Evangelicals divided over evolution

For many evangelical Christians, the debate over teaching evolution in public schools touches a vital spiritual nerve. Some see evolution as a path to perdition, while others see it as a crowning example of God's handiwork.

A legal battle in Dover, Pa., over the teaching of evolution and "intelligent design" has focused new attention on the issue, as have recent proposals in Kansas to change how evolution is taught there.

For David Wilcox, a biology professor at Eastern University, an evangelical college in St. Davids, the challenge is to teach students that it's possible to embrace evolution "without intellectual schizophrenia."

"Frequently, they've been taught that evolution is another way of saying atheism, and they just shut it out," said Wilcox, author of God and Evolution: A Faith-Based Understanding. "They say, 'Why do I have to learn this stuff - don't you know that God hates science?' "

"We have to make them wake up and smell the coffee. God doesn't hate science - he invented it. We try to get them to see that evolution happened and it's not so scary... that evolution is the way God did it."

"Evolutionary theists" such as Wilcox are part of a broader effort by the scientific establishment to defend evolution against advocates of creationism, "intelligent design," and other concepts that challenge all or parts of the theory of natural selection.

Evangelical Christians, sometimes portrayed as monolithic in their opposition to evolution, are as divided as much of the rest of the nation.

"No topic in the world of science and Christianity has created the intensity of discussion and disharmony with evangelicals as the source of biological diversity," says the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of scientists who are Christians. "Today's spirited discussion often pits Christian vs. Christian and scientist vs. scientist."

The nation's leading science organizations and the vast majority of scientists accept the theory of evolution as the explanation for the origin of all living things, but Americans in general are much less convinced.

Offered three explanations for the origin of humans in a CBS News/New York Times poll six months ago, 13 percent of respondents said they believed "we evolved from less-advanced life-forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process." Twenty-seven percent believed "we evolved from less-advanced life-forms over millions of years, but God guided this process." And 55 percent believed "God created us in our present form." The poll, which questioned 885 people, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Evangelicals who are "young Earth" fundamentalists dismiss evolution and subscribe to a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation, believing Earth is less than 10,000 years old. They often see the teaching of evolution as undermining Christianity and paving the way to immorality.

"What you believe about where you came from directly affects your worldview," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a fundamental creationist organization that is building a 50,000-square-foot Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. "If you can use man's ideas to reinterpret the book of Genesis, then why not use man's ideas to reinterpret morality?"

One of the newest wrinkles in a debate that has percolated ever since Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859 is "intelligent design." That is the concept at the heart of the battle in Dover, 25 miles south of Harrisburg.

Eleven parents have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the Dover school board from requiring biology teachers to present "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution. The parents say intelligent design is a religious argument and teaching it violates a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against teaching creationism as science. [Edwards vs Aguillard . ]

Intelligent design holds that natural selection cannot explain all of the complex developments observed in nature and that an unspecified intelligent designer must be involved. Its adherents say it is a scientific, not a religious, concept based on scientific observations, although they acknowledge its theological implications.

Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem and the author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, is an intelligent-design proponent and is scheduled to be one of the expert witnesses for the Dover school board when the case goes to trial in the fall.

He says religion is "clearly why [intelligent design] evokes such emotion... . People think it will support their religious views. It's not just another issue of science. If it were, no one would care."

Christian supporters of evolution say intelligent design, while rejecting "young Earth" beliefs, seems to require periodic intervention by the designer.

Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, is a Catholic and an ardent proponent of evolution and opponent of intelligent design. The author of Finding Darwin's God, he is to be an expert witness for the parents in the Dover case. [The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity," Kenneth R. Miller. Critique of Behe.]

"I think there is a God, and he is the creator of the universe," Miller said. "But the God of the intelligent-design movement is way too small... . In their view, he designed everything in the world and yet he repeatedly intervenes and violates the laws of his own creation.

"Their God is like a kid who is not a very good mechanic and has to keep lifting the hood and tinkering with the engine."

In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as in most states, school districts are required to teach evolution as part of the science curriculum.

In Pennsylvania, "school districts may inform students of the existence of particular religious viewpoints when the information in conveyed for a secular and educational purpose and is presented objectively," according to Bethany Yenner, an Education Department spokeswoman. "Under no circumstance may an educator or a school district offer opinions on religious viewpoints."

In New Jersey, students "could look at how a variety of religions view a scientific theory," noted Jon Zlock, an Education Department spokesman. "Obviously, more than one religious viewpoint should be explored. It should be done objectively. One religious point of view should not be stressed above others."

Many evangelical Protestants, like many Catholics and other Christians, argue that faith and science complement each other and need not collide over evolution.

The scientific establishment is stepping up its efforts to present evolution as something apart from, not a threat to, religion.

"It's not science vs. religion - that misses the point entirely," said Jay Labov, senior adviser for education and communication for the National Academy of Sciences. "Science cannot begin to look into the supernatural. That's beyond the realm of science."

The president of the National Academy, Bruce Alberts, sent a letter in March to all members of the academy, urging them "to confront the increasing challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools; your help may be needed in your state soon." [Letter from Bruce Alberts on March 4, 2005. ]

The academy has gathered the signatures of more than 4,000 Christian clergy, including evangelicals, supporting evolution as "a foundational scientific truth." The clergy, in the letter, "ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."

"If you think there are issues with school boards now, there are going to be a lot more," said Ham, of Answers in Genesis. "Wait till we get the museum finished - you haven't seen anything yet."

Malaki #315:Since Genesis 1 does not record the creation of the sun until the 4th day, that might be some indication that the meaning of "evening", "morning" and "day" in Genesis 1:5 is something other than literal. How can there be a literal 24-hour day without the sun?

