From: Iain Strachan (iain.strachan.asa@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 16:40:18 EDT
Howard:
> >
> order. For such folk, protecting the Bible from this form of critical
> examination is given top priority. Recall a suggestion I have made here
> before -- look at the 'statement of faith' portion of creationist or other
> conservative Christian web sites and note how often the very first
statement
> is a declaration about biblical inerrancy, followed later in the list by
> statements about God and Jesus. Priorities are interesting things.
>
In the last post I looked at the ASA "Statement of Faith". Now let's look
at a Creationist website's statement of faith. I honestly hadn't read this
before today, but I decided to put Howard's assertion to the test.
This is even more interesting, because it is divided into four sections,
namely:
(A) PRIORITIES
(B) BASICS.
(C) THEOLOGY
(D) GENERAL
Pretty relevant as "Priorities are interesting things". So what's AiG's No
1 priority?
-------Quote
1. The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in
importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign,
Creator, Redeemer and Judge
------End Quote
Read the whole page at
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp
Admittedly the first point of section (B) Basics is about the inerrancy of
scripture.
But ... the number 1 priority of Answers In Genesis, is ... the
proclamation of the Gospel!
A clear statement of what the Gospel is may be found under point 3 of
section C:
------- Quote
Freedom from the penalty and power of sin is available to man only through
the sacrificial death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, and His complete and
bodily Resurrection from the dead.
------ End Quote
And for ASA, the number 1 on their list is the Divine Inspiration, authority
and trustworthiness of the Bible, and nowhere on the page does it give any
clue about what the Gospel is (in fact this is another word that is entirely
missing from the web page).
I know there is much on the AiG statement of faith that will be quite offens
ive to many people on this list, (to be honest, I'd have put the Gospel much
further up the list, but at least it's there which is more than can be said
for the ASA statement) but as far as their priority is concerned, and in
telling people what the Gospel is, it seems to me they've got it pretty well
right.
Howard, your assertions may well be true in general, but ASA and AiG seem to
constitute two pretty important counter-examples, wouldn't you think?
Iain
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