I have been writing a series of posts this year about young earth creationist (YEC) organizations– particularly Answers in Genesis (AiG) and the deceptive tactics they use. In previous posts (here) I have talked about specific deceptions and a little history of the YEC position.1 My goal in those posts was to provide Christians with the barest of overviews about these organizations and how they lie to maintain control over the narrative. Deceptive tactics are so frequent in the YEC movement that I could each week I could point out new exaggerated and even false claims. However, I know that would get dull even for me. Yet, this content needs to be denounced because it has a real impact in the world. That impact is that the credibility of Christians as a whole suffers. I have talked a little about the harm that these lies do, mostly to those who believe them. But in this post I want to discuss how outsiders respond to these posts. About a month ago I had an atheist reach out to me privately to begin a dialogue. He wanted to express thanks that I was speaking out about these lies. He also appreciated my honesty and wanted to gain some resources about Christianity. Will this individual come to faith? I have no clue. But it did make me think about all the times I see comments on YEC threads from atheists who judge all Christians as fakes because of the deception in YEC arguments. Below are just two examples of how atheists respond to YEC claims from the day I began writing this. [And yes both of these individuals were accurate in calling the posts lies, sadly these were obvious lies].
This is one of the most disheartening realities of interacting with YEC organizations to me. I am unable at times to defend Christianity. Some of these posts make it difficult for me to respond with “Well I know they are lying but we’re not all like that”. This is especially true since so many YEC organizations do such a good job convincing people that Christians must believe their propaganda. And who can fault them? I completely understand atheists who accept claims from Answers in Genesis and others that all Christians should believe young earth creationism or else they are compromisers. I can completely understand how atheists find this to be the only true thing some of these organizations say. And if that is the starting point and from there you see these organizations using deception and outright lies to support their claims, what is your perception of Christians going to be? I have a lot of sympathy for atheists who have found themselves looking into these claims and walk away from them thinking all Christians are liars.
This leads me to the Augustine quote that led this post.
“‘It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation’ (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20
How is it a more effective evangelism strategy to defend ourselves with lies than to simply publicly say, “I don’t know/” Even if you are going to privately hold to the Biblical literalist position on Genesis that AiG and other creationists hold, why would you put yourself in the position where you must lie to defend it? The aggressive posturing by YEC organizations may buoy their followers, but it costs them potential disciples. It does seem like all these YEC organizations care about is cementing their position in the minds of adherents. And since these adherents rarely (if ever) fact check the YEC sources they parrot the lies and when called out rationalize them in the kinds of ways seen above.
And what happens in all of this unbelievers find our message more unbelievable. Why? Because Christians cannot even hold to the Christian standard of honesty. What good is it trying to teach unbelievers we hold to the truth if we must lie to support it? If our doctrines force us to be dishonest to hold them we must jettison the doctrine. Have we reached that point with this form of creationism? It is not my place to say here, but we have reached that point with some of the larger organizations that represent the view and are taking in millions of dollars doing so. We are harming our own witness when we allow these organizations to continue to deceive the world about our beliefs. As Augustine said we must be balanced about how we present what the Bible says about the physical world since that is not the point of the Bible. The point of the Bible is to bring us to relationship with God.
“With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation” (ibid., 2:9).
- As I say in all my posts on this topic, I am not a scientist and so do not condemn Young Earth Creationism on any scientific ground. I am only attacking those organizations that use deception in presenting their arguments. I am not qualified to speak on the specifics of the science, however when individuals and groups use obvious inconsistencies and deception then they are stepping outside Christian character and that needs to be addressed. ↩︎
Squinting in the Light 
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