Malaki, I don't believe a person who has studied the Bible would ask such an elementary question as this. Before the sun, there was the creation of light. Have you read Genesis 1:3-5?

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Malaki #316: Since this is figurative (do you really think God needs rest?), it is meaningless to speculate on the 'actual duration' of the 'seventh day' in Genesis 1.

God does need a rest! If you compare Genesis 2:1-3 with Exodus 20:8-11, an unmistakable comparison is made of God's 'rest' with Man's rest. Exodus 20:11 is the key verse (remember, this is after commanding us to rest on the sabbath:

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Obviously, God does not need a rest in the sense that a physical body needs rest from work. However, God blessed this day and santified it. We could say to ourselves: Why keep the Sabbath? Because God leads by example. (or any day of the week or any period of any day to study scriptures for the Christians) If it is not good enough for God to have rested after creating the Universe?

I am surprised you have studied the Bible as you say you have, yet you do not seem to have faith in God. God has never asked anyone to come to him by scientific proof. He asks that we come to him by faith.¹ You will find throughout the Bible that by faith is the theme, New Testament and Old Testament.

I hope that you come to Him by faith, not by scientific proof. If the way to God and to heaven is by scientific proof, few, if any, would be saved and go. Jesus said :

Joh 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Today's scientific proof will be tomorrow's scientific folly. Don't let this 'creepism' of doubting a few passages in the Bible creep into questioning the validity of all of Scripture. Salvation is not through works (scientific proof), rather it begins with faith.

¹Hebrews 11:1-40, King James Bible

Before the sun, there was the creation of light.

There can be no literal day and night in the absence of the sun.

God does need a rest!

Maybe your God does; mine doesn't. Not literally.

Obviously, God does not need a rest in the sense that a physical body needs rest from work.

Ummm... congratulations, you just interpreted that verse figuratively.

If you can understand "rest" figuratively, why can't you accept that "day" might likewise be used figuratively here?

yet you do not seem to have faith in God.

You have reached an errant conclusion. My faith in God is not dependent upon a mindlessly literal interpretation of scripture.

Ummm... congratulations, you just interpreted that verse figuratively

The interpretation was literal. God stopped all his work, he ended his work. Thus, he rested. Rest does not require a physical body to cease one's activity, although us humans have a tendency to think so. Consult a standard dictionary if you still have problems with the word 'rest.'

God rested so that we may rest. He rested to sanctify this day so that we may rest and observe this sabbath day. His physical labor, creating the heavens and the earth, did not tire him physically, or mentally, or in any other sense of tiredness. There is nothing figurative about this. God can, and did, rest to establish a precedent.

A figurative interpretation, however, is necessary for those wishing to dispute God's Word.

"Replenish is a bad King James translation, and you know that. Sorry. The word also means fill and given that Adam was the first man, it is the translation that makes the most sense."

This is the same word used after Noah and 'his' flood.

"Why do you believe the Millions of years then?"

A couple of reasons, the WORD indicates the heavens and earth are ancient and the earth is filled with the evidence that backs up what we are given in scripture.

Now you got a thing for this 24 hours being a day, well now summertime in Alaska with the midnight sun would cause your theory a huge problem.

So you apparently believe that had Adam and Eve not sinned that there would be no death, right? God also told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" before the fall, correct? My question then is where were we all supposed to live? Using a conservative 2.2% annual birth rate (population doubling every 30 years), and of course a 0% death rate, and a creation date of 10000 years ago, the current population of the earth would have been approximately 2 x 10^100!!!

That may not mean much, so let's try to make it more meaningful. Assume that the average human weighs about 50 kilograms. The weight of all these humans would then be approximately 10^101 kilograms. The weight of the earth is approximately 6 x 10^27 kilograms, so the weight of all these people would be roughly 10^73 times greater than the weight of the earth. Even if God intended us to inhabit planets circling other stars, this doesn't work out well. Assuming a planetary capacity of 10^12 (one trillion) humans, it would require 10^88 planets to accomodate all the humans. It is estimated that there are at the upper bound of the estimates 10^24 stars in the universe. Therefore, each star must have 10^64 planets all of which must be habitable by humans to accomodate all the people that would be alive. Obviously, God either meant for us to stop reproducing at some point, in which case, why would we be commanded to "be fruitful and multiply" or the death that was brought on by the fall meant something other than death of the physical body, maybe the spiritual death of separation from God and damnation to hell, for example.

Yes, I believe God's account of origins. He was there we were not. We all have the same evidence to examine, we all have our own bias.I choose to believe what God has chosen to reveal to us. Most today choose to believe men.

Your mathmatics are impressive, but loaded with as many asumptions as evolution. Perhaps God would have set a limit on reproduction at a later time.Perhaps he would have created another planet for them to inhabit, or any number of assumptions could explain your supposed population dilemma.

Luke 1:37

For with God nothing shall be impossible.

But the answer for me is that God knew from eternity past that man would fall and need a savior. And if you think that unfair, just remember the sacrifice that he provided was himself.

Ac 20:28

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Do you actually realize that modern science tells us that time is not an absolute quantity, but rather that the passage of time depends on reference frame? Further, modern science tells us that, from the reference frame of the universe during the earliest times after the big bang the gravitational field would be very high leading to a very slow passage of time. Hence, modern science sees nothing inconsistent with the passage of six days in the early universe being equivalent to the passage of billions of years as seen from our reference frame. (This differing rate of time passage has been experimentally proven, BTW, by flying very sensitive atomic clocks around the earth in airplanes and then comparing the time on the travelling clocks with the time on stationary ones with which they were synchronized. Less time was seen to have passed according to the travelling clock than passed according to the stationary one.)

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