A recent national news publication, Insight on the News, reported on the political stance of the religious right and concluded with this comment,

The religious right ... is comfortable using government power to legislate morality on issues such as homosexuality and morality.

This quotation clearly represents the fear of the public at large regarding the Christian agenda.  Secularists fear that we will push through laws enforcing our moral beliefs about abortion, homosexuality, and young-universe creationism.  This perception of creationism as a moral issue helps explain why emotions flare when the age of the universe and the earth comes into discussion.

Linking Creation Days to Immorality

A large segment of the Christian community has unfortunately been indoctrinated to equate acceptance of an old universe with a slide into immorality.  The most vocal and articulate promoters of this equation come from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the Bible-Science Association (BSA).  The equation of the old-universe, old-earth views with immorality begins with the assertion that the old-earth concept promotes naturalistic evolutionism.  Henry Morris, founder and president of the ICR, states the link,

The continued insistence on an ancient earth is purely because of the philosophic necessity to justify evolution and the pantheistic religion of eternal matter.

Morris's son, John, also of the ICR, restates these words,

The old earth is an integral component of evolutionary ideas ... The old earth concept is a requisite of evolutionism.

To these men, evolutionism is "an unmitigated evil," the philosophical root of "fascism, racism, Marxism, social Darwinism, and imperialism.'  In their view, the "modern ills of promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion, humanism, new-age pantheism, eetc.," all "flower from the same evil root."

In this paradigm, old-earth beliefs = evolutionism, evolutionism = unmitigated evil, therefore, old-earth beliefs = unmitigated evil.  Morris calls the old-earth view "anti-Biblical" and "anti-theistic," and adds that "there can be no justification for a Christian adopting the old-earth concept. He ends one article with a special exhortation to Christian leaders who "hold and perhaps teach the old-earth concept knowledgeably" to "abandon their compromise of Scripture" and to "eschew the evils of a failed scientific theory."

Henry Morris wrote regarding social disintegration,

The failure of Bible-believing Christian churches and schools to aggressively defend and promote true biblical creationism [i.e., young-earth creationism] is a major cause of the takeover by evolutionary humanism of our entire society ... The modern widespread rebellion against God's commandments related to the family is conditional upon the prior rejection of his creation activity and record thereof."

He also made the following charge,

If it were not for the continued apathetic and compromising attitude of Christian theologians and other intellectuals on this vital doctrine of recent creation, evolutionary humanism would long since have been exposed and defeated.

Morris also regards progressive creationism (including the belief that God instantly performs miracles of creation on many different occasions over long time periods) "a compromise with the enemy."  In fact, he labels progressive creationism with its day-age theory the worst of all options, for it "compounds the offence [of evolutionism] by making God have to redirect and recharge everything at intervals."  He reasons, "The very concept of the geological ages implies divine confusion and cruelty."

These are strong words and certainly relate to strong feelings.  However, as previously noted, these feelings partly spring from the belief on the part of many young-earth creationists that natural biological evolutionary processes really do work.

Some Christians take John Morris's theorem even further.  Since old-earth beliefs = unmitigated evil, then old-age proponents - evil people.  The Bible Science Association in Bible Science news expressed outrage toward old-earth proponents, claiming that they are "dangerous" and not orthodox Christians.  Ken Ham of the ICR makes similarly severe charges against old-earth creationists.  In an article, he berated Christian leaders who "believe that God created various groups of animals and plants throughout the supposed millions of years of the history of life, and that then He created Adam and Eve."  He noted the following,

It is these leaders who affect so many people with their persuasive arguments of whom we have to be aware. ...Satan will use people with clever words who can sound scientific, to undermine this foundation.  Such people, I believe, are described in Matthew 7:15: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

Linking Long Creation Days to Apostasy

Both the Institute for Creation Research and the Bible-Science Association assert that upholding twenty-four-hour creation days and recent creation dates as essential requirements for salvation.  Those who believe God created over billions of years are said to deny the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.  John Morris noted that billions of years of new species appearing and old species becoming extinct is "inconsistent with God's omnipotence, omniscience, purposiveness, loving nature, and even His grace."  He also claims that old earth view negates the doctrine of Christ's atonement for sins to give believers eternal life:

In this [old-earth] view, death is not the penalty for sin, for it preceded man and his sin.  but if death is not the penalty for sin, then the death of Jesus Christ did not pay that penalty, nor did His resurrection from the dead provide eternal life.

