Creation or Evolution? What shall we teach our kids?

 Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

Dozens of Times

Dozens of times, the Scriptures, both old and new, tell us that God made everything:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)

Moreover this great truth is lauded by all the major creeds and statements of faith, from the Apostles Creed (300 ish?):

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

to the Westminster Confession (1650 ish):

It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible...

It is very hard, if not impossible, to conceive of there being such a thing as a Christian who does not believe that God is the glorious Creator of all things.

That being so, our children are growing up in a world where Evolution is taught as the "origin" truth - the mechanism by which all things came into existence. In brief, evolution teaches that things develop over time from simple to complex, gradually and without the input or help of any mind, intelligence or God. 

So the universe itself, they say, has evolved from a simple "singularity" of near-zero dimensions to the amazing complexity we see in the night sky. Solar systems, of which there are thousands, have evolved from a simple ball of gas to a central star with revolving planets. And living things have evolved from single celled creatures (anything but simple!) to multi celled creatures.

What do we tell our kids?

Seven truths to impart to our children

We need to teach our children that God is the glorious Creator of this wonderful world, and there is not a jot or line in all of science that need move us from that certainty, which we take and believe by faith (Hebrews 11:2). Let God be true and every man a liar.

When it comes to the theory of evolution, we can inform our children to gently question the theory in seven ways:

1) Why believe a temporary theory? Evolution is only the current origins theory, it could easily be replaced. Two great scientific theories were replaced in the 20th century, science is always changing. In 1900 scientists believed that the universe was unchanging and eternal. By 2000 they believed that the universe had a beginning and was expanding. In 1900 geologists believed that continents drifted around, by 2000 they believed that the earth's crust was made up of plates. Theories change: take an interest in them, but why hitch your wagon to a falling star?

2) Why believe in a hypothesis that contradicts a fixed theory of physics? The theory of evolution runs against a fixed theory in physics (the second law of thermodynamics) that says as time goes by, all systems left to chance and law move from order to disorder, from complexity to simplicity. But evolution teaches that as time goes by systems move from disorder to order, from simplicity to complexity! 

Leave the complex Eiffel tower to the elements, to time and to chance, and you will end up with a simple pile of rust. Form an enormous mound of iron ore and leave it to time and chance: over time, it will not turn into the Eiffel tower. Not without intelligence and energy. The only way to move from disorder to order is for a mind (intelligence) to devise a plan to change that mound of iron ore into a tower of Eiffel.

The second law is a common- sense theory. Bedrooms naturally move from order to disorder! The only way for them to move from disorder to order is human intelligence (normally in the form of a mother). 

Gardens left to themselves become untidy. It take a mind and a body to make them move in the opposite direction.

3) Why believe in a theory that denies the role of intelligence to build complex machines? Following straight on from the last point, every complicated device we have ever come across in the world,  from laptops to trains, from watches to rockets required a mind to invent it. Now scale up complexity hundreds or thousands of times so we get near the intricacy of a single cell (of which our bodies are made of 40 trillion!) Is it really feasible that such complexity could ever come about by chance? The most complicated objects nature can make all by itself, such as snow flakes are simpletons compared to the most basic cell. 

A single cell can be likened to a whole bunch of chemical factories which then reproduce themselves! Can we envisage a suite of self-producing chemical factories being made by time and chance and law?

4) There's not enough time to build even one part of a cell! And following on from our last point. Just suppose the Big Bang theory is correct for a moment. Well that gives evolution 14.5 billion years for time and chance and law to produce you and I. The problem is that the most generous calculations show that there is not enough time to produce even one simple protein (proteins are the machines inside each cell which do the work, and there are thousands of them in a typical cell). In fancy language "The probabilistic resources of the universe are not sufficient to make even one part of a cell, let alone the whole cell."

Using a car analogy: there is not enough time for one wheel to get together by chance, let alone an engine or the whole vehicle.

5) How did life explode 540 million years ago (if it did)? Again, assuming that the timescales of evolutionists are correct,  we find an explosion of life forms called the "Cambrian Explosion" 540-530 million years ago. How could organisms appear in one moment that have no ancestors in the fossil record? That doesn't sound like gradual evolution, does it now?

