Kevin Swanson's Blog

Theistic-Evolution - A Fatal Compromise?

host@kevinswanson.com — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 MST

Today’s program deals with the sticky issue of Origins. As a leader in the Christian Home Education movement who has spent many a luncheon discussing this issue with those who disagree, I think this one may be the most controversial issue within the present-day movement.

First we should say that Christians receive the epistemological authority of the Word – as opposed to the ultimate epistemological authority of the minds of empiricists “interpreting data.” Sincere Christians still take the Bible as the authority for truth, the inspired Word of God

It should go without saying that sincere Christians would be a little compromise-phobic especially during the largest apostasy (numbers-wise) in the history of Christian church, just now kicking into full force in this country. The moves from orthodoxy to neo-orthodoxy, to the post-modern, relativist (who care about whatever?) emergism, to deism/atheism takes up but a generation or two these days. So the phobia, in my estimation, is well-justified.

Still, Christians should think through their “non-negotiables” carefully, and perhaps even prioritize the items on the list – in order that appropriate humility and love be afforded in these discussions. It should go without saying that some propositions are more essential to our worldview than others. Some compromises would surrender more ground to the naturalist-materialist, antithetical worldview than others might. And most importantly, some of our propositional commitments carry more exegetical weight than others. It is a mark of immaturity and pride, when men will defend every one of their opinions touching biblical issues with equal force and passion, as if they could never be wrong on a single point.

All that said, here is my list:

Kevin Swanson's Non-Negotiables in Order of Priority:

#1 – God is the sovereign Source of all creation, and God created all space and matter, by the Word of His power, ex nihilo.

#2 – God made man in His image from dust without intermediate forms.

#3 – There could be no death for man before the fall.

#4 – In six 24-hour days God created light, oceans, trees, sun, moon, stars, animals, man, etc.

#5 – A worldwide flood destroyed all man and land-based animals on the earth.

#6 – The biblical chronology allows for Adam’s creation no longer than 10,000 years ago.

#7 – There could be no death before the fall for heart-lung animals.

Now, at what point would a pastor or theologian fatally compromise the Christians faith by denying one of the above propositions?

At what point is the epistemological authority of the Word of God die the death of ten or fifteen or a thousand qualifications?

Are we interpreting rock layers by the Word of God, or are we interpreting the Word of God by “scientific” historical guesswork relating to rock layers?

Perhaps more to the issue at hand - where did our confidence concerning this “scientific” guesswork come from?   We knew with 99% confidence that the gravitational force existed after dropping the rock 100 times. With what confidence can we say that a rock is four billion years old?

Where did all of this confidence in the evolutionary processes come from?  Was human pride the beginning of knowledge and wisdom?  Or was the fear of God the beginning of knowledge and wisdom in the geology classrooms? Important questions for those who wish to salvage something of the faith from the naturalist-materialists in the 21st century. . .

Shepherd Center Community Service

host@kevinswanson.com — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:00:00 MST

A couple of the boys from the Shepherd Center joined me on a service project down in Kiowa this morning.

Several weeks ago, we posted a series of signs around the county announcing our volunteer force, available to help elderly, shut-ins, handicapped, and widows in the county with maintenance and basic handyman tasks. The calls are rolling in! This morning James, Daniel, Kevin, and myself built a split-rail fence for a couple in Kiowa.

People complain of the lack of community. We have community.

People complain that young men are playing computer games while "Rome" burns. Our young men don't.

People complain that Christians want to jam a few propositions down people's throats, but they have no life to share with others. That's not us.

We search for ways to involve ourselves "in the world," in intensive, impacting ways, without synthesizing. Christianity has become involvement without impact, because there was no separation. "Come out from among them and be separate," is just as important as "You are the light of the world."

They can have their abortion, their birth implosions, their godless education systems, their mind-draining entertainment, their corrupting, family destroying government aid programs (that have utterly ruined the inner city family). We'll do our own schools and call them home discipleship centers. We'll adopt the orphan. We'll reach out in our neighborhoods to provide for the poor without the government dollar. We'll take care of our own widows, instead of tossing them into the euthanizing medical systems provided by the state in the year 2023. We'll separate, and then we'll come back and impact our communities in surprising ways. This is what happened with the Christian influence in the Roman Empire. And this is what will happen here.

Separate and Salt

Noah's Ark Rafting

host@kevinswanson.com — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 MST

The men from the Shepherd’s Center enjoyed a day of whitewater rafting in the beautiful Royal Gorge in Canon City, Colorado. For those who are interested in going rafting, canoeing, hiking, rock climbing, or fishing in Colorado, we suggest you book your trip with Noah’s Ark. The service of the company was tremendous and the guides were very helpful in providing directions and keeping us safe as we made our way down the river. For more information about Noah’s Ark, click here. Also, make sure to join us on our official August 2010 CHEC Family Adventure trip with Noah's Ark.

