NEAC issues

Sir, The Rev Canon Craston’s letter (7 August) highlights the work the NEAC conferences did in helping evangelicals understand the issues surrounding scriptural inerrancy. But there was an undercurrent in 1967 driven by some old deistic and atheistic machinations that were not addressed then or in 1977.

It was in 1967 that evangelical theologian Derek Kidner had published his commentary on Genesis. He reflected on the 1961 book by the American theologian (John Whitcomb) and scientist (Henry Morris) entitled The Genesis Flood. This, as a powerful apologetic, had stirred many Christians very forcibly away from evolution. But the mistake made by Kidner and many evangelical theologians since has been to down-play that book on the basis that few scientists and geologists have failed to go along with the Whitcomb/Morris thesis that the fossils are the product of the Noachian Flood, not a record of evolution.

By suggesting that Christians can ignore that thesis of the Flood and stay with evolution, evangelical theologians have missed the point that the very reason why many, but not all, scientists and geologists ditched the reality of the Noachian Flood as a recent global event was because they did not want to be reminded of the Bible in any shape or form.

Those such as Lyell who lead this diversion away from Moses’ historical record from the 1830s into this unjustified uniformitarianism we have today were at best deists or unitarians. Modern atheists have simply jumped on the same bandwagon. Christians need to ask awkward questions rather than tailgate evolutionists. We are still dogged with the documentary hypothesis and J,E, D and P contributions to Genesis when there is geological evidence to the contrary. Why?

Dr J Matthews, Wareham