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2008
Church of England apologises to Darwin
Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite appeasement of secularism
Published: 20 September 2008; republished 28 October 2009(GMT+10)
Photo Hans Musil, wikipedia.org
Canterbury Cathedral: West Front, Nave and Central Tower. Seen from south.
This weekend’s feedback is in response to a number of queries about the Church
of England (Anglicans) officially apologizing to Darwin. However, they don’t
speak for all attenders of this church, since many of them are still faithful to
Scripture and are appalled by their ‘leaders’. There are numerous mistakes
in the article by the official CoE representative, a Rev. Dr Malcolm Brown, on the
official CoE website, and
Jonathan Sarfati replies point-by-point.
Good religion needs good science
by Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs Church of England
The trouble with homo sapiens is that we’re only human. People, and institutions,
make mistakes and Christian people and churches are no exception.
Indeed, as the CoE has officially shown with this craven apology—as if apologies
for the past are meaningful, given that both Darwin and those who allegedly wronged
him are long dead. And who does he really speak for? Certainly not the
large numbers of Anglicans who still believe the Bible.
When a big new idea emerges which changes the way people look at the world, it’s
easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do
battle against the new insights.
Such superficial psychologization may be touching, but in reality,
philosopher Daniel Dennett calls Darwinism a universal acid that ‘eats
through virtually every traditional concept’—mankind’s most cherished
beliefs about God, value, meaning, purpose, culture, morality—everything.
The church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy, and has since realised
its error.
The church indeed made a mistake with Galileo … adopting the prevaling scientific
framework of the University Aristotelians, and adjusting their theology to fit.
It can get tedious to see compromising churchians trot out the Galileo affair as
an excuse for their compromise. The church indeed made a mistake with Galileo, but
exactly the opposite of what Brown thinks. The church’s trouble was adopting
the prevailing scientific framework of the University Aristotelians, and adjusting
their theology to fit. When Galileo challenged the prevailing scientific framework,
his scientific enemies persuaded the Church that he was attacking the Bible, which
he was not. See:
Some church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory
of natural selection.
Some did, i.e. refused to make the same mistake as the Church in Galileo’s
day, of marrying their theology to the current scientific fad, which merely results
in widowhood in the next generation. But far too many appeased Darwin, with the
same disastrous effects as
Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler 70 years ago.
Note that natural selection is not Darwin’s theory; it was
discussed by the creationist,
Edward Blyth, and today is an important part of the
creation model. Natural selection has nothing to do with turning moths
into motorists or bacteria into biologists, because the
changes are in the wrong direction, i.e. removing information instead
of adding it as goo-to-you evolution requires.
So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking,
then and now—and the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth in 1809 is a good
time to do so.
We quite agree—hence our international ‘Challenging
Darwin in 2009‘ documentary film project.
Theories raised moral questions
But if Darwin’s ideas once needed rescuing from religious defensiveness, they
may also now need rescuing from some of the enthusiasts for his ideas. A scientist
has a duty to the truth: he or she is called to be fearless in discovering the way
the world works.
Indeed. But so often, Darwinians accept materialism as a dogma (like
Richard Lewontin) or as ‘rules
of the game‘, so reject a design explanation a priori
even if all the evidence supports it (like
Scott Todd).
But how a scientific theory is used, and the ways in which ideas can be deployed
politically or ideologically, are the responsibility of a less easily defined constituency.
‘Darwinism’ has become something bigger than Darwin’s own theories,
and raises many moral questions. This doesn’t make the church of the 1860s
right to have attacked Darwin, but it does suggest that the question is deeper than
deciding whose side you would have been on in that historic debate between Samuel
Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Darwin’s supporter, Thomas Huxley.
It would help to separate the
facts from the myth about this as well.
Nothing in scientific method contradicts Christian teaching
We agree. Indeed, the founders
of modern science were creationists, while
science doesn’t need goo-to-you evolution.
