A Naive Literalist

I didn't start out as one, that is sure. My god was science. It must be right. If there was a conflict between The Bible and science, I let science "win."

I had a pastor who felt that way too. He believed that the six days of creation were indefinite periods of time. Maybe each day could be billions of years. When asked about it he tried to reconcile the Bible with geology. He had to appease science, he felt.

Little by little he was losing his zeal. I told him how great Calvin's Institutes were, that they could not be refuted. He said that now he was not sure. He was running low on oil for his lamp. He offered to pay me for ideas to preach about. Maybe I should have taken his offer? I am not running out of ideas yet. The Bible is so wonderful. I am just running out of time.

He warned young Bible teachers in his church that they could become "constipated with knowledge". Some people giggled at the words. At the same meeting, he told us he had asked for a sabbatical so he could get his doctorate. He did not see the implication. Knowledge is good for me, but bad for you, lowly "layity."

Later, he quit the ministry to "fight pornography". I wonder how that worked out? I have never heard a man with the gift of being a preacher, who turned his back on it.

I met a truly great hydrologist. He authored textbooks on it. He wrote The Genesis Flood, which helped me so much. Although the man was a fundamentalist--a licensed Baptist preacher--he said that all the geological strata were deposited in a matter of hours, not in great periods of time. Coal is not being made anywhere. It was created in a one time event--the flood. Leaves of the trees that make up coal can be seen in the coal, unwilted.

He said he once was an "indefinite periods of time " believer. Now he was a naive literalist. I am happy to say that I am one too.