6) How do you get from matter which does not think, to mind which does? You and I are different from all the creatures in the world because we have incredible minds which can create and dream and have hope. If you don't put cinnamon into a cake at the start, you won't have a cinnamon cake at the end. If you don't start with mind, you won't end up with mind. The philosopher Thomas Nagel - not a Christian - is so adamant that present day matter-mind evolution is wrong he thinks it will be the subject of the comedians one day:

“I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two” (Mind and Cosmos, page 128)

7) The most important truths of Genesis 1,2 and 3 have nothing to do with science. It is vital not to get caught up in the swirl of scientific data and theories but to stand back and teach our children the main teachings of Genesis 1,2 and 3. Which are:

1. God existed before anything else.

2. God made everything else

3. Humans are above all the animals, made in the image of God

4. God designed us to work in a particular way, we are social beings, we know the difference between right and wrong, we are heterosexual, we are male and female, with an order between the sexes

5. God made us to know him, to have a relationship with him

6. We now have fallen natures, that's why we feel and do wrong. And that's why you can't go from "what I feel" to "this must be right" because what I feel may be coming from the fall. We are all messed up by the fall and so it should not surprise us when we find people mixed up sexually and mixed up gender wise.

7. We need a Saviour. Because we are now sinners separated from God, we need  a Saviour who will reconcile us back to God.

How important these truths are for today! And isn't it interesting that none of these truths depend on the age of the earth or whether God created everything in six days? They are independent of how we interpret time frames in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3.

Sometimes Christians dispute the sciency issues forgetting that there are far more important issues at stake; and when we fight over, or concentrate on, secondaries, Satan laughs.

 Summary

Our kids will learn about the various theories of evolution at school. If we do not teach them at home - from a Christian point of view, the primary teaching environment - evolution could erode their trust in Scripture (even though it is filled with much non-sense) and their faith in God. 

We need not fear a line of science because not there is not a fact or a theory that in any way disproves  the glorious truth that God made the heavens and the earth. 

And this same God, we want our kids to hear, can be known through Jesus Christ, and can give us new life today and bright hope for tomorrow.

What then shall we sing? Choosing the right songs in a Hillsong Age

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash 

The Crest of the YouTube Wave?

I will not forget attending a wedding some years ago - but not for the right reasons. Not the beauty of the bride or the solemnity of the occasion, no,  I remember it because I was unable to join in any of the sung worship. Why? Because I had never heard even one of these songs - even though I listen to and love contemporary Christian music.

It was as if the great river of historic Christian hymnody was irrelevant for today. 

As if no-one in that congregation mattered unless they were between the age of 18 and 30. 

As if Christian music was invented in 2010 and the current crest of YouTube Christian music was all that counted.

Such an event stands for a mindset that believes we should sing whatever Christian songs are riding the apogee of YouTube popularity. It does not really matter - not really - what the words are, nor whether the tunes are singable, all that matters, or so it seems, is that we are keeping up with the musical Jones'.

But if riding the crest of the wave is not the way forward, how do we choose the songs we sing?

For some folks the die is set by tradition. Some will only sing the Psalms, for example, because only those words can truly and fully regarded as Biblical. That's fine.

Others put their trust in the editors of one particular hymn book, outside of which  heresy doth lie. That's fine too. 

Remember we all have traditions and traditions are good. Without tradition a church lurches from chaos to chaos week to week. Even people who don't think they have traditions have traditions for "we don't have traditions" is their unique and particular way of doing stuff.

Many believers are wide and eclectic in their choice, not wanting to chain themselves to any particular stream or tradition (apart from Gospel truth) but wanting to sing the best of the old and finest of the new. Such are convinced that Scripture allows us to sing a wide palette of "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" (Colossians 3:16). 

How then shall we choose?

Principle 1: Do the words line up with Scripture?

This is the first, and in one sense the only principle. Are the lyrics doctrinally accurate and sound? Songs are remembered by the mind and they enter the heart and soul, so we want to make sure that they are in line with Scripture.

One great principle brought back from the New Testament during the reformation was "sola scriptura." Scripture alone shapes all of our doctrine and life, whether at home or in the church. 

Scripture alone should set the standard of what we sing. Do the words we sing line up with the doctrine of Scripture?

There is a danger here of adding to Scripture Alone other principles; of adding Scripture Plus principles. 

Scripture Plus

Scripture + Author is one common but flawed Scripture Plus. This could also be called the argument of "guilt by author's life" We come across a song that is doctrinally sound but then - and we can do this today like never before with the internet - we examine what we can of the author and if we find it wanting we reject the song.

The problem with this approach is, Where do you stop? If you are to be consistent you should examine every single author, not just the newbies. When I Google my college lecturers from just the 1980s Google returns no results - so this method is going to be rather limited, if Google is where you go for your info. It's inconsistent and unfair to condemn living authors but leave past ones unjudged.

