The Great Divide, Jr. Or, where I stand on the OEC/YEC debate

(NOTE:  I am very willing to listen to both sides of this debate, and welcome most commenters.  I am not a scientist, and allow room for error in this blog “essay.”  Pick holes in it, if you’d like;  I will respond as carefully and thoroughly as time and brain-power allows.  However, if there is what I judge to be unkindness shown to myself or to any other commenter, or if a commenter is obviously posting a contentious knee-jerk statement on the topic w/o actually reading this blog post, or for any other reason solely based upon my judgement — since this is my blog — I will delete the comment.) 

I have been an unwilling participant, for the most part, on the debate between Old-Earth Creationists (OEC) and Young-Earth Creationists (YEC).  But, a recent post of mine stirred up some controversy about this issue, and I thought I’d post how I arrived where I am now on the topic. 

Just for the record, both “camps” believe in God as the Creator of the universe.  The central dispute is how long ago that happened.  OECs tend to side with much of the scientific world which places the beginnings of the universe around 14 billion years ago, give or take a few billion years.  YECs believe that God created the world in 6 literal days, and that happened about 6,000 years ago.

Also for the record, the premier website/think tank for OECs is Reasons to Believe, www.reasons.org, spearheaded by Hugh Ross.  The two most influential organizations (that I know of) espousing YEC are Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.org, headed by Ken Ham, and Institute for Creation Research, led by John Morris.

Also for the record, I DO NOT believe this issue is central to Christianity;  I’m not dogmatic about my when-did-creation-take-place beliefs.  Too often, this dispute has been one of those topics that pits Christian against Christian, and just for that reason, I have long avoided it because I have seen it get nasty-ugly.  I don’t think mean-spirited debate among Christians is right and Godly;  it is anguishingly sad to me to reflect upon and witness the rifts that have been caused, in the history of Christianity, from arguing over issues that are not central to Christian doctrine.  I do believe that discussion and research and questioning is very Godly;  God’s not afraid of our questions, and I think He’s very encouraging to the sincerely humble, searching heart.  The contentious heart, though, He’s not so fond of.  It is my deep desire to be humble, and not contentious, both in this post, and IRL.  If I couch my position in uncertainty, it’s not because I don’t believe; it’s because I’m allowing myself room for all-too-frequent error.

Up until very recently, I have been in limbo on the topic.  It has taken me five years of teaching my kids, and studying both viewpoints, but I think I’ve now picked my side of the fence.