“Who’s the Ross?”
Recently, a young pastor of an influential church emailed me asking about scientist and professing Christian Dr. Hugh Ross. I was happy to oblige, as I had spoken at his church many times last year. There are many “winds of doctrine” both in religion and in science these days. The Bible warns that “spirits of strong delusion” will be turned loose upon the earth in the last days. That is certainly happening now. Who is Dr. Ross?
Ross is an astronomer who talks a lot about biology. Well, I’m a biologist who talks about astronomy, but at least I am a state-certified teacher of Earth Science, which includes astronomy. Ross is the author of the Progressive Creation theory. It says hundreds of millions of years ago, God created prehistoric creatures and then they began to go extinct. So, God began creating new and improved life forms to replace these that had failed. Eventually, He worked His way up to – you guessed it – us. Ross’ organization is called Reasons to Believe, and it has many chapters on college campuses all across the country. However, there are many reasons, both scientific and scriptural, not to believe Dr. Ross.
The first, and worst problem with Progressive Creation is death coming into the world before sin. The church in the early years A.D. gave this as one of the red flags to the detection of heresies. Paul taught that by one man sin came into the world and by sin came death. Therefore Jesus, the second Adam, had to bring redemption into the world for us all … which is why we celebrated Easter earlier this month.
Secondly, Ross serves to give Theistic Evolutionists an out for their missing-link problems. Since there were no half-steps between the species because God just created new ones from scratch, then there wouldn’t need to be any link fossils in the sedimentary rock beds on the earth.
Third, it’s just a compromise. Evolutionists and atheists do not respect this, but instead only mock us for having no stomach for a direct confrontation with what they consider “proven scientific facts” of Darwin’s theories. Ross’ works are most appealing to those in the church who are embarrassed by the Bible’s history of the creation found in the Book of Genesis. They are selling their birthright for a mess of pottage, I am afraid. And along with this theory, comes a full acceptance of the Big Bang model of the universe, which has been in serious doubt, especially recently.
In short, Ross is not the boss. And I don’t think that anyone should allow themselves to be taken in by his or any other of the compromise theories out on the market today. Sola scriptura, folks. Only the Scriptures. We’ll be on safe ground both theologically and scientifically only so long as we follow that age-old dictum.
Keep thinking. DrJ
