham’s book here is a great read.  My suggestion to parents of college-bound kids—Train your child in Scripture yourself, as early as possible!  And live a godly life with prayer and Bible reading frequently.  Many Christian colleges won’t do the job of supporting a truly Christian worldview.  They’re infected with secular professors and administrators.

Acknowledgement:  Ken Ham and Greg Hall, Already Compromised.  Master Books, 2011.