So How Did I Become Such a Closed-Minded, Bible-Thumping Creationist Anyway?

Political Cartoon from Dana Summers from Townhall.com

To answer the question in the title of this blog, all one has to do is look around!  Do you really like what you see?  If you do, are you the person in the above cartoon who is disgusted and offended by the nativity scene?

The small section, after the quote below, is from my Journal, March 29, 1996, and it describes how my brothers were the ones to bring me to Christ to begin with.  I don't discount my mom's influence, however.  I don't know if any of us would have ended up going regularly to church if it had not been for Mom's Christian faith while we were growing up, though we were not a "church family" (As kids, we did go to a church for a couple of summers, but it was without Mom and Dad, and I also remember a few Catholic services here and there with Mom's family through the years).  After a rough childhood among Nazarenes, Dad seemed skeptical of several Christian doctrines, particularly why God would allow good people to go to hell (something many people struggle with, and a main reason many people choose for themselves not to believe), and yet it was from Dad that we kids all got our rather far-right, conservative view of the world, though it took several years for this unpopular ideology to bloom.  All these years later, we are still devout church-goers, still right-winged conservative Christians, and my sister seems to be the most outspoken, passionate, and yes, even confrontational of all of us with the forces of this world and nation that seek to silence and belittle Christians, and further their very un-Christian agendas.  You go get 'em, Kim!    

"Maybe God is trying to tell you something."

          - Margaret Avery as Shug, The Color Purple (1986)

See the video linked here

My older brother Scott was trying to get me to go to that church, but I wouldn’t go.  He tried to convince me that the belief I had in evolution was wrong, but he couldn’t remember all the facts he had which invalidated the theory of evolution, and he wasn’t very good at arguing in favor of creationism.  Like me, he’s better at writing.

     But then my twin brother Terry convinced me to go to a few services and immediately a pastor named Walt Brown gave a series of lectures on creationism vs. evolution.  Scott was excited and so was I, and I went with him to these lectures.  I bought Brown’s book In the Beginning and, despite the reservations my Uncle Herb has on this theory and this book, I became a true believer in creationism.  That was the turning point for me, and ever since, I’ve been studying the Word of the Lord.

     And so Uncle Herb has been trying to share his pantheism with me, and then all of the sudden my church gives an entire series on cults, the New Age movement, Eastern religions, and how to defend my faith (apologetics).  All the tools I need!  Like some of the characters in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, maybe God is trying to tell me something!  First the creation lecture and now this!