My son is a Christian Scientist

Or, I suppose, a Christian little-s scientist. That's what he told us tonight.

Erik wanted to do a timeline with Carl; to verbally go through time discussing major events. Now, we're Christians, and we believe God created it all--the earth, the solar system, the universe. In addition, Erik is very science-minded. For awhile, he'd been going through the early stages of the earth (he has them all down; I can tell you Jurassic...). When I would say that God created that, he'd say "Mom! I'm saying what scientists think, not what Christians think.

A few months ago, I found a wonderful powerpoint slideshow online, which went through creation from an "old earth" viewpoint. It was perfect for our old earth beliefs (and that is, if you're not in the know, the belief that God created it all, but not in a literal 6 days, and that the earth is older than 6000 or so years old). I would put it in here, if I could find it again. I'll search for it later.

At any rate, that helped Erik to be able to join the two viewpoints, and to understand that God creating the universe doesn't have to be in conflict with scientific thought.

So tonight he requested that he and Carl do a timeline, talking about what scientists believe, and what Christians believe, and joining the two, to say what Christian scientists believe. (Yes, I am aware that there are Christian scientists who believe in a young earth creationist view. Don't worry, we discuss that, too. It just doesn't make any sense to Erik!) They worked themselves through the "days" of creation, through all of the time periods, through ancient history, through church history, and to the present time.

At the end, Erik declared himself a Christian scientist. Yes, I think he is. We'll save the discussions about those "Christian Scientists" for later.