Everyone has a worldview whether they realize it or not. Some people know and understand their worldview inside and out. Others have come into it through their upbringing; through their parents, college courses, the TV shows they grew up watching or through reading certain books. Whether subtle or abrupt, how you view the world around you molds the way you think, reason and react. The way you look at things might not fit into a pretty little mold, definition or term but I often run into homeschooling parents who don’t quite understand what they truly believe about creation and evolution. To help put things into perspective, and to help understand what certain terms that are thrown around in the evolution/creation debates I will explain in part a few viewpoints on the topic.

Theistic Evolution

This belief agrees with the basic concepts of the evolutionary theory but states that God was the one that guided it. In this belief system, one believes that the world is billions of years old and that man evolved from the ape. Christians that I have spoken with who agree with this teaching have argued that the Bible says, “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day,” 2 Peter 3:8. Therefore, the six days of creation were not literal but allegorical. They hold fast to Darwin’s teachings of evolution, to the existence of cavemen and the big bang theory but believe that God ordained it and was in control over it all.

Day-Age Creationism

This theory also does not believe that the six days of creation were literal 24-hour days but that each day represents a geological ages formulated in 1913 such as the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Proterozoic. Using phrases in the Bible such as “in the days of Noah,” or “in Abraham’s day,” Day-Age Creationists believe that God is the Creator but leaves room for modern interpretations of science to be assimilated into the church’s belief system.

Young Earth Creationism

This belief system, which I adhere to, believes in a literal 6-day creation that occurred around 6,000 years ago. If you call yourself a young earth creationist then you most likely do not believe in cavemen, but that Adam and Eve were literally the first people created. They were created in the image of God, in His likeness and were highly intelligent. Men lived with dinosaurs but the dinosaurs were wiped out during the flood and any other dinosaurs (dragons) that survived after the flood were killed off by humans.

Obviously, this is not a scholarly write-up of these theories but just a simple explanation to help you understand better what people are talking about when they mention these terms. I know that I have talked with Christians in the past who thought they were young earth but then they begin mentioning that they believed that the sun was billions of years old. Or I have talked to others who said they believed that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on earth but also had no problem with the theory of evolution. In my mind, it did not seem to fit until I understood that there are many different variations of these belief systems.

What do you believe? If you don’t know, I would encourage you to study the Bible, pray and ask the Lord about how you should approach this topic on your homeschool. If you already are convinced in what you believe, be sure to find a curriculum that aligns to your belief system. I use Apologia since I am of the Young Earth belief system.  If you don’t seek out a specific curriculum according to your belief system, your children will be taught by whatever they just happen to come across. If you get your books from the public library, they will be taught evolution, guaranteed. I suggest, if you buy secular books, to either wait until they are old enough to differentiate between the different theories or engrain in their mind what you believe the Bible teaches so they do not simply assimilate whatever they read without a filter.

First, you as the parent needs to know what you believe, then be sure to actively and purposefully teach your children the same so when they grow old, and go off to college or into the “real world” they will not depart from it.