{"id":8060,"date":"2021-07-22T04:03:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T04:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8060"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:40","slug":"still-undecided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8060","title":{"rendered":"STILL UNDECIDED"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I was in seminary I had a suitemate who had a simple litmus test for true Christianity: If you didn&#8217;t believe that the Creation happened in six literal days as related in the first chapters of Genesis, you simply were not a real Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wasn&#8217;t so sure that he was right about the literal days, but I didn&#8217;t want to debate him and risk exposing myself as a heretic.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today we visited the Ark Encounter. That&#8217;s Ken Hamm&#8217;s elaborate recreation of Noah&#8217;s Ark on a Kentucky hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210721_173703_HDR-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t know that Hamm would agree with my seminary friend about it being a litmus test of true faith per se, but he unapologetically espouses a strictly literal reading of Genesis and the rest of Scripture.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will confess to going into the Ark with many reservations &#8211; not really knowing what to expect and fearing it might be cheesy. I left with a feeling of respect for the effort and an appreciation for the work and thought put into the project.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still not convinced that Genesis requires a literal reading across the board though.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was in seminary I had a suitemate who had a simple litmus test for true Christianity: If you didn&#8217;t believe that the Creation happened in six literal days as related in the first chapters of Genesis, you simply were not a real Christian. I wasn&#8217;t so sure that he was right about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8062,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions\/8062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}