'Christian' singer: Jesus may have lied about Adam, Noah

Lisa and Michael Gungor of the Christian band Gungor

Michael and Lisa Gungor of the Christian band Gungor

An award-winning Christian singer is being blasted this week by the head of Answers in Genesis after the performer suggested Jesus may have been wrong about the creation story, or possibly even lied about it to fit in with popular culture.

Michael Gungor, lead singer of the Grammy-nominated worship band Gungor whose hits include "Beautiful Things," "Say So" and "Dry Bones," made his comments in an August podcast of The Liturgists.

"I think you're making a lot of assumptions based in a perspective that was handed to you from our culture, and the way we think in the modern world is very different than how people thought in the pre-modern world," Gungor said during the program.

"To just see a few words that somebody said, that Jesus said about Noah, and you assume that you can get into Jesus' mind and know exactly how he thought about the whole situation, and how He considered history versus myth versus whatever – how do you know?"

"And even if He was wrong, even if He did believe that Noah was a historical person, or Adam was a historical person, and ended up being wrong, I don't understand how that even would deny the divinity of Christ. The whole idea of the divinity of Christ being fully human and fully God, that God lowered Himself to become a human being with a human brain, in a human culture with human language and human needs and human limitations," he explained.

"The point is it wouldn't freak me out if He was wrong about it, in His human side. But I still don't see the issue. If Noah and Adam were mythical ideas, the point of what Jesus was saying still applies to me. ... It has very little to do, in my perspective, with Jesus trying to lay out a history of the world for a historical-minded people. ... Even if Jesus knew that Noah and Adam were mythical, but knew He was talking to people who thought they were real, that's another possibility. Jesus was just referring to a story he was part of to these Jewish people that know that story," added Gungor.

Why does the Bible say "You are gods" and believers will sit on the throne of Jesus Christ and judge angels? Find out in your personally autographed copy of "The Divine Secret" by Joe Kovacs right now, or get autographed copies of both "The Divine Secret" and the classic "Shocked by the Bible" bundled together!

Jesus Himself talked about people and events recorded in the Book of Genesis, stating in the Gospel of Luke, for instance: "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:26-27).

Gungor, who previously believed in biblical creation before accepting the concept of theistic evolution, now thinks the creation account in Genesis is merely a poem.

"So to take the poem of Genesis 1, for instance, and try to make it into a science textbook is to just, is to kill the thing," said Gungor. "Now, I say poem because that's actually what it is. The way it's lined up and divided, with repetition and the days, how they're ordered, it is a poem. So, I think it absolutely has amazing value, and I think it has for billions of people for thousands of years."

"And for thousands of years or at least hundreds of years, people in Christian history have been saying things like hey, you can't try to read the Bible as a science book when science conflicts with the Bible and your reading of the Bible," he said.

"Re-read the Bible. Change that, because you're probably the one that's wrong; and if you don't do that you're gonna look like an idiot. ... The church made pretty big mistakes in the past ... thinking the world was flat," he noted.

Watch Gungor perform "Beautiful Things":

Gungor's views are now being slammed by Ken Ham, director of Answers in Genesis.

"If we can't trust God's word in Genesis, then why are we to trust His word in the gospels, particularly when Jesus affirmed Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood?" Ham told the Christian News Network.

In a blog post Monday, Ham wrote: "So not only does Michael Gungor deny the historical accuracy of the creation and Flood accounts, but he believes Jesus Christ was probably wrong, too! Or worse yet, that Christ might have just lied to the Jews about it. This is a sad place for a professing Christian to be in."

Ham explained Gungor had also recently written on Facebook, "There is a trend in modern society, no more than a trend ... a religion, an idolatry that elevates Scripture above Jesus."

Ham responded, "Jesus Christ Himself said the Scriptures testify about Him. And He quoted the Old Testament Scriptures while also teaching truths recorded in the Gospel accounts. Our God doesn’t lie and He doesn't change – so how could it be idolatry to take the Bible at its word? Such arguments are just rationalizations from someone who doesn't want to believe what the Bible clearly says."

Gungor's views have already cost him among fans, as at least one church canceled a concert, and a Wisconsin radio station removed itself from an event featuring Gungor, saying it "cannot be a party to introducing more doubt into the hearts and minds of young Christians already being fed doubt and lies by the world."