Creation Based Apologetics

So the other day I asked my lad if he would be interested in doing an apologetics course.  He surprised me by saying yes! As he’s reaching the stage of questioning everything it’s good to give them ideass to think through and answers to consider.  I thought about doing a creation based apologetics course with him and thought I’d share the results of my research with you. 

Why Creation Apologetics

Depending on your child, they simply might not have thought through the truths of scripture or given much thought to how non-creation science connects with the bible.  There is so much we don’t know.  Like for instance, I don’t believe in evolution but I can’t explain how speciation/natural selection makes a cat look different in one climate over another.  How some wild cats are large like jaguars and snow leopards and other wild cats are as small as a housecat but very feral.  How this happens makes zero sense to me so when people question it all… I understand that.  Having resources to help make sense of all it matters. 

Making a point of studying creation apologetics gives over dedicated time to your student so it gets done.  I don’t know about you but I have a busy teen.  Working, schooling, helping around the house, and spending time with friends takes up the bulk of his time.  Finding solid time to actually think through faith, science, and it’s interconnectivity isn’t the easiest thing for a teen to do.  Therefore adding it as part of his course load makes it much more doable. 

Types of Creation Apologetics

Now, I’ve long known that people have different ideas about evolution.  Some believers are creation scientists all the way through to the bone, others don’t quite get how there are dinosaurs and mammals…. and so called proofs of evolution.  Others again are like me and don’t buy into evolution, but natural selection and the sheer variety of animals and the interconnection of species is a bit mind-boggling. Yet other believe in intelligent design and there are a variety of takes on how that works.  Designer created and then left everything to evolve/naturally select, on it’s own. Or Designer created and then guided changes.   It’s actually quite interesting to see how people try to make it all fit together, and sometimes try to meld two worlds together. 

Biblical Creationism: follows the teaching in Genesis.  God created all life.  Tends toward a young earth philosophy. 

Intelligent Design Movement:  This movement wants to encourage discussion by not only teaching evolution, but to encourage the asking of questions considering alternatives to evolution.  This means looking critically at evolutionary ideology, considering the flaws in evolutionary theory, and keeping an open mind to alternative explanations.

Progressive creationism.  This thought process is that God created life over a period of millions of years. It takes an old-earth approach, and believes that new lifeforms emerged fully-formed not slowly through evolution at different times. 

What I found

Answers in Genesis takes a very biblical, creation as written in the bible approach.  They have a six courses in creation apologetics.  They used to do it as one Master Class.  Now each of those courses is done individually and each contains several lessons within. 

Creation Illustrated, the magazine.  Produces good articles, might answer questions, or spur some additional thinking.  Not a curriculum per say, but creation-biblically based.  Could make a creation based apologetics course out of several magazines I think.   If you are interested, I reviewed unit studies from them a while back. 

You could check out BioLogos. They do hold to an ancient view of the earth, and believe that evolutionary theory can be reconciled with the Bible’s teaching about Creation.  Francis Collins (the head of the human g-nome project) teaches the course on DNA technologies and ethics. Worth checking out.

Another resource to check out is Reasons to Believe. Even just introducing teens to their website would be a good thing. Their online learning resources look good, but their courses were geared more to college age. They do, however, have an Educator’s Help Desk page that has tonnes of resources to help you find a suitable curriculum, along with a list of recommended resources. Note: some of their recommendations are secular sources, and some are Christian. You may want to watch their video on using secular textbooks to hear their rationale. They makes some good arguments.

If you look on Christian Book Distributors you’ll find a whole whack of books from a creationist viewpoint.   With some time you could easily put together an apologetics course that is creation based. 

Have I missed anything?

So tell me, have you found any creation based apologetics courses?   If so, please tell me!   I’d love to check them out.

I recently discovered Reasons to Believe, a series of courses relating science to faith.