How Should We Read the Book of Genesis? Interviews With Dennis Gordon

By Dennis Gordon

Dennis Gordon, with a PhD in zoology and an ordained minister, comments on how we should read the book of Genesis. He offers a constructive way to think about issues of creation and evolution, as well as a Christian's responsibility toward the world God has created.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grace Communion International
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476306506

Book preview

How Should We Read the Book of Genesis?

Interviews With Dennis Gordon

Copyright 2012 Grace Communion International

Published by Grace Communion International

Table of Contents

Introduction

Creation, Evolution, and Genesis

No Contest! Why the Argument Over Genesis?

How Did God Bring About the Rich Variety of Species on Earth?

Should Intelligent Design Be Taught in the Science Classroom?

Duty of Care? What Is a Christian’s Responsibility Toward the Rest of Creation?

About the Publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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Introduction

This is a transcript of interviews conducted as part of a video series sponsored by Grace Communion International. This series is no longer available in video format. However, we do have a different series available: You’re Included: Video Interviews With Trinitarian Theologians. You may watch them or download video or audio at https://learn.gcs.edu/course/view.php?id=58. Donations in support of this ministry may be made at https://www.gci.org/online-giving/.

Grace Communion International is in broad agreement with the theology of the people we interview, but GCI does not endorse every detail of every interview. The opinions expressed are those of the interviewees. We thank them for their time and their willingness to participate.

Please understand that when people speak, thoughts are not always put into well-formed sentences, and sometimes thoughts are not completed. In the following transcripts, we have removed occasional words that did not seem to contribute any meaning to the sentence. In some cases we could not figure out what word was intended. We apologize for any transcription errors, and if you notice any, we welcome your assistance.

Our guest in these interviews is Dennis Gordon, who earned a PhD in zoology in 1973, and was ordained as a Christian minister in 1980. He worked as a biologist in a government research organization in New Zealand, serves a GCI congregation in Wellington, and is an Associate Member of the U.K.-based Society of Ordained Scientists. In this e-book we also include some articles that Dr. Gordon wrote for Christian Odyssey magazine.

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back to table of contents

Creation, Evolution, and Genesis

J. Michael Feazell: Dennis, it’s a pleasure to have you here with us. It’s been a long journey to get here from New Zealand through Orlando, through Germany, but we’re glad you’re here today. Would you mind beginning by telling us your story of how you became a Christian?

Dennis Gordon: I became a Christian at the age of 28 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was doing my doctorate there, and the year was 1973. In fact, I became a Christian in the same year that I got my doctorate. But what led up to that was that I caught the World Tomorrow broadcast on the local country-western radio station…not that I was interested in the music. In fact, one of the reasons that I listened to the program was so I didn’t have to listen to country-western music. The program was interesting. I was biblically illiterate, and the broadcast raised a number of interesting questions, among which was origins. The fact that the view espoused in the program was an old-earth one as opposed to a young-earth one caught my interest because the young-earth controversy was quite alive and well back in 1973.

JMF: Well, as a parenthetical, tell us what young-earth and old-earth is all about.

DG: The young-earth idea is that the universe and planet earth are not more than 6,000 to 10,000 years old. That idea is taken from Genesis 1 according to a particular interpretation of what Genesis 1 is saying.

An old-earth view would acknowledge that the universe is as old as scientists say it is, but at the time, what was also presented was the gap theory, that between Genesis 1:1 which is, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the second verse which says, And then the earth was without form and void, and the idea was that something happened between an original creation, which could be very old, and a re-creation, which might have happened only 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. So those were the two ideas. The fact that the program did not espouse a young-earth idea grabbed my attention. It had some credibility in my mind.

JMF: And so from there you became more involved with the church…

DG: Yes. I got listening to the broadcast on a regular basis over a period of a couple of years and then I started writing to the church, to the Personal Correspondence Department, and received some answers that were quite well thought out. There was a hook, you might say. It turned out that God was calling me, and I responded to that. It became so compelling at one point that I simply couldn’t deny this…when God really reveals himself to you, there comes a point in time where you can’t deny that, where you simply have to respond and make a choice, and that’s what I did. So I was baptized on March 11, 1973. Haven’t looked back since.

JMF: And at that time you were in your doctoral studies.

DG: Yes.

JMF: Can you tell us about that trajectory? How you got into marine biology and how things progressed?

DG: I’ve always, ever since a child, been interested in nature. There’s something about the living environment that is beautiful and interesting and attractive, and it just draws you in. Not everybody necessarily is wired that way, but I was. I didn’t necessarily think that that would be my vocation in life. In fact, I always wanted from a young age to be a schoolteacher. I always wanted to teach. I ended up teaching, but not the way that I expected.

So I was drawn into that, and I went to university and I studied botany and I studied zoology, and I eventually majored in zoology and then I focused narrowly again into marine zoology and looked around for a place where I could do a doctorate, and it turned out to be Dalhousie University in Halifax, which is a very good school. They have a fantastic school of oceanography there, and that’s where I enrolled. I did my doctorate looking at the anatomy and aging process in a marine fouling invertebrate.

Considering evolution

JMF: As you were going through that whole process of getting up to the point of narrowing down, working on your doctorate and so on, and before you began to read the Bible…had you