creation ministries and inclusivity

I’m reading the latest issue of Creation Ministries International’s Prayer News which contains a front page article entitled, ‘Inclusivity?: How well-meaning Christians can love people to death.’

I have had two issues with CMI for many years, even when I actively supported them and believed Genesis according to their literal interpretation.

The issues are these:

Firstly, in all their literature (magazines, tracts, web and books) they seemed to me to belittle people who dared to believe differently than they. Cartoons in their tracts poked fun at evolutionists and mocked their beliefs. Articles in the magazines seemed to capitalise on making those who didn’t believe in a literal beginnings narrative appear foolish and uninformed/unintelligent.

Secondly, they never allowed for a creation narrative that may include elements of evolution, or a long-day theory. It is always black and white: either you believe in a Creator God OR you believe in atheistic evolution. There was no middle ground–no possibility that a Creator God would endorse anything other than a literal interpretation of the first book in the Bible.

While I have watched Ken Ham videos, subscribed to Creation magazine (from when it was still called ‘Ex Nihilo’) and consumed numerous CMI-distributed books, I can no longer remain silent on this. I suppose it has to do with my changing view on the inerrancy of Scripture (the Bible as a community library rather than a constitution, as one writer frames it). And I don’t think CMI should assume all their readers are of their same persuasion in this regard.

I remember going door-to-door with my dad in the 80s ‘winning souls’ (even though to my recollection not one soul was ‘won’ this way). He always would ask two questions: (1) If you were to die today, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven? and (2) If I could show you from the Bible how you could know this for sure, would you be willing to take the time to listen?

The assumed truth here was that everyone respected the authority of Scripture enough to care what it said, or to believe that what it said held some credence in their life.

Very few gave us the time of day.

And CMI doesn’t seem to realise that we live in a world that does not accept foundationalistic understanding of the Bible. Sure, they may respect it as a sacred book of Christianity, but one among a number of such books of many religions. And very few would agree that it was to be taken literally (since they don’t see God endorsing the execution of adulterers, LGBT folk, or masses of non-believing ‘heathen’ living in the holy land).

In this article, Gary Bates (CEO of CMI in the US) believes that questions such as ‘Why doesn’t God love homosexuals?’ are ‘diversions from the core issue.’ And the core issue, in his opinion, is, ‘If God is Creator, He has the perfect right to say what happens with His Creation. He made it, He owns it, He sets the rules!’ This is why he sees creation as ‘the key cultural battleground in the world today.’

I believe CMI is out of touch with today’s culture. This is evident by their frequent use of warfare terminology to convey the urgency and importance of their message. In a world that is already inundated with ‘jihad’ on the news nearly every night, to speak of a Christian mission as being ‘a battleground’ is seen by many to put this brand of Christianity on the same par as extreme Islamic terrorists.

Being out of touch with the present culture is also evidenced by CMI’s assumption that postmodern Joe and Jane really care what the Bible says, or, in fact, would accept their foundational understanding of Genesis. In today’s pluralistic society, the Bible is one of many voices, and it does not carry the same authority in life as it did even 50 years ago.

Further, while I believe God did create the world (though not in the same way Gary does), I see God as one who has created and set his creation free to choose. He does not ‘rule’ creation today in the sense of a dictator, arbitrarily damning certain people to hell because they don’t believe certain facts about him or join a certain community that bears the name of his son Jesus Christ. He is a God who loves generously, forgives fully, and has reconciled the world to himself.

Sure, we make mistakes. Oil spills, global warming (another thing CMI doesn’t believe in), genocide, mass destruction of God’s creation–all these prove that we have strayed from our God-given role of being caretakers of God’s perfect world.

But through all these failures, God is still with us, calling us to join him in a quest for a better world, a more inclusive kingdom of hope and peace. And he empowers us to be his agents of change in our world.

No, true Christians aren’t loving people to death. Love that comes from God brings life, healing, reconciliation, restoration–and is always inclusive.

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