How to conduct brain surgery in 45 minutes

iStockphoto

A rewiring or renewing of the mind is often required—even for Christians

By Gary Bates

Originally appeared in a CMI Newsletter in May 2014

Creation Ministries International is a global ministry with offices in six countries. We employ scientists and other credentialed staff who collectively conduct around 1,200 presentations, mainly in churches, each year. But why? Each month we send you newsletters and ask you to be involved in some way; e.g. by obtaining resources to equip your own families and others, or to send us financial gifts so we can continue to produce life-changing resources, or to allow us to continue to expand our outreach—or to simply ask you to uphold us in prayer. We demonstrate time and again that all of these are effective in changing lives, but it might surprise you to hear us state that CMI should not really need to exist! But we do, because of a major ‘problem’.

Why CMI?

Ask any pastor and, if he is honest, he will tell you that there are lots of problems in the church for him to deal with. Broken marriages are on the increase, and it’s increasingly difficult to get folks motivated and involved in programs and activities. And, of course, it is well documented that our youth are leaving the church, because quite simply, when life’s difficulties hit, many hit the road because they think that God has abandoned them in their hour of need. But there is really one major problem (aside from the fact that we all have an inclination to sin), and that is that the Bible is not really the supreme authority in the lives of Christians that it should be. Most often we deal with the symptoms instead of recognizing a major factor that causes faith to ebb. That is, providing people with a greater depth and understanding of God’s Word and its big picture purposes for our lives. And it all starts in Genesis.

The mustard seed cannot grow in poor soil

It is normal to doubt. God gave us a reasoning mind and does not expect us to have a completely blind faith. Christians, like anyone else, generally become more satisfied and thus more motivated when they can get answers to their doubts. But the opposite is also true. When Christians try to defend what they think they believe, they often encounter well-informed and equipped non-believers who take aim at them with apparently solid sounding objections to the Bible. This is a nice ‘get out of jail card’ for some who desire there to be no God in their lives. But the same questions often become stumbling blocks and thus create the aforementioned ‘major problem’ for Christians. Their confidence in the Scriptures and their faith in God is undermined as unresolved doubts eat away like sulphuric acid in the fuel tank of a car. It gradually corrodes the engine (the power plant). It can look nice and shiny on the outside as they sit and worship in the pews, but on the inside their horsepower is being sapped. So, for us to increase confidence in God’s Word, we must simply know what those doubts are in advance and try to deal with them before they become the reason for the aforementioned problems.

Don’t avoid the hard questions—deal with them

There is absolutely no question that the greatest source of attack on the authority of the Bible is coming from secular science. And as a result, the most attacked book in the entire Bible is the book of Genesis. And as one pastor I recently heard preaching said:

What does this mean? Well, let’s think about it. From Genesis we understand our fallen state and why bad things happen on this planet. It provides the basis of the need for a Saviour and why it had to be the sinless Creator Himself. If we can take the Creation account in Genesis at face value, it also means we will have confidence that God can create a New Heavens and Earth to set us free from this sin cursed world. After all, if He did it once (according to His Word), He can do it again!

We’ve all been ‘evolutionized’ to some extent

One of the major areas that most leaders and lay Christians don’t realize is that the overwhelming majority of people in our churches have been educated in the realm of secular scientific interpretations of our world. “Hold on”, some might say. “But I never took science classes in high school or college.” While this might be true, every day, somewhere, we and our children encounter the mantra that the earth is billions of years old, that man evolved from apelike creatures and dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago. It’s not only what is taught at school, it’s in our books, on television and in some of the most popular movies ever made. In short, most of us have been indoctrinated into these ideas.

We can vouch from all the emails we receive each week; from all the feedback and interaction at our ministry events that the number one mistake most Christians try to do is to insert millions of years into Genesis … somewhere!

And as the saying goes, if I had a dollar for every one of these concepts we’ve heard, I would be a rich man! But why do they do this?

To overcome this, people need to think ‘Bible first’. But most pastors and leaders don’t realize that when someone invokes millions of years, that is a ‘secular science first’ approach. And that long-age interpretation of the world is based upon philosophical naturalism, and that excludes any notion of a supernatural Creation in the first place. In short, it is not an idea one gets from Scripture alone. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:2:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (emphasis mine).

Elsewhere, the Lord Jesus tells us:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27, emphases mine).

So, how does CMI ministry address this?

When Christians try to insert millions of years or add evolution to the Bible, they are really indicating that there is a dual authority in their lives, and that they are not ‘Bible first’ (even though many think they are—which is exactly ‘the problem’). As the Lord also said elsewhere “One cannot serve two masters.” So, one of the key elements in any CMI presentation in a church is to help the lay Christian understand the faulty premise that the idea of millions of years is based upon, namely that it is a naturalistic interpretation of the geologic layers we see all over the earth. In our presentation in churches, we show that:

1. Evolutionists believe that slow and gradual process over eons of time deposited the layers. The biblical interpretation is that the Bible’s history records a worldwide Flood that could account for the vast majority of the geology we observe today.


2. Secular ideas say these layers record biological evolutionary history on Earth over millions of years. The Bible says “For they deliberately overlook this fact … the earth … was deluged with water and perished” (2 Peter 3:5).


3. The fossils are a record of God’s judgment of the earth. The evolutionary interpretation would put millions of years of death before Adam and Eve, and thus, the Fall (demolishing a core doctrine of Christianity—no sin and death before Adam—in the process).

Not surprisingly, when this logical flow of arguments is presented by a CMI speaker, the ‘scales plainly fall from the eyes of believers.’ It’s radical brain surgery in just 45 minutes! But once the veil has been lifted the believer’s doubts start to dissipate, and they are more open to the Bible’s history being able to stand up strong in an ‘age of science’. In short, CMI information starts the process of renewing the mind by unwinding the years of indoctrination that come from secular education. For example, Maria V.L. wrote:

Let’s make a pastor’s job easier

I’m sure all Christian leaders would agree that many of our ‘church’ problems would be helped if people simply believed and followed God’s Word. Especially, when there are so many Christian institutions who have capitulated on Genesis history. Andre B. saw this when he wrote to us:

Imagine pointing out relevant passages and not hearing “Yes, but!” This is why CMI exists—we ultimately point people back to the truth and authority of Scripture. We encourage you to talk to your own pastors about having ‘brain surgery’ in your own church. CMI charges no set speaker fees and our events team does most of the legwork for the church. Use this form to contact our Events Managers.

Related Media

Science, the Bible, and the Age of the Earth (Creation Magazine LIVE! 8-04)