Science, as we know it, is a very modern phenomenon – only a few centuries old in fact – and well after the time of Christ. In those times the stars were held up in some sort of scaffolding only a short distance above Earth. Nobody would venture out too far to sea because no one knew where the end of the Earth was.

And so a God, sitting on a golden throne just out of sight, was a real possibility. The underlying truths buried in the Old Testament are overloaded with “decorations” to make them more striking to their audiences. Today they are simply ridiculous.

If we are to recapture to Christianity the young of today we must present a story that is credible in the light of today’s knowledge of the world and the cosmos. Our understandings of the universe tend to downgrade the actions of chance and point to some incredibly powerful entity that created all this. Similarly, the findings of science continue to throw doubt on the very much accepted theory of organic evolution as suggested by Darwin.

So what must the churches do? Their ministers must be people of wide education, with knowledge of the physical world as well as of the humanities. They have a cast-iron case if only they will find it and present it clearly.

– John Mills
Matamata