Some of my loved ones visited the Creation Museum, a sister-attraction to Noah’s Ark in Kentucky. That made me interested in reading about it–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum, https://creationmuseum.org/. I plan to visit there sometime because I worship the Creator, I love His creation, and I think the account of Noah’s ark in the Bible is an amazing miracle of God. However, I am concerned that these popular attractions are operated by a ministry which strongly promotes a young-earth creationist view that the universe was originated by God under 10,000 years ago, and that God then created living things. Though I have not heard Creation Museum people say it this way, last year I heard a similarly-thinking radio preacher mock the theory of evolution—”that life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species (perhaps a self-replicating molecule that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago), and then it branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species” (written by Jerry Coyne in Why Evolution is True). He went on to say that those who hold that kind of view need to repent. Woahh, preacher(s), “repent!?” How many young people of your churches who are in school learning about different ways things may have come to be, with some honest confusion, now feel more confused, and condemned, and perhaps distancing themselves from church? How about those who are not in the Church, but considering learning about God and the Church, but are at a different place of understanding than you? Strong rhetoric can cause expanding grand Spiritual canyons, which we are to be concerned about.
I write this post, not taking a personal hard stance on how I believe God originated everything, and with the caution that I don’t want to water-down what we understand as Truth or syncretize understandings of things just to bring about unity. That would be a danger of stepping onto slippery slopes while not anchored well enough. To personally deal with these kinds of issues, I have intentionally studied subjects like evolution and the big bang as I didn’t learn about them in my Christian education as a student. From my studying, I have learned that there is much science and fossil records that give the theories of evolution and the big bang some solid grounding. I have learned also that there are many Christians, including Christian scientists (https://biologos.org/) as well as conservative theologians and pastors whose position is evolutionary creationism. They may not read Genesis 1-2 as literally as some do, but that does not mean they are therefore less biblical in their approach.
I encourage each of us—believer or not—to be open to the thought that there is plenty of “gray” and not just black-and-white, as we take on the responsibility of bridging grand Spiritual canyons.
(By the way, if you want to learn more about evolution, from perspectives of both non-believers and believers, I suggest you consider reading two books—Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne, and The Language of God by Francis Collins.)