This week while finishing up our unit on Evolution vs. Creation in 7th grade Life Science, I added a lesson I have never before taught. Within in the realm of Creation Science, there are varying beliefs on exactly how the earth was created and how long that creation took. While I am not sharing my thoughts on this lesson to open up an argument about which view is correct, I am offering that it is important to think about what we really do believe.

This lesson introduced the difference between a literal interpretation of Genesis and other views that are considered “old-earth” views. My lesson started with an explanation that while I do not believe that one’s opinion on this topic determines salvation, I do think it is important to really think through “why do we believe what we believe”. You may disagree with my approach, and I can respect that. I would ask that you stay until the end.

What do we believe?

A literal interpretation of Genesis is accepted by Creation scientists, pastors and Christians that believe the book of Genesis as it is written. If Genesis says “evening and morning were the first day”, it will be taken as that- literally, it was one day. Other views bring in the possibility of that description not being “literal”.

• Gap Theory– belief that there was a gap of time between day 1 of Creation (Gen. 1:1) and the remaining days (Gen. 1:2); the thought is that the original creation was destroyed and then God created again (check out this link for more details if you are interested- https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/gap-theory/)
• Day- Age Theory– belief that each day of Creation was not a literal 24 hours period but rather longer periods of time-ranging from thousands to millions of years (check out this link for more information- https://creation.com/topics/day-age-theory)
• Progressive Creationism– belief that God created new organisms over time with gaps of thousands to millions of year in between (check out this link for more information- https://www.icr.org/article/progressive-creationism)
• Theistic Evolution- belief that God used evolution as the mode for Creation (check out this link for more information- https://answersingenesis.org/theistic-evolution/)

What do my 7th graders believe?

Some of you may be asking why I would bring such a “grown up” topic into my 7th grade science classroom. Valid question. My answer is “why not”. I fear that sometimes as Christians, we avoid hard discussions for a variety of reasons: maybe we do not know what we believe ourselves, maybe we do not understand the material being discussed, maybe we can not analyze views that do not match our own, maybe it scares us. Please know that I did not just throw this random lesson at my students. We have spent a month building to this discussion.

Students then broke into groups and created information boards for each of the Old Earth Theories and then shared and explained those with their peers. We posted these information boards in different locations around the room.

Students were then asked to consider one of the theories. “If I choose to believe that this is the way God chose to create the earth, what does it mean for my faith? Are there any conflicts?”

Here are a few of their responses.

This lesson does continue with a class wide discussion of their thoughts.

Here are a few questions I would like to encourage you to consider.

• How do I determine what I believe?
• Do I consider what I am being taught from others?
• Where does ultimate truth come from? How do I find that?
• Does it matter what I believe? Why or why not?

While many will feel that 7th grade is too young to consider such big thoughts, I would suggest that is the purpose I serve as the teacher. I could tell them what I think they should believe but how deep does that go with them? If they are provided with the adequate framework, students should be challenged to think for themselves. What do they believe? Why does it matter?

We should all be asking ourselves that question as well.

What do I believe? Why does it matter?