Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary

by Kenneth W. Daniels

Like many believers, I was aware of puzzles in the Christian faith even in my youth. Most of us, whether or not we remain in the fold, have wondered about God's commands to the Israelite soldiers to kill men, women, boys and infants (keeping the virgins for themselves); his endorsement of slavery; the harshness of eternal hell; the apparent discrepancies between parallel passages in the Bible; the hit-and-miss nature of prayer; the mystery of so much human and animal suffering; the silence and hiddenness of God; the kindness and moral uprightness of so many nonbelievers; and the apparent conflict between science and the Bible. Given all these difficulties and many more, why did I not leave the faith earlier in my youth when I first became aware of these issues?

It is one thing for adults to hold to unsubstantiated beliefs, and I respect their right to do so, but it is another matter altogether for adults to press these beliefs on vulnerable children who have not yet developed the cognitive faculties needed to weigh the evidence for and against what they are being taught.

I now feel that this transition to old earth creationism was significant in that it introduced a tendency on my part to rely on physical and historical evidence to interpret the Bible rather than strictly the other way around.