Darwin was, in many ways, a model of good scientific method. He observed the world
around him, developed a theory which sought to explain what he saw, and then set
about a long and painstaking process of gathering evidence that would either bear
out, contradict, or modify his theory.
This is simplistic—see also
Darwin and the search for an evolutionary mechanism, which shows the historical
and philosophical influences on Darwin’s ostensibly scientific theory. However,
Darwin did largely follow some
erroneous methods of Francis Bacon, an errant creationist.
As a result, our understanding of the world is expanded,
Certainly, Darwin’s research on the role of earthworms in soil was a great
contribution, as were his meticulous studies on
carnivorous plants and barnacles, and could truly have said to expanded
our understanding. But when it came to evolution, even many evolutionists admit
that his book went way beyond the evidence. For example, one of his highly qualified
contemporaries, Professor Johann
H. Blasius, director of the Duke’s Natural History Museum of Braunschweig
(Brunswick), Germany, was highly critical:
I have also seldom read a scientific book which makes such wide-ranging conclusions
with so few facts supporting them.—Museum director Dr Johann Blasius on Darwin’s
recently released Origin.
‘I have also seldom read a scientific book which makes such wide-ranging conclusions
with so few facts supporting them. … Darwin wants to show that Arten
[types, kinds, species] come from other Arten. I regard this as somewhat
of a highhanded hypothesis, because he argues using unproven possibilities, without
even naming a single example of the origin of a particular species.’
but the scientific process continues. In science, hypotheses are meant to be constantly
tested. Subsequent generations have built on Darwin’s work but have not significantly
undermined his fundamental theory of natural selection.
Why would we want to undermine natural selection? We would merely want to undermine
the additional claim that it is a creative force rather than a culling
force.
There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching.
Unless Christian teaching is divorced from Christ’s! He clearly taught that
‘Scripture cannot be broken’, and said, ‘it is written’
to settle an argument—for
Jesus, Scripture said = God said . He affirmed the special creation of man
and woman ‘from the beginning
of creation’ (not billions of years later, from pond
scum via the animal kingdom), and the
global Flood, as well as
other Scriptures that skeptics love to mock.
Jesus himself invited people to observe the world around them and to reason from
what they saw to an understanding of the nature of God (Matthew 6:25–33).
So our Rev. Dr decides that he does believe some of the Scriptures—a cafeteria
Christian who decides which parts of the biblical ‘menu’ he likes. But
Jesus never told people to reason in a way that contradicted ‘it is written
… ’.
Christian theologians throughout the centuries have sought knowledge of the world
and knowledge of God.
Indeed, but their priorities are different from the Rev. Dr Brown’s. Because
of Adam’s sin, the creation is cursed (Genesis 3:17–19, Romans 8:20–22), man’s heart is deceitful
(Jeremiah 17:9) and the thinking of a godless man is ‘futile’
(Romans 1:21). But although Scripture was penned by fallen
humans, these humans were moved by the Holy Spirit, so Scripture itself is ‘God-breathed’
(2 Timothy 3:15–17). Therefore, Scripture is the only
source of revelation not tainted by the Fall.
So a biblical Christian should not reinterpret the perfect, unfallen Word of God
according to fallible theories of sinful humans about a world we know to be cursed.
As the systematic theologian Louis Berkhof approvingly explained about the views
of some leading Reformed theologians:
‘… Since the entrance of sin into the world, man can gather true knowledge
about God from His general revelation only if he studies it in the light of Scripture,
in which the elements of God’s original self-revelation, which were obscured
and perverted by the blight of sin, are republished, corrected, and interpreted.’1
Berkhof’s own view was:
‘Some are inclined to speak of God’s general revelation as a second
source; but this is hardly correct in view of the fact that nature can come into
consideration here only as interpreted in the light of Scripture.’2
For Thomas Aquinas there was no such thing as science versus religion; both existed
in the same sphere and to the same end, the glory of God.
