By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
Recently, I spoke at a creation group in Dayton, Ohio. The month before, only eight attended, and we had no idea how many would be at my presentation.
It turned out the room was packed with over thirty people, including two pastors and a missionary interested in apologetics. We met in a restaurant because no church would open its doors to us. For related local faith perspectives, see Column: A FRESH PERSPECTIVE – Palm Sunday + 3. The restaurant more than welcomed us.
On their own time, between helping with dinners, the waitresses helped set up the literature table and purchased about thirty books. One of the pastors bought one copy of every book on the table — more than $200 worth.
If I want to publish another book, sales are critical. Publishers require enough sales to break even before they consider publishing a new book.
My audience was very well informed, and the Q&A portion was one of the best I can remember. I am often asked for a sample presentation before I am invited to a church.
The Dayton creation group published a summary of the one I gave there. This is only one of 40 presentations that I offer, but it is one of my most popular. It is said that the best sermon a preacher has ever given is his testimony.
I have learned through public speaking that my prodigal son experience is by no means unusual. People often come up after my presentation to recount an experience not too different from my own. The following is from the Dayton creation group newsletter:
The highly credentialed special speaker for this year’s ARK banquet was Dr. Jerry Bergman. He holds nine degrees, two PhDs, and several master’s and bachelor’s degrees. His talk was on “From Atheist to Creationist — One Professor’s Story” about his own journey to faith in Christ.
Jerry was raised by an atheist father and an inactive Lutheran mother. When he was five years old, he attended a Sunday School class, for which his father “blew his top” when he found out.
At this church, the Christian call to accept the salvation message was presented on a felt board, which Jerry accepted.
Later, through evolution teachings in college, he embraced the beliefs of his father. Dr. Bergman became very involved in the atheist movement, publishing papers and working with prominent atheists including Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Gordon Stein and Gerry DeYoung.
Jerry even became the faculty advisor to the university student atheist group. He soon became very disenchanted with the atheist movement.
Some of the reasons included the many inaccuracies in their literature, which blamed Christianity for things like the Crusades and many wars.
He learned many atheists were ex-Christians “with an ax to grind.” He did not agree with the aim of many atheist leaders who wanted to eliminate religion, first from the public square and later from the private sphere. Many even openly wanted what amounts to an intolerant society with no room for theists.
It took time, though, for him to accept a theistic worldview. Eventually, he concluded, based on science alone, that the evidence for Darwinism did not hold up; then he concluded that God, or at least a creator, must exist. But what religion, if any, is true? It took more research and extensive reading to finally conclude that Christianity was indeed true.
Largely as a result of all his research — first on evolution, then on Christianity — he has now contributed to over 2,000 publications in 14 languages, now held in 2,400 libraries across 65 countries.
He believes he has an advantage over Christians who were raised in the church because he has a better grasp on the central issues, having seen them from the other side.
Much of the rest of the talk was used to provide examples of evolution’s many blunders. Dr. Bergman opened with the statement that “Research proves evolution true, but going the wrong way!” — meaning that the accumulation of mutations is making life worse, not changing us into something better, as evolution claims.
Some examples he gave of evolution getting it wrong include the vast genetic difference between ape and man (approximately 15 percent of 3 billion base pairs, or roughly 450 million genetic differences), the so-called evolution of the whale from a land animal, and evolution’s complete inability to explain the origin of male and female sexual reproduction.
For more on faith and worldview topics, see IS IT REALLY SO? – Interview With An Atheist.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. He has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com
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