Is Old-Earth Creationism Compatible with Christianity?

Old Earth creationism is the belief that God created the Earth in the order described in Genesis by creating plants, animals, and people separately, but that it took billions of years instead of 7 24-hour periods.

I’ve been teaching a really fun series in my College Sunday School class where we tackle tough questions about science and the Bible.

One of the classes we were comparing Young Earth Creationism, which is honestly what I was taught growing up, to Old Earth Creationism. Typically the thought behind young earth creationism is that the “days” in the Genesis creation account were 24 hour days, and the genealogies in the Bible are complete pictures that tell us how old the Earth is.

However, between 5-7 years ago I stumbled upon GodAndScience.org that talked about Old Earth Creationism and it really changed my mind. Now I think an old-earth view is 100% compatible with a literal interpretation of the Bible, as long as you look back at the original Hebrew understanding of the words rather than the English understanding.

But in teaching this Sunday School, I’ve noticed that most of the college students still hold to the traditional view from their childhood of Young Earth Creationism.

What do you think?