A while ago I was listening to a song, done by Hillsong, called “So Will I”. I’ve heard it a hundred times on the radio and even thought about adding it to our churches worship song database. But, something about it just didn’t sit right with me and I could not put my finger on it. It has a pretty good melody, but a tad wordy for my personal taste. I was trying to look past all that because so many people around the world were enjoying the song.  What I didn’t like was the phrasing in the second chorus that says the stars were “Evolving in pursuit of what you said”. I just found that to be a very weird choice of lyrics. Shortly after that I ran into an article interviewing Joel Huston, the writer of the song. In it he was asked about some of the lines, as well as a post he put up on his twitter feed. His twitter post stated “Evolution is undeniable – created by God as a reflective means of displaying natures pattern of renewal in pursuance of Gods word”. It was at this point that I began to understand my hesitation. I can honestly say that I was deeply saddened to hear another global voice so willing to capitulate the authority of scripture to the deified ideas of Darwin. 

You might remember that in 2012 & 2014 another music artist, Mark Gungor, came out in favor of Darwin over Genesis. In several, very public, statements he wrote “I no longer have the ability to believe”… in either Adam and Eve, or the genesis flood. Even the TV preacher Pat Robertson, on his own show, made the statement that “people who believe in creation are deaf, dumb, and blind.” I find it very interesting that so many on the church are so willing to walk away from Genesis 1-11. Check out what we find in 2 Peter 3:3-6 3 “3 First, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, 4 saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.” 5 They willfully ignore this: Long ago the heavens and the earth were brought about from water and through water by the word of God. 6 Through these waters the world of that time perished when it was flooded”(HCSB). We are warned that in the end times people within the church will begin to deny the accounts of creation and the flood. That may not seem like a horrible thing to some as a belief in a literal Genesis is not a requirement for the salvation of souls, or the forgiveness of sin. That authority lies with Christ alone. What so many in the church seem to overlook is that by walking away from Genesis, they also walk away from the authority of scripture. In essence they fail to consider some important questions. Such as, how to you get to Jesus without Genesis? How do we explain the need to be forgiven for the original sin of Adam and Eve if they are nothing more than fictional characters? How do you explain the genealogies that lead up to the real person of Jesus if those people never existed? More importantly, why would anyone place their faith in a book that begins with a fairy tale? This is all very troubling, and without a doubt, it will cause lasting problems for the church. As our Christian leaders around the world continue to yield the authority of Gods word in favor of the word of man we should expect nothing less than dwindling congregations, crumbling buildings, and increasing hopelessness. All of which we see throughout the “enlightened” world.   

It should be known as we continue that I am, unashamedly, a long time young earth creationist. I believe in the complete inerrancy of scripture and I fully believe that the natural world supports the word of God in all of its detail. It should also be stated that I did not come to this by means of my faith. I began to doubt the Darwinian concept while taking earth science in the 7th grade. I can remember clearly reading two contradictory statements about the age of rocks and fossils in the same chapter of my textbook, and both claimed to be fact. I have always had a love for all areas of science and the understanding of the natural world. Throughout high school I was fortunate enough to have science teachers willing to teach Darwinian evolution as it should be; a widely accepted theory that contains a host of problems, unfounded assumptions, and some plain old guess work that few in the scientific community are willing to acknowledge. To better understand what I mean by this I recommend Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed”. It will help you begin to understand the degree of silence within the scientific community surrounding this topic. Even while I was in middle school I could see the contradictory nature of the “evidence” given, and the mountains of unanswered questions that are simply ignored or suppressed.

The problem is not, as some in the church have suggested, stupidity on the side of the scientific community. These are well educated individuals, with advanced degrees, and we should give them the respect that they deserve. Having said that, there is a very large problem that most people, in and out of the church, are not aware of. The problem is within the organizations controlling the funding, and publication, of scientific research information. For many decades any research that contradicts the Darwinian concept has been suppressed or censored. At the same time many of the researchers are being ridiculed and harassed. One of the largest culprits being the National Academy of Science. This group has control over much of the information taught in our public schools and universities. They have stated in their own publications that they will not support, in any way, research or papers, peer reviewed or not, that contradict Darwinian evolution. I am talking about documented research, catalogued, and peer reviewed for accuracy. If it in any way contradicts the Darwinian concept it finds itself academically ignored, or worse publicly ridiculed. If you doubt this statement I recommend the book “Slaughter of the Dissidents” by Dr. Jerry Bergman. It is available at the creation.com bookstore and Amazon.com. The problem is not that the evidence refuting Darwin does not exist. The problem is the unified effort to keep it out of the public consciousness. This should cause us to question the reasoning. If the evidence is so clear and overwhelming it should not have the need to be protected against scrutiny. 

Over the last 20-30 years great strides have been made in the areas of Creation Science, and Intelligent Design. Although the two are very similar on a foundational level, it should be understood that they are by no means the same thing. Creation Science is strictly geared toward the special creation, and global flood narratives, outlined in Genesis. The Intelligent Design movement, more commonly known as ID, in simple terms is geared toward the view that life is the result of intelligent causation. That the massive complexity within the genetic programing of even the simplest form of life could not have happened through a random chance process. The concept of ID is where my journey, as well as many others, began. For me it did not begin in the world of Theology or Doctrine, but in the observations of the natural world. Especially those which stand in stark contrast to the “Goo – to -you” theories.

Today, with so may resources available, is hard for me to believe that any serious seeker could take the Darwinian concept seriously. And that is where I find the source of the problem. Most people do not seek to understand on their own. As a society we tend to believe whatever a so called ‘expert’ tells us. So, like Mark Gungor, Joel Huston and others, if someone in a lab coat says we evolved from goo… then from goo we came… Then to make ourselves feel better we say that “God uses evolution” or that God “guided” evolution. What so many fail to do is ask the more difficult question: “do I fully understand what evolution is, and what its claims are?” The prevailing answer to this question throughout the modern church is a resounding “NO”! It makes me wonder how so many, can be so willing to walk away without a fight? When someone says that our Bible, Gods word, is wrong, we just give up and walk away without asking them to prove it? Is that really what is happening? It is extremely difficult to see it happening so fast, and so willfully. Especially when around the world we find researchers who are not only Christian, but Agnostic, and even Atheist who are standing against those forwarding the Darwinian process as only viable explanation for the origin of life on earth. 

How is it that so many Christians are willing to dismiss the word of God for a theory that a growing number of scientists around the world are walking away from? In my next post I will begin to walk through some of the apologetic problems that come with removing the Genesis account from our Biblical thinking. For now I would encourage you to do some preliminary reading. A few titles I recommend in addition to the ones listed above, and below, are “Darwins Doubt” by Steven C. Meyer, “Gods Not Dead” by Dr Rice Broocks, and “Replacing Darwin” by Dr Nathaniel Jeanson.

Here are a few quotes from some great books I recommend to anyone serious about looking into this topic.. 

Michael J. Behe, Darwins Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. 

“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself – not from the sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with the consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day” 

David Berlinski, The Devils Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions 

“Has anyone provided proof of Gods inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.”