And surely, if we decide to use this "how good is the author" principle, no-one should sing the hauntingly beautiful - but surely sound:

1 Jesus, the very thought of thee
with sweetness fills the breast;
but sweeter far thy face to see,
and in thy presence rest.

2 O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
to those who fall, how kind thou art!
How good to those who seek!

3 But what to those who find? Ah, this
nor tongue nor pen can show;
the love of Jesus, what it is,
none but his loved ones know.

4 Jesus, our only joy be thou,
as thou our prize wilt be;
Jesus, be thou our glory now,
and through eternity.

...because the lived-around-1100 AD  author, Bernard of Clairvaux, played a major role in stirring up Crusades in which hundreds of innocent people died for a profoundly unChristian cause. 

It could be argued, using Scripture + Author, that singing any song by Mr Clairvaux is tainting our hands with innocent blood. 

And to be completely consistent with Scripture + Author, should we sing any of David's Psalms, for was he not an adulterer and a murderer? 

The moment we deviate from Scripture Alone we end  up in a quagmire of impossible inquiry which turns us - dangerously  - into the judge and jury of all hymn writers, ancient or new. 

And suppose we manage to give a particular author the green light? Do we really know that that man or woman did actually live a godly life? Especially if they lived before the internet age? Better, surely, to be tuneless than to be sorry.

I say 'before the internet' age, as if the internet was the deposit of truth. Tragically it is all too often the locus of slander, bias and prejudice. 

Another flawed Scripture Plus approach is Scripture + Stable. In this method we may be happy with both the words and the author, but we regard the theological stable he or she comes from just a wee bit too dodgy. A stable too Arminian perhaps, an association too Charismatic, whatever. This argument could also be called "guilt by association." 

So we find a wonderful song, we have every reason to believe the author is a true believer, but we discover - on the web again - the truth or the lie that he or she is connected to the wrong people. At some time in their lifetime they spoke to this dodgy person, went to that dicey conference, hung out with this shifty movement. So the sound song is condemned because of some connection, real, imagined or slandered on the web.

The fatal flaw of this "guilt by association" Scripture Plus methodology is that if you look at all the wrong places on the world wide web you could most probably discover slander that says Charles Wesley ("O for a thousand tongues to sing") was a multiple murderer and Frances Havergel ("Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee") was a petty thief.

Slander is a big sin on the Internet. Slander is a really big sin to God but many fine Christian songwriters are suffering slander on the web. Slander is one of today's under-the-radar sins.

There is of course a valid point behind both of these cautious approaches. If a church sings lots of songs from one particular stable which has significant doctrinal weaknesses then members of the congregation in these days of internet surfing may possibly be led astray by that stable. And if a present author was living a known immoral lifestyle then we would not want to be seen to commend that.

For all sorts of reasons, on a case by case basis, local churches may decide not to sing this song or that.

But to make Scripture Plus, whether Scripture + Author or Scripture + Stable the blanket principles behind our choices will either render us either hypocritical judges, or if we are truly consistent, mute worshippers, since all authors are sinners, and the only perfect Man who has ever lived, did not leave us a song. 

No, the only reliable, the only objective, the only humble principle is Scripture Alone.

Principle 2: Is the tune 'congregational'?

A secondary but important principle for congregational singing is: How easy is it for the congregation to sing the tunes? Some tunes are fine for practised musicians but mighty difficult for the ordinary believer in the pew to join in with.

And, thinking of the tune, we must not become so intoxicated by the melody that we lose our judgement about the words. It's happened to me. I have so loved the beauty of a melody that I have overlooked the soundness of the lyrics.

Principle 3: Does the Song have wide appeal?

One of the great reasons for choosing older songs is that the church has had time to weed out the poor stuff. How many hymns did Charles Wesley write? The BBC tells me 6000. How many do we sing today? One thousandth. A Handful. Why? Because time has culled out the poor ones.

The church, over time selects the good and rejects the bad. (For that reason could it be a sound principle not to sing any song until it is at least ten years old?!) 

Old and New

The wisest approach is surely to combine the old with the new. When the Psalmist said "Sing to the Lord a new Song" (Psalm 96:1) he did not add "And chuck out the old." 

Our worship  songs should straddle all the age ranges found in our churches. The saints who have sung the songs of Zion from Christian Hymns, Redemption Hymnal or Mission Praise should not feel excluded. 

Nor those of us who love the precious new.

And all to the praise and glory of God.

Ten Reflections on the Art of Parenting - thirty years on

 The Most Challenging Role in Life

 Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Having just dropped my fourth and youngest son off at university at the age of 19, I've been reflecting on three decades of parenting four children. 

