Monty White and Paul S. Taylor #fundie answersingenesis.org

In the last few years, another compromise of biblical truth has emerged, actually from within what might be termed the ‘Young Earth Creation’ movement. This compromise is the 'Recolonisation Theory.'

It is the sad duty of AiG to point out where otherwise conservative evangelicals have compromised on the truth of Scripture beginning with Genesis. It is all too common for evangelicals to be bemused by the claims of secular, evolutionary science, and to want to re-interpret Genesis to ‘fit in’ with these claims.

In the last few years, another compromise of biblical truth has emerged, actually from within what might be termed the ‘Young Earth Creation’ movement. Advocates of this new compromise, known sometimes as the ‘Recolonisation Theory’ and sometimes as the European Flood Model, claim to hold to a biblical creationist position. The ‘moderate’ Recolonisers, defined below, stretch the age of the earth very little, or not at all, whereas the ‘strong’ Recolonisers stretch their age for the earth to as much as 18,000 years. Both views, however, start with science rather than Scripture and therefore base their interpretation of Scripture on science, rather than the other way round.

The Recolonisers believe that the fossil record is to be understood more or less in the order in which evolutionary geologists picture it, although they dispute all the timescales. They see this fossil record as indicative of life recolonising the world after the devastation caused by the Flood of Noah’s time. They assume that the Flood itself is responsible for none of the fossil record, believing that organisms killed by the Flood have been totally obliterated, and therefore are not visible in the fossil record.

This Recolonisation after the Flood often requires the Recolonisers to lengthen the age of the earth by a few thousand years

There appears to be two distinct groups of Recolonisers. The ‘moderate’ group’s views are expounded at http://www.recolonisation.org.uk, and whereas not all believe in expanding the biblical genealogies,4 others would typically expand the genealogies to span a time of about 12,000 years, to allow stability by the time of Abraham (about 2,000 BC)—after, in their view, a time of huge post-Flood geological activity. Typical papers expounding their geology are by Garton5 Tyler6 and Johnstone.7 It must be emphasised that many of this ‘moderate’ group of Recolonisers are not compromising Scripture in their interpretation of the chronogenealogies, or the age of the Earth. It is the next group that causes us great concern. Indeed, the ‘strong’ Recolonisation view, described below, should cause equal concern to the ‘moderate’ wing.

This second group of ‘strong’ Recolonisers, which includes Stephen Robinson and Anthony Bush, goes further and pushes the Flood into a much more distant past. Bush is the owner of the wonderful Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm (www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk), a unique UK tourist venture which the authors still recommend for people to visit, despite our reserve for the one small display about Recolonisation

Moreover, even the views of those Recolonisers who do not expand the genealogies contain possible seeds of compromise. For example, their model of continental submersion after the Flood is problematic. Because the Recolonisers accept the geological column, and because the Middle East has a great deal of what is called Cretaceous rock, it follows that the Middle East would need to be submerged after the Flood, at the very time of the Tower of Babel events in Genesis 11. This has led some of the Recolonisers to speculate that the Ark actually landed in Africa, and therefore that continent was the host to the events of Genesis 11 and 12. This would seem to be a very weak position exegetically and historically. It is such exegetical weaknesses that led Professor Andy McIntosh and his colleagues to comment: ‘Their science is driving their interpretation of Scripture, and not the other way round.’16

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