Don Batten, Editorial, creation com
An old friend, Ken, had served as a missionary to Aboriginal folk in Australia for many decades. He once said to me, “You know, they’re killing the church by degrees!”
Ken was not against academic degrees or excellence in learning; he was a man of study and had run a Bible college to train Aboriginal pastors. But it was the yearning in seminaries for respect from secular academia that concerned him.
Seminaries too often want to be seen as the theological wing of academia. To progress this, they defer to the other areas of study as totally legitimate. This includes thoroughly anti-Christian ideas of origins, the meaning of life, history, law, psychology, etc. Avoiding conflict with these means limiting their ‘theology’ to a very narrow, shrinking field of knowledge.
Because the clearly historical account in Genesis does conflict with secular conclusions, one will hear, ‘Oh, you don’t understand the genre of the literature.’ Genesis needs to be seen as ‘just’ a theological statement devoid of any connection to the real world—thus avoiding dispute with the other faculties.
Competition for students creates commercial pressure to seek secular approval for the degrees they award (accreditation). This tempts them into theological compromise. They will spend a lot of time voicing doubt on the reliability of the Bible, treating it as just another piece of ancient literature, rather than respecting it as the holy Word of God (‘What is God saying to us?’—see Matthew 22:31). Thus, students too often graduate with little confidence and zeal for God’s Word.
The Academy, a Medieval Christian invention, now has a thoroughly anti-Christian worldview. It has no room for God. You can’t marry your theology to this without doing serious damage!
Indeed, I spoke at a church in the UK where the pastor shared with me how he had lost his way. He had imbibed the works of the academic theologians. He no longer knew what he believed and intended to resign. Then he heard a presentation on biblical creation. The penny dropped as to what had destroyed his faith. He changed direction (repented1), and got on board with biblically faithful teaching, especially about origins. This restored his confidence, and he resumed ministry with renewed zeal for the Lord and His Word. And so, he had invited me to speak at his church. He greatly regretted the lost years and the people whom he had harmed. But now he was making up for lost time.
We need to see this repeated in other churches that are in the wilderness. But we desperately need to see such repentance in the Bible colleges too.
2 Thessalonians 2:3