Of course my days of parenting are not over. Children continue to need their parents after they leave home. But the foundational years have now passed by and they shall not return.

I would not pretend to be the world's best parent, and I am sure I have made many parenting mistakes, but my wife and I have tried to prayerfully make the Scriptures our guide. We have been immensely helped by three Christians, James Dobson, Rob Parsons and Catharine Vos, of The Child's Story Bible. 

Scripture tells us four foundational facts about our children which inform Christian parenting. 

First, children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3). Kids are not toys or must-have accessories, they are precious gifts from God.

Secondly - and this follows from the first - children do not belong to us. We are mere stewards of all God's gifts, and one day He will ask us "How did we look after that precious one?" Knowing that our children do not belong to us frees us from the curse of control ("this is what I want my child to be or do in life") and from the snare of idolatry ("kids are there to meet all my needs"). 

Thirdly, children are fallen sinners (Psalm 51:5), so they will naturally blameshift, want to do wrong, and will need boundaries and loving discipline. I will never forget one of our little ones after he deliberately dropped a book out of the window of our moving car declaring, "the book let go!" 

Few errors have more harmful ramifications on parenting than to assume that our little ones are angels who can or will never do wrong. No, they are sinners who will  automatically stray if left to their own devices.

Fourthly, children do not know best, parents do. That's why God has given them parents; to lead, nurture, teach, guide, direct and instruct them (Ephesians 6:4). 

It is not the responsibility of the state to teach our children, it is not the responsibility of schools or the internet to instruct our little ones, and children themselves cannot bear the heavy weight of self-education. No, parents, you bear that burden before the Lord.  

In no particular order, then, here are the lessons I have learnt.

#1  Parenting is the most challenging role in life

If we take it seriously. The reason this task is so challenging is plural.

First, the art of parenting is more about the parent than about the child. That may come as a surpise, but who we are, how we react, how we live, what priorities we adopt in our own life are the determining factors in the formation of a child. The words we say to our children are often less significant than the life we live before them.

Take a child in a rebellious mood. The least helpful parenting response is to fight fire with fire. Personal calm and Holy Spirit self-control are the only tools that will bring about a godly outcome. 

Personal sacrifice is the second reason parenting is so challenging. For a long season of our lives (in our case thirty years), our children will be a major occupation of our time, thoughts and energy. 

Paul's ministerial policy was "life in you and death in us" (2 Corinthians 4:12) and we could not do better than to adopt that policy for the ministry of child-rearing. This has been our parenting mantra over the years! We have often said it to one another, especially in the tough times, "Life in them, death in us! Life in them, death in us!"

This means in practice that we will often be exhausted and stretched, we will have to submit, we will have to 'die' to parent well, but then, by the grace of God, we will see 'life' in them. 

Thirdly, parenting requires self-criticism in at least this regard: Most of us had parents who were unbalanced in some way. (Those who think not merely prove the point.) It is then all too easy to swing, pendulum-like, in the opposite direction. 

If our parents were too harsh, we can easily become too soft, and so on. Good parenting requires parents to critically ask what imbalances lurk in their own backgrounds. My own parents - godly missionaries - probably did not spend enough time with their children. I've tried to correct that, how successfully I do not know.

The first task in solving a problem with one of our kids, then, is to look prayerfully and squarely at the parent in the mirror and ask: what is it about me, rather than he or she, that needs to change?

Seek first the kingdom of God

#2  Put spiritual matters first

This means  more than reading the Scriptures with our children each day and praying with them, though it does include that. It means chatting to them about all the issues of life from a Biblical and Gospel point of view, in the car, around the table, when we walk in the streets and on holiday. 

What do we impress most upon our kids? That our desire is for their salvation? Or that they be educated, successful and rich? Every day we are emitting a multitude of verbal and non-verbal signals about what really matters most to us.

If parents never talk about the Lord in the home, they should not be surprised if children drift away from church and faith in their teens. Kids will see through the sham of Sunday-only religion when the questioning years of teenage arrive.

But if we seek the kingdom of God first, the Lord will add all other things (such as homes and education, etc.) in as well.

We found that ten minutes devotions before bed each evening, except for Sundays, was ideal. We read a story from a children's Bible that was appropriate to their age, discussed it, prayed with them and taught them to pray. When they were in the later primary years and beyond we used Catharine Vos's The Child's Story Bible, which we read from cover to cover who knows how many times.

