Why Doesn't Answers in Genesis
Tell You the Truth?
February 26, 2009
About a month ago I wrote a brief
article regarding a sermon Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached on July 17, 1855. What makes this sermon notable is that Spurgeon made his view of
creation clear. He believed planet Earth is millions of years old. Here is the
passage on creation from the sermon titled "The Power of the Holy Ghost":
"In the 2d verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we read,
‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' We know not
how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be-certainly many
millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through
various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its
surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came,
wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the
world to confusion."
The timing is interesting. Note the date. This
sermon was delivered some four years before
Darwin published his Origin of Species
in 1859. Yet Spurgeon, universally acclaimed as a conservative, Bible-believing
preacher was already preaching some
form of old-earth creationism from his pulpit at New Park Street Chapel.
My initial article caught the attention of
someone else who was shocked about Spurgeon's statement. He wrote his
own article on Spurgeon's sermon, expanding on what I had said earlier. My
point was that Spurgeon would have been characterized as a "liberal
evolutionist" if young-earth creationist organizations were consistent in their
criticism of old-earth creationists. According to them, Bible teachers and
preachers who accept an ancient universe are guilty of compromising with modern
science and atheistic Darwinism.
I curiously waited for "The
Power of the Holy Ghost" to show up on the AiG website. It arrived right on
schedule, but guess what I found when I read the sermon? Compare the original
with AiG's "updated" version to see the difference for yourself.
Here is the original again:
“In the 2d verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, we read, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe
may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has
passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures
have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before
that era came, wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the
Creator gave up the world to confusion.” Full text of original edition
is available online here.
Here is Aig's "updated" version of the same
passage:
"In Ge
1:2, we read, ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.' Our planet has passed through various stages in creation, and
different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been
fashioned by God. But before that era came, when man should be its principal
tenant and monarch, the Creator initially created the world as a chaotic mass
on the first day of creation." Full
text of AiG's "updated" edition is available online here.
Did you catch what is missing? This sentence was
entirely removed:
"We know not how remote the period of the
creation of this globe may be-certainly many millions of years before the time
of Adam."
Poof! Gone. Like it never existed.
Spurgeon's sermon has been sanitized for the AiG
audience. Apparently, the reality of Spurgeon as an old-earth creationist is
too much for AiG to allow the viewing public to know about. They even rewrote a portion at the end to change
Spurgeon's statement that "the Creator gave up the world to confusion" to make
it appear that Spurgeon said merely that "the Creator initially created the world as
a chaotic mass on the first day of creation." And presto! The editors turned
Spurgeon into a young-earth creationist, even
though he said no such thing.
This handy-dandy doctored version of Spurgeon's
sermon expunges anything young-earth advocates might find offensive. But it
also reveals something about AiG. They are willing to literally rewrite history when it serves their own
agenda.
I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised about
AiG's dishonesty. People have been complaining about shenanigans like this from
AiG for years. But it does raise a question in my mind. If they are willing to
brazenly misrepresent Spurgeon's views, even to the point of deleting
"sensitive" parts and re-writing Spurgeon's words to make it appear he preached
nothing but young-earth creationism, then what else might AiG be lying about? I
mean, if they are willing to do this with something as widely available in
public as Spurgeon sermons, are they trustworthy in more obscure and technical
matters such as scientific research? Would they fudge on those details if they
didn't line up with their young-earth doctrine?
Why doesn't Answers
in Genesis tell you the truth?
Apparently, AiG has just inserted a note to the portion of Spurgeon's sermon in question titled "The Power of the Holy Ghost."
Here is the addition that just showed up this morning:
--------------
(a) [We do not know how remote the period of the creation of this globe
may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our
planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different
kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been
fashioned by God. But before that era came, when man should be its
principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the world to
confusion. He allowed the inward fires to burst up from beneath and
melt all the solid matter, so that all kinds of substances were
commingled in one vast mass of disorder; the only name you could give
to the world then was, that it was a chaotic mass of matter; what it
should be, you could not guess or define.] Bracketed text removed from
the sermon. As brilliant as Spurgeon was, even he did not understand
the age issue. –Editor
**Please also note that this footnote was intended to be in the
original posting, but was lost somehow in the transition of these files
for web publication. Thanks to our astute readers for finding and
reporting this error.
-------------
At least now they tell you that they have edited Spurgeon's teaching on creation. You see, Spurgeon was "brilliant," but AiG is even smarter!
