You can’t just ignore the evolution debate

I generally like World magazine. Oh, there’s plenty I disagree with in every issue, but one thing editor Marvin Olasky and his team just seem to get that so many other Christian publications don’t is that the core expression of our faith is in ministry to humanity. I’ll regularly be punching the air at their blind adherence to evangelical mainstays like neoconservative politics at one moment, and at the next, blinking back tears as they highlight Christian individuals and organizations making the kind of difference in the world that I regularly campaign for but all too rarely see in action.

For the last twelve years, they’ve recognized individuals who they find to have used their big stage influence to courageously stand up against a predominant but ungodly culture/power/ethical system. These individuals are deemed “Daniel of the Year”. This year it’s none other than Intelligent Design advocate Stephen Meyer.

Yes, this is actually a picture from the magazine.

The article presents all kinds of pathetic accounts of how beleaguered by Darwin worshippers he and other ID proponents are (“ID proponents regularly receive that type of harassment: No lion’s den, but denials of tenure and media depiction as anti-science”) along with a heaping helping of wishful thinking about the success of ID (“…scientific advance is now backing ID…”). At times it’s enough to make it difficult for anyone who actually pays attention to the debate (rather than some cheerleading news filter for either side) to refrain from slapping his/her forehead at the oversimplification and misinformation.

But these criticisms aren’t why I’m calling attention to this article. For what it’s worth, Stephen Meyer, as a truly courageous advocate of what he believes, who actually stands up and debates mainstream science advocates, certainly deserves the recognition of people who share his beliefs, so this choice should at least be acknowledged as internally consistent.

I’m calling attention to something else. It was my wife who pointed out to me when I groaned after seeing the cover of our issue of World that this recognition from yet another high profile Christian media source relates to my post, “How big a deal is this evolution thing, anyway?” and the related poll (currently in the sidebar). As I realized when I posed that question, some of my friends and other Christians aren’t so sure why I harp on this subject: “Does it really matter that much?” My wife admitted that she has sometimes wondered if she’s only really aware of the debate because her crazy husband’s off on some tangent, but as she pointed out, this is not some passing fancy for only a few of us. The debate is a mainstay.

In corroboration of this observation, at the time of this writing, there are only 45 votes in my poll, but I find it not insignificant that no one has yet voted for merely “Unimportant”, although 3 have voted for “Worse than unimportant” — important that we ignore the debate, that is, which is in effect acknowledging its significance.

This debate isn’t going anywhere because neither the devoted scientists nor the devout special creationists are letting it drop. The real problem is that neither the loud devoted atheists (not at all the same group as “devoted scientists”) nor the loud devout special creationists are content to let the Christian faith stand without special creationism as firmly attached as an arm or a leg; non-naturalistic explanations are presented as tied to the very mast of Christianity. Yet I guarantee you, in a few hundred years when everyone but a tiny fringe group of Christianity acknowledges common descent (most likely with no detectable direct supernatural causation), the faith will remain nonetheless. I’m just intent on seeing Christians take the lead for discovering and championing what’s true.

No, not every Christian needs to spend all the time I do embroiled in this discussion. But please, do try not to stand in the way while people like me attempt to clean out the Church’s garage before being presumptuous enough to clean out theirs, particularly since doing so invariably results in their rummaging through our own garage. Their penchant for discarding even what’s precious as useless junk when doing so has led to muddled agnosticism and angry atheism far too many times for us to simply take a “wait and see” approach.

Heck, if you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to this famous quote from St. Augustine:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn…

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Translated by J.H. Taylor

Related posts:

1. Evolution and evangel(ical)ism The poll in my sidebar asking Christians how important they considered the faith/science debate to be ran for four months as of yesterday. In that time,...
2. Why the debate over creationism matters Recently I have been involved in a couple conversations with folks who aren’t really “informed” (I use the term loosely) creationists but have been hounded...
3. Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins...
4. Theodicy and evolution Cliff Martin continues his interesting discussion of the apparently conflicting ideas of the loving Christian God and the God who ordained the sometimes brutal processes...
5. The origins debate: more than evolution From the Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth, comes this gem of an op ed (Star-Telegram.com). The debate...