Note that Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) agreed with six-day
creation, as shown in his classic Summa Theologica (or Theologiæ):3
Thus we find it said at first that ‘He called the light Day’: for the
reason that later on a period of twenty-four hours is also called day, where it
is said that ‘there was evening and morning, one day.’
4
‘He called the light Day’: for the reason that later on a period of
twenty-four hours is also called day, where it is said that ‘there was evening
and morning, one day.’ … The words ‘one day’ are used when
day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of twenty-four hours.—Thomas
Aquinas
Nothing entirely new was afterwards made by God, but all things subsequently made
had in a sense been made before in the work of the six days. Some things,
indeed, had a previous experience materially, as the rib from the side of Adam out
of which God formed Eve; whilst others existed not only in matter but also in their
causes, as those individual creatures that are now generated existed in the first
of their kind.5
Whether all these days are one day?
…
On the contrary, It is written (Genesis 1), ‘The evening and the morning were the
second day … the third day,’ and so on. But where there is a second
and third there are more than one. There was not, therefore, only one day.
I answer that, On this question Augustine differs from other expositors.
His opinion is that all the days that are called seven, are one day represented
in a sevenfold aspect (Gen. AD lit. iv,
22; De Civ. Dei xi, 9; AD
Orosium xxvi); while others consider there were seven
distinct days, not one only. Now, these two opinions, taken as explaining the literal
text of Genesis, are certainly widely different.
…
Reply to Objection 7. The words ‘one day’ are used
when day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of twenty-four hours.
Hence, by mentioning ‘one’, the measure of a natural day is fixed.
Another reason may be to signify that a day is completed by the return of the sun
to the point from which it commenced its course. And yet another, because
at the completion of a week of seven days, the first day returns which is one with
the eighth day. The three reasons assigned above are those given by
Basil (Hom.
ii in Hexaem.).6
And Aquinas is hardly an isolated example. Most biblical scholars before the rise
of long-age geology accepted Genesis as written, including
Josephus and later Jewish
scholars, most church fathers
including Basil the Great,
and all the Reformers including
Luther and Calvin.
Whilst Christians believe that the Bible contains all that we need to know to be
saved from our sins, they do not claim that it is a compendium of all knowledge.
This is so. Francis Schaeffer pointed out that the Bible is ‘true truth’
but not exhaustive truth. But our Rev. Dr disbelieves the former.
Jesus himself warned his disciples that there was more that he could say to them
and that the Spirit of truth would lead them into truth (John 16:12–13).
Yes, but the Spirit of Truth would not contradict what He had already revealed in
Scripture; evolution most certainly does, as shown in the articles under
Why is evolution so dangerous for Christians to believe?
There is no reason to doubt that Christ still draws people towards truth through
the work of scientists as well as others, and many scientists are motivated in their
work by a perception of the deep beauty of the created world.
Indeed, there are many highly
qualified scientists who believe the Bible as written, such as
Dr Raymond Damadian, one of the leading pioneers of MRI. Every issue
of Creation magazine
features one (and of course is edited by a number of such scientists).
Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that scientific theories can be overtaken
in their turn even as old ideas prove to have an enduring quality. Most of us get
by with some version of Newtonian physics and understand little of
Quantum Theory. Newtonian ideas suffice for most of our everyday needs—but
we now know that we can’t push them too far as there is plenty that they do
not adequately explain.
This is true. Similarly, Newtonian physics was replaced by Einsteinian relativity
for very high speeds, and this in turn seems likely to be replaced by
Carmelian relativity.
But all these examples concern operational or observational science, while Darwinian
evolution concerns origins/historical/inferential science (see
Naturalism, Origins and Operational Science).
Reaction now seems misguided
Darwin’s meticulous application of the principles of evidence-based research
was not the problem.
Yet as shown above, he went way beyond the evidence.
His theory caused offence because it challenged the view that God had created human
beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world.
