Searching Sabbath 06: Creation
This week I continue on with my series of blog posts and videos exploring the fundamental beliefs of my church, how I understand them and where I stand in relation to them.
None of the beliefs I’ve posted about so far have made me feel as vulnerable as posting this one about Creation. That’s because Seventh-day Adventists hold to a very traditional, literal interpretation of Genesis and believe in a recent six-day Creation. And I have a lot of struggles with that belief, for reasons outlined in the vlog above.
By posting this video and blog I feel like I’m opening myself up — to disapproval from fellow SDAs for whom belief in a literal Creation week is an article of faith not to be questioned, and to scorn from others who can’t believe I would belong to an organization that believes something so “backward” and scientifically unsound.
The irony is that this isn’t something I’ve ever talked about or posted about before and wouldn’t have addressed now if I hadn’t committed to exploring every one of my church’s beliefs in this series. It’s an issue that arouses tremendously strong feelings both from those who believe in Creationism and those who attack it, but to be honest it doesn’t matter a whole lot to me. I know for some people this is the question that has shipwrecked their faith or otherwise provided a real turning point, but I find it rests quite well with me to leave it in the “Questions I Don’t Know the Answers to” category. I have no trouble believing that God created this universe … I’m just sketchy on the exact details of how God did that. To be honest, I’m fine with not knowing that.
But a lot of other people are probably NOT fine with me not knowing that, and think it’s of vital importance that I get this sorted out one way or another. I can only say, “Don’t hold your breath.” There are a lot of things higher on my Get It Figured Out list than the issue of when and how God created this world.
In a fun twist, this week’s video is set up as my end of a dialogue with fellow Adventist writer Ed Dickerson, whose Grounds for Belief series of videos about the Genesis narrative I’ve been watching on YouTube. I’m intrigued by the idea of hearing his responses to some of my questions … the only downside being that planning out the video this way made it considerably longer than usual. I try to keep these in the 3-4 minute range but this one is 8 minutes long. Hope you get a chance to watch it though. When Ed posts his response I’ll post that here too.
