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Why CMI doesn’t answer all your questions

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As CMI-USA’s Information Officer, one of the most enjoyable parts of my job is answering questions from individuals across the world. They make me think about many ideas in different ways, and I’m constantly challenged to improve my answers as I’m challenged on my weaker points. I’ve even had to admit that someone changed my mind on an issue.

But the most common answer I have to give is, “I can’t answer your question.” That’s not because I don’t have a well-considered position on the issue, or because I don’t think it’s important. It’s because at CMI, we don’t want to be your all-in-one repository for every sort of theological question. We have a very specific mandate, and that’s to equip Christians regarding the scientific and biblical evidence for creation. Along with that, we defend core Christian doctrines like the Trinity, the virginal conception of Christ, the Resurrection, and the Deity of Christ. But we don’t take corporate positions on issues like baptism or eschatology because those are issues where brothers and sisters in Christ disagree and have little to do with our mandate. This is because on these issues, the authority of Scripture is assumed, while in the origins debate, the authority of Scripture is directly challenged by evolution and billions of years.

Many times, people write in and ask us to take a position on something like the Sabbath that would alienate a large portion of our readers. Or they even write in and confess deep, dark sins that they haven’t told anyone else about, because they feel more comfortable unburdening to a random person on the Internet. It’s very hard to not give them the answer they’re looking for, but it’s far more loving to give them the answer they need. What is that answer?

CMI is not the church

Jesus has given us a place to take our theological questions and to get help if we’re struggling with sin or difficult circumstances in our lives. That’s the church. God never intended for us to live the Christian life alone, disconnected from a local group of believers to whom we’re accountable.

While each person at CMI is a member of a local church, CMI itself is not a church, so we don’t pretend to fill every need a believer has that the church would normally fill. And so sometimes the best thing I can do for someone with a question is to disappoint them by refusing to give them an answer.

CMI serves the church

CMI is a parachurch ministry. That means that we seek to come alongside churches and help to equip them in this vital area. Pastors and church members often comment after having a CMI speaker visit that it has been extremely helpful in encouraging them regarding the truth of Scripture, from the very first verse.

Part of serving the church is recognizing when someone should really be going to their pastor for an answer to a particular question. If someone is asking a question that requires more discipleship or care than I can give in a short email answer, I’m very quick to tell them that I’m not the right person to help them. But I always follow that up by encouraging them to talk with their pastor (and if they don’t have a pastor and a local church, to find one quickly!).

This approach produces fruit!

One man wrote in with questions that he said were shaking his faith. I responded to his (very simple) creation questions, but told him that because they were making him question his faith, he needed to talk to his pastor. Before too long, he wrote in with more easy questions, which I answered, but again told him he really needed to talk to his pastor. When he wrote in a third time, I could have answered his questions, but I refused, telling him that his problem wasn’t that he had questions, but that he was disconnected from the church, and that he shouldn’t be surprised that his faith was unstable since he was disregarding God’s own means for strengthening our faith.

I forgot about him for a time, but months later he wrote in and said that he had heeded my advice and found a church. In being under the preaching of the Gospel, he realized that he had, in fact, never trusted in Christ, and as a result, he came to genuine faith! His email was to tell me that he had been baptized as a public display of his new faith and no longer had any doubts about his faith. Pointing him to the local church revealed his need for salvation, something that I could have never ‘diagnosed’ from a distance.

A duty to disappoint

It may seem odd that ‘experts’ have the duty to disappoint people, but that’s often my job. CMI is a specialist ministry that focuses on biblical creation, and we want to help equip Christians to refute evolution, but we’re not your church or your pastor, and we don’t want you to view us that way.

By all means, come to creation.com with all your questions, and write your questions in if our over-10,000 article archive doesn’t have the answer you’re looking for. But if it’s a question that you should be asking your pastor instead, don’t be surprised if I tell you that you need to ask your pastor!

Published: 11 January 2018

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