It contradicted the clear biblical teaching that God did make man as a separate
creation, to have dominion. Denying this has led to absurd elevations of animals
as deserving of ‘human’ rights—see
Going ape about human rights: Are monkeys people, too? And many of the loudest
supporters of such ideas, such as the
antitheistic evolutionist Peter Singer, downgrade humans, to promote bestiality,
infanticide and euthanasia—see
Bioethicists and Obama agree: infanticide should be legal.
But whilst it is not difficult to see why evolutionary thinking was offensive at
the time, on reflection it is not such an earth-shattering idea.
The church had already appeased secularism when it came to geological
history. … This appeasement enabled Darwin to link slow and gradual geological
processes with slow and gradual biological processes.
And even at the time, the church had already appeased secularism when it
came to geological history. That is, they had abandoned Scripture on the
history of the earth in favour of the uniformitarian dogma of
Hutton and Lyell,
ignoring the scientific problems and spiritual warnings of the
Scriptural Geologists.
This appeasement enabled Darwin to link slow and gradual geological processes
with slow and gradual biological processes. Worse, the long ages implied
that the fossil record showed creatures suffering and dying for millions of years
of death and suffering, rather than as a result of the Fall. So Darwin rejected
the inconsistency of this notion of God using millions of years of death and suffering
to bring about a ‘very good’ creation (Genesis 1:31), especially as death is called ‘the
wages of sin’ (Romans 6:23) and ‘the last enemy’ (1 Corinthians 15:26).
This rejection was poignant when
Darwin lost his daughter Annie to a disease, because the prevailing appeasement
doctrine implied that such disease-causing features were ‘very good’.
The problem of harmful creatures has bothered later
apostates like Charles Templeton.
This is a blind spot among both theistic evolutionists and
long-age creationists—who believe basically the same as those appeasers
in Darwin’s day who were so ineffective. And our Rev. Dr really is clueless
about this key objection to marrying Darwinism with Christianity—the biblical
teaching that death came through sin.
The proper answer is that the fossils were largely caused by the Flood, while harmful
features and behaviours are the result of the Fall, as explained in
How did bad things come about? from the
Creation Answers Book.
Yes, Christians believe that God became incarnate as a human being in the person
of Jesus and thereby demonstrated God’s especial love for humanity. But how
can that special relationship be undermined just because we develop a different
understanding of the processes by which humanity came to be?
Isaiah spoke of this coming Messiah as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’
… without the common descent of all mankind from Adam, this vital kinsman-redeemer
concept collapses.
That’s not hard to answer. Luke tells us that
Jesus was a descendant of a real historical first man, Adam (Luke 3:23–38)—so the Apostle Paul calls
Him ‘the Last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45). This is vital, because Isaiah spoke
of this coming Messiah as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’, i.e. one
who is related by blood to those he redeems (Isa. 59:20, which uses the same Hebrew word גואל
(gôēl) as is used to describe Boaz in relation to Ruth). The
Book of Hebrews also explains how Jesus took upon Himself the nature of a man to
save mankind, but not angels (Heb. 2:11–18). But without the common descent of all
mankind from Adam, this vital kinsman-redeemer concept collapses.
Thus Darwinism and millions of years have baneful implications for the
Australian Aborigines: if they have been here for 40,000 years, they can’t
have come from Adam, which means they can’t be saved by the Kinsman-Redeemer,
the Last Adam. See also an article about
another apology, discussing the problems with such evolutionary teachings.
And the Rev. Dr Brown had a Darwin-admiring predecessor in the CoE, clergyman Charles Kingsley, who
wrote:
‘The Black People of Australia, exactly the same race as the African Negro,
cannot take in the Gospel … All attempts to bring them to a knowledge of
the true God have as yet failed utterly … Poor brutes in human shape …
they must perish off the face of the earth like brute beasts.’
Secular Darwinists were even worse, snatching Aboriginal people as specimens of
‘missing links’ for museum displays (see
Darwin’s bodysnatchers: new horrors)
It is hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was largely based
on what we would now call the ‘yuk factor’ (an emotional not an intellectual
response) when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans.
