One of the loudest disagreements among Christians is the interpretation of Genesis 1. How did God create? When did it happen? How long did it take? People are very passionate about this. The three main groups are the YEC, OEC, and the TE (sorry but the full names are too long). I often joke that I am a YETE, that is a young earth, theistic evolutionist. I believe that earth is 6000 years old but that life has evolved over millions of years. Not everyone appreciates my humor.
I have seen some of the nastiest disagreements between these groups. Some even think that the other groups are not even Christians. The truth is that there are intelligent and devout evangelicals in all three groups. It is also true that the interpretation of Genesis 1 is not a sign of orthodoxy. A Christian must accept certain things such as the trinity, resurrection of Jesus and salvation by grace, but the age of the earth is not one of those tests.
My hope is that these three groups will stop fighting each other and put their energy toward fighting naturalistic evolution. The thing that all Christians have in common is that we believe that God is responsible for life. We can put the mechanism aside and respond to the argument that life is just an accident. Will this happen? I don’t know but an apologist can dream.
- Christian Unity
- Naturalistic Evolution
- Old Earth Creationism
- Theistic Evolution
- Young Earth Creationism