Ken Ham's view is that the old-earth view of creation "destroys the basis of the Gospel message" and "the message of redemption."  The Bible-Science Association agrees,

[Old-earth] theology denies the central teaching of Christianity ... and rejects the connection that Scripture establishes between sin, death, and Christ's atonement.  ... In [this] theology death is natural.  Death was a reality for millions of years before man ever arrived to sin.  This leaves Christ's death on the cross as, at best, well-meaning, but beside the point.

These men and organizations have widely influenced the beliefs of many Christians throughout the world who seem to strongly believe that the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith are destroyed in the acknowledgement that the universe and the earth may be older than just a few thousand years.  This being the case, there should be little wonder that young-earth creationists brand others as being apostates, deceivers, underminers of the faith, false prophets, and purveyors of sin and evil.

Polarization

Those believing in a young earth have portrayed others as being apostate and as being guilty of destroying the Christian faith.  In doing so, they have seriously polarized Christians and have created dissent and division where there need be none.  In reviling what old-earth creationists say, many Christians' ears and minds are closed for there is no need to hear or weigh any evidence to the contrary.  There's no openness to rethinking their positions for too much is at stake.  There can be little hope of a meaningful dialogue among Christians concerning the age of the universe unless this supposed link between old-earth creationism and immorality is broken.

The crux of the argument linking old-age creationism with immorality has to do with the following syllogism; namely, that since old-earth creationism = evolutionism, and evolutionism = unmitigated evil, then old-earth creationism = unmitigated evil.  I believe another web page has already the falsehood of the connection between long-earth creationism and evolutionism; namely, that the many billions of years the universe is said to have been in existence does not provide sufficient time for naturalistic evolution to have occurred.  The second portion of this syllogism, namely that evolutionism can be equated with evil, also needs to be considered.  Certainly, it is possible that these people are deceived, or have inconsistent ideas concerning naturalistic evolution, or just simply believe in evolution because that is what they were taught in school.  This belief system certainly does not indicate that the people themselves are any more evil than anyone else; rather, evolutionists just need re-education as to the unscientific nature of their belief system. 

An equally important idea to confront is that proposed by Henry Morris that "an omniscient God could devise a better process of creation than the random, wasteful, inefficient trial-and-error charade of the so-called geological ages," and that "a loving merciful God could never be guilty of a creative process that would involve the suffering and death of multitudes of innocent animals."  If these assertions are true, then what could be said concerning the current era?  God could do much right now to reduce the suffering of mankind - the epitome of His creation.  God even calls the death of His saints previous (Psalm 116:15).  Could it be that somehow God's purposes are fulfilled through our experiencing the "random, wasteful, inefficiencies" of the natural realm He created?  Were conditions somehow significantly different in the past?  Is the suffering and death of grasses, leaves, and protozoa that must have occurred before Adam and Eve sinned (even in Morris' system of theology) totally tragic, meaningless, and without any purpose?

While it may be certainly true that God could have devised another plan of creation, we would be arrogant to decide that God "could devise a better process of creation."  Given God's grand plans and goals for the new creation, the new heavens, and the new earth (Rev. 21), the groanings experienced by the current creation may represent a relatively grief but essential experience along the way.  Furthermore, to label animals as "innocent" is inappropriate.  Animals are not spirit creatures for they have no capacity to form a relationship with God or to rebel against His authority.  This indicates the human tendency to anthropomorphize - we tend to endow other creatures with human qualities and characteristics.  We know that life cannot exist without death in the present creation, and God has a reason for this order.  

Finally, there are many who profess an old-earth theology who are not evil apostates, but rather are earnest for the faith, establishing churches throughout the world and winning others to God.  Perhaps one reason why old-earth beliefs are held in such derision by so many is due to old-universe proponents' lack of prominence.

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