IBe << have you mentioned some who could equate to billy Gram, or Hank HaneGraaff?? NO >>
BTW, I have
Hank Hanegraaff’s books and information on evolution, and basically he relies on secondary creationist literature (mainly ICR stuff, and some Ken Ham AiG material). There is no first hand presentation of scientific evidence from primary sources in his books. Therefore he makes many mistakes, since he doesn’t check any of his creationist arguments or quotes against the hard science textbooks. I doubt he ever talked with or interviewed real scientists before he wrote his anti-evolution books. Hank’s DVD on the “Face” and “Farce” of evolution is also extremely poor in its scholarship, although I commend Hank in other areas (his battles with the pseudo-Christian cults, etc).
Billy Graham, on the other hand, SUPPORTS evolution. He has no problem with modern science. It does not conflict with how he interprets Genesis.
“I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things that they weren’t meant to say, and I think we have made a mistake by thinking that the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of redemption, and of course, I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe.
I believe he created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point he took this person or this being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man…I personally believe that
it’s just as easy to accept the fact that God took some dust and blew on it and out came a man as it is to accept the fact that God breathed upon man and he became a living soul
and it started with some protoplasm and went right on up through the evolutionary process. Either way is by faith and
whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.”
(from
Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man by David Frost [Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1997] pages 72-74)
This comes from a talk and information by Denis Lamoureux, an evolutionary creationist with Ph.D.'s in both biology and theology. Very similar to a quote from
Pope John Paul II I have presented in here before:
“Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.” (Pope John Paul II, 10/3/1981 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,
"Cosmology and Fundamental Physics")
In short:
(1) the Bible is not a scientific treatise;
(2) the main point of Genesis 1 is that God is our Creator;
(3) the Scripture uses the cosmology in use at the time of the writer (not a modern cosmology);
(4) the Bible wishes to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens were made;
(5) any other teaching about the origin and nature of the universe is alien to the intentions of the original biblical authors.
Billy Graham and Pope JP2 are definitely in agreement here.
Phil P