The Priorities of Evolution

This is an article I wrote recently for the Times-News to publish as a guest column. I'm not sure they will though. This article is a response to a man that wrote an article in response to the legendary pastor Mark Fox. Here is the article's link

http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/evolution-34986-darwin-align.html

On Saturday, July 3rd, Mr. Tim Allen responded to a previous column Rev. Mark Fox had written on the issue of evolution, and predictably condemned Rev. Fox for speaking out against evolution. Most of the statements were attempts to marginalize Rev. Fox’s main argument, that we have shut God out of this country. The holes in Mr. Allen’s argument were too great to count.

Mr. Allen stated that Charles Darwin “supported evolution because he recognized inherent contradictions in the Bible’s accounts of creation.” This is, in no better words, false. Darwin had ten children, too of which died in infancy. When his younger daughter Anne fell ill, he became fearful. Because of the sicknesses and lack of resourceful medical attention of the time, Anne died at the age of ten. This sent Darwin into a whirlpool of depression, in which he responded like too many people do when they suffer traumatic events. Darwin refused to acknowledge a God that loves and cares for His creation. Thus, creating his theory on the basis bitterness and suffering.

Ever since the materialist belief has taken control of our culture, science has been researched on the presuppositions that it must be true, or that there is no supernatural being that created us (or cares about us if you are an agnostic). Richard Dawkins has made it clear that evolution must be true because we are here. This tumbles the argument into an abyss of circular reasoning. God is not real because he can’t be real, when the honest issue lies in the heart of the man making that statement. Is God non existent in our culture because He does not exist, or is it because we have killed Him because of our own personal suffering? The history of the creation of Darwin’s theory seems to scream the latter.

In the midst of Mr. Allen’s main argument, he stated a few passages in the bible that seem to contradict themselves. For example, according to Mr. Allen Genesis 1 says that God created animals before man, and Genesis 2:18-19 says that God created man before animals. In the Hebrew Scriptures the translation says that in Genesis 2:18-19 God had created the animals and brought them to Adam to be named. The key word here is “had,” referring to the creation of animals in past tense. Many Darwinists (or any bible skeptics), such as Mr. Allen, quickly scan through the bible and find contradictions such as these, and do not take the time to fully research them. As Rev. Fox quoted, “if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them.” I think C.S. Lewis understood when he said this that many people do not take the time to research the bible to prove their statement; they simply want them to be true.

We have three hundred or so manuscript fragments of the accounts of Alexander the Great that were written over four hundred years after his death. Yet, we assume what is written in the textbooks and novels to be true. For the New Testament Gospels we have over five thousand pieces of manuscript evidence. Some of these manuscripts are complete, some are partial, but they all point that the gospels were written in the time of the eyewitnesses, and all point that the New Testaments used now are true to the originals. Even still, we educate and test our students on Alexander the Great, but blow the whistle on any historical use of the bible because we cannot allow a “divine foot in the door.”

Even Darwin himself new the scientific impossibilities of evolution when he stated, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Again, he refuses to acknowledge creation as a possible fact despite whatever evidence is in front of him.

Mr. Allen begs the question “why do conservative Christians propagate literalist creationism as if salvation depended on it?” I ask Mr. Allen to understand that some people’s salvation does depend on it. Not in nature, but by what it implies. “If part of the bible was fabricated and changed, why couldn’t anything else? Was Jesus who he said he was? Did he rise from the dead?” If one (particularly a claimed Christian) were to reject the bible as inherent, then they are likely to reject Jesus as well. “Well if Jesus was not who he said he was, then what about his commandments? What about love, mercy, and grace? What about the “orphans, widows, and poor folk?” Am I supposed to care about them? Jesus obviously wasn’t who he said he was and isn’t finite, so neither is his morality.” So regardless if the orphans, widows, and poor folk “give a flip about how the world was made,” our genesis determines a lot more than they (or we) might think.

Finally, Mr. Allen states that “Jesus constantly says to go and do and the only times he engaged in theological haggles was when the conservative, literalist Pharisees and Sadducees that confronted him with such questions.” The implications of this are rather bold, that conservative Christians do not care for the “orphaned, widowed, and poor folks.” Although I cannot speak for every follower of Jesus, I can say that I have watched Rev. Fox and many other “conservative” Christians go and serve, giving up days that most would use for vacation to serve the way Jesus commanded. They have built latrines, wells, and houses in Columbia South America, done dental work on those who cannot afford it, led pastoral conferences, helped the orphans find food, the widows to find finances, and the poor folks to find shelter in Africa as well as Haiti. Mr. Allen has very well pleaded that conservative Christians to prioritize their time and efforts towards loving, giving, and serving before engaging in debates. I can assure Mr. Allen that he has been misinformed of Rev. Fox’s priorities.

The world will never want God to be apart of our culture we will always have some reason to deny Him. From our manipulated science to our pain and suffering, we shut him out. Anyone who has ears should listen (Matt 11). Put away our selfish pride, because He is coming.