On Sunday September 25th, the Washington Post published a story called “In Evolution Debate, Creationists Are Breaking New Ground.” Out of all the potential stories about Christians out there — murderous persecutions in China, enslavement of Christians in Africa, the role of Christians in the Katrina cleanup — the Washington Post chose to write this one. Go figure.

Young Earth Creationists hold a very narrow construct of the Bible and claim that the earth is only 6,000 or so years old. I don’t buy into that construct for many scientific reasons, including the following:

• We have earthly evidence that contradict the idea of a 6,000-year old earth such as Ice cores from Greenland that provide a record of approximately 110,000 winter and summer cycles.
• Measurements of lead isotope ratios (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204) give statstically reliable ages for the earth of approximately 4.5 billion years.
• Given that the speed of light is relatively constant, how is that objects millions of light years away from earth can be seen? Yes, God COULD have created the light already in transit when he created the universe, but is that really like God?

God would have to be playing games with us to, say, create ice cores that are only 6,000 years old even though they show that 110,000 summers and winters have passed since the layer of ice was first created. God doesn’t lie and I believe that his creation shows its true age.

The Biblical construct does not support the idea of a young earth either.

• The Bible states that the Earth is very, very old. Genesis 49:26, Deuteronomy 33:15 and the Habakkuk 3:6 speak of the “ancient” or the “age-old hills”.
• The Hebrew word for day (yom)has multiple meanings in Genesis 1. Yom means: “light” as opposed to “darkness” (Genesis 1:5); “day” commencing with “morning” and ending with “evening” (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31); “day” as opposed to “night” (Genesis 1:14,16,18); “day” with no end (Genesis 2:1-4) and the period of the entire creation ‘week’ (Genesis 2:4).
• God does not experience time like we experience time. The psalmist wrote “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by…” (Ps 90:4). The apostle Peter quotes this when he says that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years…” (2 Peter 3:8).

One of the arguments of Young Earth Creationists is that those of us who believe in an old earth are somehow limiting God by saying that God NEEDED long amounts of time to create the universe. That’s a bogus argument. God didn’t NEED oodles of time but he apparently CHOSE to use oodles of time. God COULD feed all Christians with manna from heaven but he ordinarily CHOOSES to use more mundane things like tasty cows and yummy potatos. Just because I bought my lunch today instead of waiting for manna to fall from the skies doesn’t mean that I believe in a weak God.

Are Young-Earth-Creationists fighting the wrong battle? I think so. The whole creation saga takes up about 2 pages in my 800-page Bible. It’s more concerned with “who” rather than “how” or “when.” If the “when” of creation were really such an important topic, then God would have devoted more time to it in his revelation to the prophets. God appears to be much more concerned with our present lives and with our eternal futures than with the past.

The evidence indicates that the earth is very, very old. However, that’s not really all that important in the scheme of things. I believe that God created the earth and all things within it. I believe that the Bible is true and inerrant. I have huge problems with Darwinism that are related to its shaky scientific foundations, not any perceived conflict with the Bible.

We need to devote our time to telling others what a relationship with Christ can do for their lives now and for eternity. The debate about the age of the earth is mostly just getting in the way. Let’s put things in perspective and stick to the important topic of how Jesus can change people’s lives when they accept him as Lord and Saviour. The best thing that we can do for non-Christians is to introduce them to Jesus, not offering them debates on how old the earth is.