#3  Take the example of God the Father as your model of true parenthood

At the baptism of Jesus, his heavenly Father said to him in a voice from heaven, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17)

"This is my Son" - God the Father was so proud to be related to his Son! Let us say to our kids- natural, adopted and step: "You are my son, my daughter, my child, I am so glad you are in our family!"

"Whom I love" - tell them often that you love them. Even when they are older and may adopt a 'don't really want you to say that to me' disposition. The world is a cold place where they will rarely hear those precious needful words.

"With him I am well pleased" - tell them that you are proud of them in the right sense of that word.  

Kids go through Phases

#4 Commend them for doing good

Connected to the last point, commend your children when they do good. I learnt this from Rob Parsons but you can find it in Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged" and from the example of God the Father with his one and only beloved Son in Matthew 3:17. If all we do is correct our kids, we will, like a dripping tap, little by little, discourage and embitter them. "Catch them doing something good" and praise them for it!

This is particularly important when we are going through parenting phases where we seem to be correcting our children all the time.

#5  Remember - kids go through phases

Childhood and teenage years are - by their very nature - seasons of change, sometimes rapidly so. I well remember panicking when our first child was passing through a difficult phase, but he came out on the other side in due time. Children change and it is unwise to focus on or over-react to this or that phase. Give them slack, love them, and it won't be long before they pull right on through.

#6  If you are a dad, get a grip

It is not for accident - and certainly not for patriarchy - that Scripture urges fathers to play a major role in child-rearing, (Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:20). Tragically men often tend to back out and leave it to their wives. 

Because it is hard. 

A friend of mine told how many of his male work colleagues would work late each evening and give the impression to their wives that they had to work. But they confided in him that they were only going home late to avoid the chaos of tea time and bath time.

"If I ever leave home" one parent has said jokingly, "it will be at tea-time!"

Scripture urges men in particular to rise to the task of rearing their children in the teaching and nurture of the Lord. That means spending time with children and being involved in their day to day lives. Find ways of connecting with them - even if it involves an activity they like but you do not. 

Love, fathers should remember, is spelt in the language of children with these four letters:

T. I. M. E.

#7  Learn to distinguish between childish irresponsibility and wilful disobedience

I learnt this enormously helpful advice from James Dobson. How often parents make this mistake: rebuking - or worse - a little one for the wrong reason. The child spills her drink or splashes mud all over you. This accidental mess is all part of the learning process. It is merely childish irresponsibility. The child needs to be taught how to hold the cup not chastised. 

Chastisement and rebuke should be reserved for wilful disobedience. The child has deliberately spilt their drink or defiantly splashed mud having been told and taught not to do so. 

The same action, maybe, but the child's intention is a world apart: and so should our response be. 

And when corrective discipline must be used, James Dobson wisely advises "bend the will but don't break the spirit." The purpose of discipline is to bring about a change of behaviour (bending the will) not to destroy the child's spirit with angry words and actions.

#8  Don't take all the praise, don't take all the blame

Rob Parsons again. The grace and mercy of God is the sole reason a child turns out well, so don't take all the praise (not often a weakness in Christian parents, I hear you say?) And if they take a wrong turn, don't be too hard on yourself, especially if this wrong turn is in their teenage or beyond years when they have become independent moral agents.

#9  There's more to life than children and family

Any good gift can transmute into an idol, but all idols are fools gold. God has placed us in church families as well as biological ones. And the only eternal family is our church family.

 It is a big - but common - mistake to build our lives around the kids. If we do, then when they leave us, we could find ourselves bereft of companionship, perhaps full of resentment or we may even become manipulative towards them.

All of us should have wider circles of friends than our children - and then when we age we will not lay the whole burden for our care upon the insufficient shoulders of our kids. 

#10   Let them go

Finally, when the day comes - is that aged 18? - let them go. If we let them go freely they will come back to us for friendship or when they need help. If they feel manipulatively tied to our apron strings, resentment will drive them far away - and possibly into unhelpful arms. 

The father of the prodigal in Luke 15 did not manipulate his child into staying home nor did he berate him on his way out of the house. If he had, the thought of returning to dad may not have been entertained by the prodigal in his hour of desperate need: after all, who wants to return to an old nag? 

The Lord gave us children to bring up, and one day that work is done. 

Hold on to the Promises

Love your kids dearly and pray for them fervently. And when you pray, hold onto the promises the Lord has made. For if, by the grace of God, parents have taught children God's ways, they can humbly and prayerfully hold the Lord to this promise:

"Start children off on the way they should go,
    and even when they are old they will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

Hold the Lord to his own promise! "Lord we trained up our child in your ways, please fulfill your promise, keep them close to you and don't let them drift away."