Remembering My Seminary Teacher, the Creationist

In my travels across the internet, I came across a creator who was talking about her upbringing in a flavor of Christianity that taught Creationism. As she was talking about the cognitive stretching she had to do to be out of step with the rest of reality, it brought to mind the experience I had with a seminary teacher who was a Creationist.

I remember her trying to do some kind of calculation during a lesson and trying adjust it for the earth only being thousands of years old. Several of her children were in class with me and rattled off the information she wanted without hesitation. That's what she taught in seminary and our Sunday School classes, even though it's not what the Church itself teaches about the Creation.

What does the Church officially teach about the timeline of the Creation? It's a non-committal shrug with the acknowledgement that there are more important things to focus on about the Creation than how long it took.

Years later, I was in a classroom at BYU with one of the most conservative professors on campus. He pointed out that the Creationist timeline makes no sense, even within the Biblical record itself, because it's based on the timeline of seven literal 24 hour days.

"How is this possible for there to be 24 hour days when the sun and the moon weren't created until the fourth day?"

He chuckled wryly, smiled, and said "I shouldn't do that to people," with no real sign of regret. It was such a brief interaction, but it freed me from any kind of loyalty to a Creationist worldview. I've stuck with that ever since. There is no requirement for me to base my faith on what is observably false, just because other people do.

Mormonism encompasses so many different worldviews, from the most incomprehensible and observably false narratives from evangelical Christianity to the "God is a Scientist who Uses Scientific Processes" that I experienced from my professors at BYU. It's very much a Choose Your Own Adventure, whether church members want to admit it or not.

We might as well embrace the cafeteria approach to religion because it's what people in our religious tradition have always done. Everyone chooses the interpretation of the world around them that is consistent with the relationship they want to have with reality and the people in it.

I can't stop people in the Church from needlessly believing in Creationism, but that doesn't mean I need to adopt it because it's what they're teaching their children.

The fact that my worldview is not identical to the person sitting in the pew next to me is a feature, not a bug.