Mom, You're Not Qualified...to Perform Brain Surgery!

host@kevinswanson.com — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:00:00 MST

Several years ago, our family received a brochure from a local private school, authored by a gentleman whose doctoral credentials in the field of education were prominently displayed. The good doctor explained,

“There is a misjudgment among some circles that a teacher does not need to be university trained or carry the appropriate credentials. . . unqualified persons should not perform brain surgery.”

Such statements imply that the education of a child is a highly technical affair that must not, under any circumstances, be placed under the purview of an uneducated parent. Ergo, whatever you do, don't try this at home!"

Never mind the data collected over the last 25 years by those who study the homeschooling movement where this sort of thing is done at home!

Back in the last 1990's the Rudner study found homeschoolers scoring head and shoulders above their counterparts from public and private school. It wasn't until last year that Dr. Brian Ray from NHERI, conducted another significant study on the academic performance of home educated students in this country. To tell you the truth, many leaders were a little nervous about what he would find, since the movement has changed dramatically over the last ten years. In this new study, Dr. Ray included a wider variety of testing services, and covered a sample size in excess of 12,000 students. Amazingly, Ray found that the homeschooling is performing substantially better than they did 10 years earlier! The results are contained in the chart below.

Average Percentile (National Average - 50 percentile)

	2009 Ray Study	1999 Rudner Study
Reading	89	85
Language	84	73
Math	84	77

To continue reading this article, click here

Church Government

host@kevinswanson.com — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 MST

It seems that church government likes to migrate towards centralized Episcopalian forms headed by popes, or decentralized fiefdoms headed by smaller popes (smaller hierarchies found in many Independent congregations or self-consciously three-office Presbyterian churches). Pastors learn to appreciate rubber-stamp eldership and deacon boards. And large churches usually rely upon programmic structures and administrative staff with nice hierarchical org charts.

Hierarchy is the only way churches survive where there is no love to speak of – only irresolvable conflicts, continual transience, and hopelessly shallow relationships.

Hierarchy must be inevitable at some level in a society without blood-letting, self-sacrificial love. The hierarchy is either formal or informal, but it is inevitable. The leaders need their business cards with the byline, “Chairman of the Bondslaves.” Or make that, “Chairman of the Deacon Board.” Of course, the laity will demand such structures as well. They expect it.

Love is the alternative. But it is impossible. We can attempt a gradual move away from hierarchy to covenant, but don’t expect a pure utopia. Some level of hierarchy, formal or informal is inevitable for human social relationships to survive – until a people learn to love.

Luk 22:25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.

Luk 22:26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.

Luk 22:27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.

Christian Heritage Conference in WA

host@kevinswanson.com — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 MST

The Generations ministry enjoyed working with the Christian Heritage conference in the Seattle area over the weekend. A record-breaking crowd of 2700+ filled the church building, tuning into keynote sessions from Ken Ham and Kevin Swanson.

Watch Disk 1 of The Family Economics Conference DVD - Completely Free

host@kevinswanson.com — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00:00 MST

For those of you who missed the Family Economics Conference back in March or didn't get an opportunity to pick up the set of 10 DVDs, I wanted to share this full-length DVD with you, right here on my blog. This is the first talk in the set, and is titled A Biblical Economy - The Opportunity of Our Century. This groundbreaking talk kicked off the conference, and is worth watching with your family.

If you enjoy this DVD, you may want to consider picking up the complete set at our store.

The Desperate Search for Authenticity

host@kevinswanson.com — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 MST

If anything characterizes the last few remnants of faith in the west, it would be a search for authenticity.

Nineteenth century Romanticism was just another attempt to escape reality, and post-modernism finally gave up on reality.

Modernism in the mainline denominations, as it turned out, was nothing but faked, inauthentic Humanism. So we continued our search for authenticity in the 1960s and 1970s.

Then the crusty, moldy Protestants clung desperately to their old confessions, rendering tacit assent to them, hoping that would somehow salvage the faith.

Forms were everywhere. Everything could be externalized. Confessions were programmed. Rituals were supposed to equate to faith. The Catholics had theirs and the Protestants theirs. If you could check off a list of externals - a hand raised in an evangelistic meeting, modest dresses, prayer meeting attendance, and avoidance of alcohol - that would make you "one of the number."   But we have since learned that narrowing applications inevitably results in the displacement of the principle and a painfully superficial faith.

So here we are, relentlessly pursuing AUTHENTICITY. We formulate. We incarnate, retaining heart-hand connections and the faith-works thing as distinct but not separate. We find that relationships drive specificity and authenticity, so we carefully weave the fabric of truth and love, tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter.   We insist on life incarnation of our doctrinal formulations. We demand it. We will not tolerate cold, empty doctrinal statements.

We are entirely overwhelmed by the deceitfulness of the human heart, where fraudulent faith is everywhere, and apostates are just more honest than the rest.   May God, by His sovereign grace give us true faith. Amen.

Christian Curriculum Project Episode #2

host@kevinswanson.com — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 MST

We advocate a whole different kind of education, for those who are tired of the social stigma associated with worshiping God in the Chemistry Laboratory.

2010 Conference

host@kevinswanson.com — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 MST

A packed-out house for the plenary session at the GwV 2010 Family Economics Conference