Moved by an "Evangelical turned Agnostic"

I love to backpack. I love taking my wife and boys out into the wild and living in it. I don't do it enough, but we have spent many a night along the Wonderland Trail of Mount Rainier as well as nights in the mid-summer air of Mogollon Rim of Arizona. Nearly heaven.

So, I subscribe to Backpacker magazine. The December issue came and finding myself too busy to really sit down and read it, I finally picked up the magazine during a quiet moment in a small room adjacent to my bedroom (if you get my drift). My eye was caught by an article written by Michael Perry who described himself as an "Evangelical turned Agnostic". Being a pastor, I had to read his artlice, "Running the River Righteous".

I looked online for the article, but it's still on the newsstands and you can't find it online. I wish I could type it out for all of you to read, but it would take days (the man is prolific). It describes a rafting trip that he took through the Grand Canyon with 34 other people who were all fundamentalist Christians as they "toured" the canyon for proof that the earth was created in a literal 6 days.

Let me pause here for those who may not know me well. I believe in the God of the Bible. I believe that it holds the truth and that God has used Scripture as a tool to commicate His heart with His creation. At the same time, I am not sure that I believe that the world was created in six literal days. I fully believe that the Bible can be understood very clearly as saying that the earth was created in six periods of time (See Hugh Ross). I find it disconcerting that many Christians are so militantly against anything but a literal six day creation, when there are so many more important things to discuss in Scripture. That said, let me get back to the article.

Perry says throughout the article that he comes from a great home, with a great family. He speaks of enjoying the morning and evening devotionals throughout the trip and the rousing hymns that were sung around the campfire. All throughout the article he speaks of wanting to believe. Yet, his intellectual understandings of an old earth keep him from claiming their truth. That and the sermon he heard before the trip started. Let me quote.

"After hymns and prayer, a preacher from ICR got to going, and brother, could he bring it. I like some good preaching, and this was that. He paced the riser, he found his cadence, and he worked it. He took it up, and he took it down...He mentioned Carl Sagan, and did a little billions and billions impression. Then the preacher came to a full stop, stage right, and looked out at us...then said, "By the way, ol' Carl knows what's going' on now!" The congregation bubbled with chuckles...And I'll tell you he lost me right there. You want to lure me back, brother, show some compassion. Before honor is humility, if you'll allow me a little Old Testament. Dropt o your knees and pray through tears that our fellow sinner Carl might yet be redeemed. What you had here was a jig danced on a lost soul. I'd heard those chuckles before, from peple of my own congregation, as they listened to one of our preachers recount how he turned his back on a struggling member after he caught her wearing shorts. From that day I have tried to reconcile the deep goodness of my childhood church with its poisonous little seams of petty certitude. I found myself doing a similar thing the canyon, trying to reconcile the chuckles on the rim with the sincere smiles around me.
The thing is, as we float deeper into the canyon and creationism, I want to believe...

He ends the article with a statement, The jouney of faith is constant - there is grave danger in assuming you have arrived."

I have little left to say but my heart was broken because Christians have allowed an inexact science and cinicism to allow Perry to walk away from a nine day boat trip with only good memories and a further commitment to staying clear of those who think they have arrived.