Monday, January 22, 2024

It is the 22nd of January 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A very happy Monday to you- I hope your January is treating you decently- this weekend, we got wet when we went outside, and that upset us a bit… but our mailbag comes, once again, from the Great White North- the country of my maternal great grandfather: Canada. Amanda, a frequent questioner here on Monday, not only sent me a picture from out of her window in Port Perry, Ontario, where the windchill is -23 degrees Celsius. It’s 50 degrees here, and I’ve got a jacket on; gonna start a fire after I record this show. 

All right- I’m answering Amanda’s question, but it is also a common question throughout the years that I find myself artfully dodging- letting it whoosh past me like a bullfighter with a cape. Her question made me think a bit about why, and so I thought I would answer the question and address why it was a bit uncomfortable.

Amanda wrote to ask about “Old Earth Creationism? She wrote: “I am not familiar with the idea that earth is more than 10,000 years old but God did not use evolution” and then “What do we see in the early church as far as our origins and the interpretations of Genesis 1-11”.

So- creationism and the age of the earth. I tend to avoid these questions like the plague. There are certain platforms and mediums that are more suited to controversial topics than social media posts and podcasts. I think these questions might be best served with a follow-up question, “Why do you ask?”. Based on our limited correspondence, I believe my Canadian friend to be asking with a genuine curiosity. But often, our answers do more to enflame culture wars than promote curiosity and encourage Christian unity. So, with that as a preface, let me answer that “old earth creationism” is a really common view amongst the church fathers. Also, there is no consensus amongst the Fathers on the answer to just “how it happened,” and I wonder if that might not be a good thing. Choose any ministry that makes creation issues their big bear, and they will have collected their church fathers and other theologians to “prove their point”. Names like Basil of Caesarea, Ephrem the Syrian, and Cyril of Jerusalem will all hang their hat on six 24-hour days. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine lean in on a figurative reading. Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Jerome are all ambiguous. 

Augustine, I think, helpfully, suggests that creation is caught up in our concept of time- everything began at once (there was a pesky question: what was God doing before Creation?), and our tiny brains caught “in time” can’t comprehend things “out of time.” He wrote: “What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.” The important part for him was that God created “ex nihilo,” which is “out of nothing,” because it was fashionable in his day to assert the Greek idea of an eternal universe. In our day, in some places, it is fashionable to assert that the universe came together blindly, and we do well to assert that our God is a personal, creative God who made all things. If whatever your theory is takes you away from that proposition, we do well to see that the personal creative God has been uniformly taught not only in the church fathers but in the vast majority of Christian theologies since.

As we learn about the natural world and theories are tried, accepted, rejected (and the cycle goes on), we do well to say, “There is a God- he is personal and our creator and…. To borrow from Dr. Montgomery, “I can do more than prove his existence; I can introduce you to him,” of course, in the person of Jesus.

Also, Amanda and others- let me thoroughly recommend Tom Oden’s magnum opus- he edited the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series- the first book in the series is a little pricey, but it is on Genesis 1-11 and gives you a nice historical look at how others have looked at these texts.

Thanks for the question; stay warm and go Rough Riders. You can send me a question or query at danv@1517.org.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary- in Genesis, just after our topic today, from the 12th chapter.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;


I will make your name great,

    and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

    and whoever curses you I will curse;


and all peoples on earth

    will be blessed through you.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 22nd of January 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man for whom a day is like 1000 years, mostly because he’s got so much to do- Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who wonders if there are some gloves or mittens around… it's freezing- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.