The most efficient way for a powerful group to rally its members is to convince them that it is constantly under persecution.
Greenback, does your church have a newsletter? If so, you might want to submit an article to it explaining why you are a Christian who accepts evolution, depending on how your talk with your pastor goes. You write quite well here and there are tons of arguments in GD which you can use to support your position.
I wish you luck, and I’m also looking forward to reading about your talk with your pastor.
CJ
Funny enough, I came across this article on Fark just yesterday before first reading this thread. Perhaps it can help in your talk with your pastor? I do find it a little blunt and at times condescending, but it does sum up quite a few good points!
I’d sure stick around for the fun if I were him.
No newsletter with regular distribution. We’re a small town so when there are enough issues to fill a newsletter, one goes out. That is a good idea, although I’m not sure how much of a pariah I want to make myself 
I will definately give a summary of my conversation with the pastor. I’m hoping and praying that he will be open enough to listen to my side. Time will tell. I was talking with Mrs.Greenback and she agrees that had the pastor preached on creation, I would have left it alone. However, once he said that it was a foundation of salvation, I had to engage him.
Thanks for all the posts.
Remember that Intelligence trumps Ignorance, and you hold a full house in spades of the former …
['ol pirate voice]
“Luck be with ye, matey!”
[/'ol pirate voice]
Lucy
Greenback
I wish you well in this but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high. Every time I have tried to challenge this kind of belief I have stumbled on the Bible being inerrant and any other viewpoint being a snare of the devil. Hopefully, your persuasive powers are far better than my own.
Regards
Testy
Well, if it’s any consolation, after a series of discussions with a young woman who believed all non-Christians were going to burn in hell and that Catholics weren’t Christians, I pointed out to her that she had pretty much condemned everyone I love to hell, leaving me in heaven with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. In my e-mail, I told her that, given a choice between eternity with Pat Robertson or eternity in a lake of fire, the lake of fire was looking pretty good! :o
On a more serious note, even the most ardent evangelicals I’ve encountered concede that all that is necessary for Salvation is to accept Christ as one’s Saviour. There’s also the slight matter of Christ commanding us to love God with all one’s mind, as well as heart and soul. To me, to stop thinking and questioning, to close one’s eyes to the evidence of evolution and instead say, simplistically, “God did it” is to directly violate that commandment. Then again, I’m just an eccentric Anglican.
CJ
BTW, Kenneth Miller, the author of the “godless” “evolutionary-preaching” biology textbooks at the center of at least two of the trials I am aware of would be incredibly disheartened to hear this. He is an active Christian and a professor at Brown University. (…but that university is well-known for its atheistic beliefs. :rolleyes: ) I would mention the views of Pope John Paul II (i.e. that two truths cannot contradict each other), but I wonder how receptive to the theology of the Catholic church your pastor is.
Hey! It shouldn’t be that bad. You’ll have Mr. Chick as well, think of the comic books! 
Testy
Oh Sweet Lord, if that’s the choice I’ll happily bring my own sulphur! Gotta love those guys who insist in telling me that being a Catholic means I’m not a Christian, they’re as funny as the ones who tell me that being a Chemist means I’m out to destroy God’s work. And all this time I thought I wanted to understand as much of it as my poor little brain can fit in, :smack:
Evolution or creation? Doesn’t matter to me, because you cannot prove to me the world existed before July 31, 1961, nor can you prove it’s continuation past the day I die.
When I whip that out on the Bible-thumpers, they almost always spontaneously combust.
Don’t forget the four former Dopers that’ll be there!
I’d rather live in New Jersey.
…into a newt?
Did you get better?
Well great, man! Let’s put her in charge!
Well, why not? She survived longer than 17 days with no weapons and no training. That’s why she’s the best! [hits NCB with a doll]
Hopefully, your pastor will realize that by making it a foundation for salvation, he has managed to lose a soul, not save one (from his point of view).
I remember the summer I became non-Christian. It was exactly due to someone telling me what I needed to believe for his Christian God to admit me to heaven. I finally decided that any God I’m willing to believe in, doesn’t carry a clipboard with a checklist of dogma for admittance to heaven. Once I went there, it was an easy jump to being a good Unitarian-Universalist. If my rejection of Christ as God means I’m going to hell (which I don’t believe), my soul is on his head as much as he gets credit for any he saves.
To the OP, and being the Pit this may or may not be intended to induce ire 
So you disagree with your sect for some fundamental reasons.
Why do you attend?
Do you believe that your own beliefs must be incorrect and it is your fear of damnation that is keeping you there? If you truly had faith, you would agree with your pastor’s sermons right?
UP until this series, our church had never discussed origins and how it relates to salvation. In fact,the church’s position on creation/evolution is not in the statement of faith, although most hold to creation.
I believe in always questioning one’s beliefs so let me say that I am comfortable with my spiritual journey thus far and will continue with all sincerity to pursue Truth.
I believe that many christians can have differing viewpoints on many issues but I think that being a christian means a belief in salvation through Jesus. My point of contention is that my pastor stepped beyond theology and in to a realm that is inconsequential to salvation. However, too many parishoners just take what they are told and believe it. I guess I hope to provide an alternative view.
I completely agree. It’s one of the reasons I can stand my own church. They even complained when the local Republicans put flyers on the cars in the parking lot, and I’ll bet 95% of the congregation votes Republican. The leadership does a good job of not putting stupid words in Jesus’ mouth.