LANGHAM, Sask. — The Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches has amended its doctrinal statement to say the first 11 chapters of Genesis are literal history.
The new statement is “an anti-evolution statement, not anti-science,” said Blaine Donaldson, the FEBC president, according to Fellowship Focus magazine.
Delegates at the July 17-20 assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve the statement.
“Chapters 1-11 of Genesis are rightly understood as accurate, literal history, as Jesus and the New Testament affirm,” the statement says. “God created the universe and all that is in it through direct, immediate activity without macroevolutionary process.”
Delegates expressed the importance of what congregations teach about creation, Fellowship Focus reported.
Chuck Tschetter, pastor of Community Bible Church in Omaha, Neb., said a pastor’s view of the creation account in Genesis “affects how he stands on the rest, how he thinks about God’s Word.”
Donaldson wrote in Fellowship Focus: “If creation is undermined by this generation in the evangelical church, by the same set of rules the resurrection will be undermined in the next generation. This is exactly what has happened in mainline churches.”
The FEBC includes 44 congregations — 24 in Canada, 19 in the U.S. and one in Paraguay. It is the former Evangelical Mennonite Brethren, and some congregations retain the EMB name.
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