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The teaching of creation in schools

The position of Creation Ministries International (Australia) concerning creation in schools is as follows:

We are primarily an educational organisation to those who want to hear what we have to say.

We are a totally apolitical body, not interested in lobbying politicians or anything similar.

We would actually be opposed to any legislation to make the teaching of creation compulsory in public schools. (How could an atheist teacher fairly teach anything which so soundly opposed the foundations of his own worldview?)

While we do not lobby for it, we think it would be fair and appropriate if individual teachers who wished to do so were free (not compelled) to present the evidence which is contrary to the evolution viewpoint, and not merely be compelled to teach only that which favours it. In other words, teachers who wished to present a balanced approach to this particular hypothesis should be free to do so, giving pro and con arguments, without misrepresentation, which among other things would encourage critical thinking skills. However, this is not very likely in view of the philosophical stranglehold which evolutionary materialism/naturalism has on the Western mind in our age.

Our main ministry is to the churches. We do not push to ‘get into schools’. Our speakers only go to schools when specifically invited, e.g. by the local ministers’ fraternal into the religious education period, by a science teacher into a science class, or by the school chaplain, e.g. to a lunchtime address. Of course, such invitations require the permission of the principal.

Such occasions are actually rare, particularly as a percentage of the number of meetings we hold. Again I stress, our ministry is only to those who wish to listen, and mainly to church audiences. We would hold (again only by invitation of local student groups) more university talks than we do school talks, and these are only few and far between.

We get many more invitations to Christian than to public schools, but again this is not a major part of our ministry, and these invitations are also infrequent.

There has been a whole mythology built up over the years regarding our alleged ‘push into schools’, involvement with previous Queensland governments, etc., but it is almost all hokum, based on the typical skeptic/atheist/humanist lobby campaigns to inflame public emotions by painting a picture of ‘dreaded fundamentalists’ trying to shove things down innocent school children’s throats. There have been some committees of Christians in the US who were, in years past, very keen on seeing a legal push to have creation taught side by side with evolution in US public schools — some politicians in some states passed laws to that effect, which were immediately challenged by powerful secular humanist networks (via the ACLU) and taken to the Supreme Court there. They were, not surprisingly, overturned on the basis of the Supreme Court’s former misinterpretation of the provisions for the separation of church and state in the US Constitution. We have never been part of these efforts.

We know of no public schools where creationist arguments and evidences are part of the science curriculum. We are not aware of any considering including them. Many Christian schools (who all teach what is required of them in the government science curriculum) are concerned that their students also hear the other side and often present evidence for creation (although in some states of Australia Christian schools are being bullied by school inspectors to agree not to teach anything against evolution in science classes).

Helpful Resources

Refuting Evolution
by Jonathan Sarfati
US $8.00
Soft cover