Compromising Christian Professor Receives Accolades from Secular World

Davis A. Young is Professor of Geology Emeritus at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Young taught for many years at Calvin College (a well-known “Christian” college—but sadly one that undermines the authority of Scripture to generations of students as they are taught to believe in millions of years/evolution, etc).

Recently, Davis Young was given the 2009 Mary C. Rabbit Award by the History of Geology Division of the Geological Society of America. (The list of past winners is very impressive:  Martin Rudwick, the late Stephen Jay Gould, David Oldroyd, Stephen Brush ...)

Here are excerpts from his acceptance speech that clearly show what he was teaching (and others do teach) to the students at Calvin College—deliberately focusing on attacking those groups like AiG who stand on six literal days, young earth, global Flood, etc.:

My profoundest gratitude to the History of Geology Division for bestowing this honor on me. To have my name on a list with previous Rabbitt award honorees, such as Rudwick, Oldroyd, Marvin, Albritton, Bork, and Torrens, leads me to believe that I accidentally awoke in a parallel universe this morning...Concurrent with my enthusiasm for geology was another passion. My father was a professor of Old Testament. One of his professional interests was the Genesis creation story. I became ever more curious about the relationship of geology and the biblical creation account. Realizing in graduate school that young-Earth creationism was spreading throughout the Christian community, I set out to explain the fallacies of young-Earth creationism and flood geology to church and college audiences in articles, books, and talks. I spent the final 26 years of my 36-year teaching career in Grand Rapids at Calvin College, a Christian liberal arts college operated by the Christian Reformed Church. Calvin takes it for granted that its faculty members will integrate history, philosophy, and theology into their specific disciplines. That was the ideal environment for me.

In writing on the relationship between Christianity and geology, the important role of religion in the historical development of our science was driven home to me. I also learned that young-Earth creationists often made inaccurate comments about the history of geology. My writing increasingly incorporated historical aspects of the relation between Christianity and geology. Because of my uncompromising stance against a 6000-year-old Earth and against flood geology, my books became controversial in some Christian circles. During the late 1980s, I and two other colleagues at Calvin College became the targets of vocal constituents within our denomination. Calvin strongly defended the three of us, but that didn’t make me any more popular with the advocates of young-Earth creationism.

In 1995, I published The Biblical Flood, a book on the history of ecclesiastical interpretation of the flood story. [Editors note:  This book ardently promoted that Noah's Flood was a local event--not a worldwide catastrophic event.]

... Since retiring from Calvin College in 2004, I have resumed writing for Christian audiences, because various forms of pseudo-science doggedly persist within large segments of the church. My most recent book, The Bible, Rocks and Time, co-authored with my paleontologist colleague at Calvin College, Ralph Stearley, was specifically targeted at the “geology” of young-Earth creationism. We determined to root it out once and for all, but, of course, that is an unrealistic dream. Still, we have received many responses from individuals indicating that their eyes have been opened. The first five chapters of this book summarize in popular form the development of ideas, mostly geological, about the age of the earth. Although I have returned to addressing science-religion issues, history of geology has irrevocably become an important component of my intellectual life.  I am humbled, delighted, and most grateful for the award. My profound thanks to GSA’s History of Geology Division for bestowing this incredible honor on me.

No wonder we have a major problem in the church—with 2/3rds of young people leaving, as we explore in our new book Already Gone. No wonder we see such a devastating loss of biblical authority in this nation. Sadly, professors like this—and the colleges they teach at—are all a part of why biblical authority has been undermined in the church and nation. God's people need to repent of such compromise and return to the authority of God's Word beginning in Genesis.

… let God be true but every man a liar … (Romans 3:4)

The entire acceptance speech can be found here:  www.geosociety.org/awards/09speeches/rabbitt.htm

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