Tuesday

rock on

You know those ubiquitous church signs that say things like (this is what's on the sign at the church at the end of my street at the moment): "Give Satan an inch and he'll become a ruler"? Those signs?

Well this morning I saw one I just don't get. It said : "Pay more attention to the Rock of Ages and less to the Age of Rocks."

Can anyone explain to me what this means? Post comments below.

--Katie

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

They mean disregard geological evidence that the Earth is more than about 8,000 years old. That's what the Rock part means.

Inkwell said...

Yes, basically they are saying, "Science is irrelevant in the face of faith. Observation, experimentation and theorizing are insults to God, who obviously doesn't want us to understand the world we live in. That is why "He" made it such a boring place, right?"

Anonymous said...

It's a paraphrase of something William Jennings Bryan said at the Scopes trial. I can't remember the exact quote, although (obviously) he said it much better.

Observation, experimentation and theorizing are insults to God, who obviously doesn't want us to understand the world we live in.

That's not what they mean. Ok, it may be what the pastor at that church means, but it's not what WJB meant.

Steve K.

Anonymous said...

Here's the exact quote:

"Christians desire that their children shall be taught all the sciences, but they do not want them to lose sight of the Rock of Ages while they study the age of rocks."

Steve K.

Anonymous said...

"Rock of Ages" is a famous hymn written by Thomas Hastings in 1830.
The "rock" in rock of ages is God...

I don't think the marquee was saying anything complicated about science and religion---just that one should pay more attention to the sacred (God) than to the secular (rock music, etc)...

Anonymous said...

ooops, let me rephrase my above reponse--I didn't see that final rocks was plural...so pay more attention to God/the sacred than to the the "scientific" age of rocks (geology)...I agree with what people have said except for the part about what rock (capital R, singular ) means---that definately refers to god.

Anonymous said...

Roy Blount wrote about seeing a t-shirt with this on it:

The Savior: Tougher Than Nails