I haven't posted on here (been a little gun shy!) the last little while, but i posted on my homeschool mom blog about the current furore about Ken Ham/ Peter Enns and i wanted to flesh out my thoughts here, in a little more private way (since this is my *warning* real and not always happy blog!)
Thing is, what i wrote on my blog (http://mamazee.blogspot.com/2011/03/ken-ham-peter-enns-who-wins.html) is what i feel from my heart. The answer to their problem would be so much more easily found if they began and continued in love.
The world seems a very combative, angry, offended place lately. Egypt, Libya, Yemen - the excitement of the possibility of democracy is intoxicating, and yet there is a certain fear about who will replace the current system... Then the earthquake in Japan, and the tsunami, and now the nuclear reactors, of which four were billowing grey smoke yesterday.
Hot on the heels of that, brutal attacks in Israel, just to remind us that there in the Middle East that old rivalry hasn't died.
And meanwhile, on the blogosphere, Rob Bell is currently taking a drubbing for being a "Universalist" and Ken Ham is vilifying Peter Enns with the playground politics of namecalling, while Mr. Enns defends himself with the grown up politics of getting Ham banned.
Thing is, "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).
Such a profound verse.
Our anger is not the way that God chooses to work. He's chosen, instead, as our identifying feature, and our only weapon to the cold world that encroaches - LOVE.
Ken Ham has a point - he is passionate about providing believers a scientific rationale for believing in the Bible, that it is inerrant, always true, and to be believed. But he calls people "stupid", which is why i gave away the seven video set i had after we watched the first one. For the simple reason that i didn't want my children to learn to call each other stupid by watching it :) and also, it's poor argumentation to use ad hominem attacks.
Peter Enns also has a point - i've read many of the "most incendiary" quotes that people have been able to pick up and basically, he's a man that thinks. I don't agree with him, but, for instance, pointing out the the story of Noah and his Ark is more a horror story than a child's bedtime fable is true. I disagree that we need to edit the Bible in order to feed it to our children, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking it's all suitable for the flannelgraph. It's not.
But Ken and Peter are brothers - we are all created by the same One who calls us to love one another. So, while i do think that conversation must be had between the different sides - i do believe it would honor God to do it with all the love we can muster, and not to jump to name calling and rhetoric. God is not afraid of reason, and so many times in the Bible, people asked for a sign. Yes, He loves when we obey Him and don't need "a sign" but He knows we are flesh - and He is Logos, the Word, the Truth - all truth comes from Him, and none will contradict who He is...
Anyway, the birthday cake has cooled, sprinkles have arrived, and another birthday cake is mine to wreck :)... Just laying it out here that what we need, more than anything else, is to look at the basic requirements of what God wants from us...
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
I think sometimes we are so eager to "separate ourselves" from people who appear to disagree with us that we don't even take time to hear what they are really saying...
