In Which I Call Creationism Demonic
From “Thinking SciFi”
“O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.” (Psalm 139:1) Perhaps the most frightening attribute of God is that He knows everything about us. Everything! He has “searched” (literally “penetrated”) us and “known” (“understood”) us. . . Furthermore, He is everywhere around each one of us (vv. 7-10), wherever we are or could be. He fills all space, and there is no escape.
Go ahead, ask me where I found that quote. Or even better, how ’bout I up the fun quotient and give you some options. Was it:
b. A humor site skewering religion
c. A devotional piece from the Days of Praise blog put out by a Creationist advocacy group
I’ll give you a moment to figure it out. . . Oh wait – did I give it away? Yep, this “be afraid, Be very afraid” moment has been brought to you by none other than The Institute for Creation Research; a highly profitable venerable institution promoting creation “science”. The very same people whom a federal judge recently said are “entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering and full of irrelevant information.” Good to see our tax dollars hard at work there, eh?
This upsets me. My opinions about the theological viability of creationist interpretations aren’t something I’m shy about. I truly believe that it’s demonic. Whether you understand that to be a metaphor for our ability to create and perpetuate evil or as satan whispering in your ear, the answer is the same; it is demonic. It feeds on lies. It depends on (and obviously encourages) fear. It is driven by profit posing as prophet. These organizations (and just like corporations aren’t actually people, neither are organizations) are shrieking banshees in the marketplace sent by our enemies to deform and discredit us. I am sorry if you have bought into these creationist teachings. I know that people who simply want to be sure they are following God can be vulnerable to being taken in by anything that says “if you don’t believe this, your salvation could be at stake.” Or even “your relationships with people in the church who you love and depend on could be at stake.” (Which is a whole other set of issues for another day!)
I could spend the next 3 hours wrestling with words to create some pithy, compelling description of how creation science warps our theology, keeps us from knowing God as he actually is rather than as we imagine him to be and is a terrible, awful witness to the world. It is a particularly horrendous witness to those men and women who are spending their entire life studying God’s creation for whom this issue and not Christ that is a stumbling block. But I can offer no better proof than the words of Henry Morris, Ph.D. as evidence that creationism teaches a God of fear, not about a God who is our beloved. Perhaps Dr. “Be afraid!” should have read a little further down in his psalter:
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. . . How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. . . Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:14, 17-18, 23-24