I recently watched a video of The Michael Coren Show out of Canada. Mr. Coren's guest was a prominent evangelical Christian philosopher from a California school of theology who appeared to defend the existence of God and the need for a personal relationship with God. However, when asked "How old is the world?" this brilliant Christian scholar confidently stated, "The best estimates today are around 13.7 billion years." Mr. Coren was thrilled. "This is a position I can embrace because there are people who will sit here and say that it's six and a half thousand years old." The philosopher seemed amused, but concluded that such a position is not plausible.

"The arguments that I give are right in line with mainstream science," he said. "I'm not bucking up against mainstream science…I'm going with the flow with what contemporary cosmology and astrophysics supports." What about dinosaurs and man co-existing? "There are some 'creationists'--they typically style themselves 'young earth creationists'--who believe that," he stated, obviously disagreeing. The Bible, he said, gives no evidence for dinosaurs and men living together or for the young age of the earth. He's just "going with the flow."

I don't recall anywhere in Scripture where the concept of "going with the flow" was a good decision. For example, all mankind, save eight individuals, literally "went with the flow" and drowned because they refused to heed God's specific revelation. Mainstream scientists of Noah's day would likely have stated the impossibility of a global flood. No doubt Noah was considered a fool for building a big boat that, according to the experts, would be unnecessary. But Noah's "foolish" obedience to the Word of God "condemned the world" (Hebrews 11:7).

Jesus spoke about "going with the flow" in Matthew 7:13-14, and it's clear the "mainstream" He spoke of was headed the wrong way.

National Geographic is now televising "scientific" opinions that say the biblical plagues in Egypt really happened, but not as the Bible records; it was global climate change! In the 1970s, science experts predicted the next ice age. Now it's global warming. Paleontologists argue that elastic flesh and blood tissue from dinosaur fossils must be millions of years old, but biologists say that's impossible. Geologists claim that the earth's strata were laid down gradually over billions of years, but today's scientists have witnessed these same types of strata form in just a day as a result of catastrophe, as in the case of Mount St. Helens' eruption 30 years ago this month.

So what has "going with the flow" brought us? Contradiction upon contradiction, leading to doubt in the biblical record. We expect this on secular campuses, but not in the classrooms of evangelical Christian schools. The need for clarity on the accuracy and authority of Scripture couldn't be more vital.

Don't go with the flow--swim upstream.

* Mr. Ford is Executive Editor at the Institute for Creation Research.

Cite this article: Ford, L. 2010. Going with the Flow. Acts & Facts. 39 (5): 3.