Does it matter what our Rev. Dr thinks is the reason? I have provided the scriptural
reasons. Elsewhere I
have counselled against emotional appeals to ‘yuk factor’ arguments.
But for all that the reaction now seems misjudged, it may just be that Wilberforce
and others glimpsed a murky image of how Darwin’s theories might be misappropriated
and the harm they could do (see the section Darwin and the Church).
Which section is grossly misleading about Darwin’s views about Christianity—see
Darwin’s arguments against
God: How Darwin rejected the doctrines of Christianity.
Even if they were blind to the future, it remains that the legacy of Darwin (rather
than Darwin’s own achievements) has had a shadow side.
Social misapplication of Darwin
Who says it’s a misapplication?
If evolution is continuing, and humanity as we know it is not the final summation
of the process, it is not difficult to slip into a rather naïve optimism which
sees the human race becoming better and better all the time. Despite our vastly
expanding technical knowledge, even a fairly cursory review of human history undermines
any idea of constant moral progress.
Of course. And the decline in following
absolute moral law is hardly surprising when scientistic elites and their
churchian allies undermine
belief in an absolute moral
Lawgiver who has revealed His law in the
Bible. One excellent treatment of the way morals have declined because
of a faulty worldview is contained in the book
The Vision of the Anointed by Dr Thomas Sowell. This does not come from
a Christian perspective, but he points out the fallacy of assuming the perfectibility
of humans through human effort, and ignoring the inherent imperfection of mankind,
which Christians would attribute to the
Fall, a teaching undermined
by Darwin.
Humanity’s advance in terms of technical prowess and achievements has not,
to most people’s eyes, fully liberated us from our burdens. Christians believe
that all of us are constrained by sin and that only through the death and resurrection
of Jesus can we move beyond what constrains us, to a fuller and more human way of
living.
Indeed, although one must wonder what he means by these things;
liberals are fond of double-speak to hide what they really believe.
But Christians are not the only ones who are sceptical of the idea that evolution
means moral progress.
Mainly because the failures
of Darwin-based Nazism and Communism showed how disastrous it was to try
to create a paradise on Earth by sacrificing humans in the way.
Natural selection, as a way of understanding physical evolutionary processes over
thousands of years, makes sense. Translate that into a half-understood notion of
‘the survival of the fittest’ and imagine the processes working on a
day-to-day basis, and evolution gets mixed up with a social theory in which the
weak perish—the very opposite of the Christian vision in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55).
Yet this Rev. Dr says that God created in a diametrically opposed way to
that revealed in this self-same Christian vision. The
atheist Jacques Monod was not impressed:
The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against
which our whole modern ethics revolts. … I am surprised that a Christian
would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in
order to have evolution.—Atheistic evolutionist Jacques Monod
‘The more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The
struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against
which our whole modern ethics revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society,
is one where the weak is protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called
natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is
the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution (emphasis
added).’
This ‘Social Darwinism’, in which the strong flourish and losers go
to the wall is, moreover, the complete converse of what Darwin himself believed
about human relationships.
Has this Rev. Dr even read Darwin? As we show in
Darwin was indeed a Social Darwinist , anti-creationist Peter Quinn pointed
out:
‘Sounding more like Colonel Blimp than Lieutenant Columbo, Darwin envisions
a far grimmer future for races or sub-species less fit than the Anglo-Saxon. “At
some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races
of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout
the world,” he predicts. “At the same time the anthropological apes
… will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies
will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state
… even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now
between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.”’
From this social misapplication of Darwin’s theories has sprung insidious
forms of racism and other forms of discrimination which are more horribly potent
for having the appearance of scientific “truth” behind them.
Eugenics was invented by Darwin’s first cousin, Francis Galton, who justified
it by Darwin’s evolutionism. … Darwin’s son Leonard gave the
presidential address at the First International Congress of Eugenics.
It is hardly an accident that such widely dispersed cultures as Germany and America
could come up with similar applications of Darwinism:
America’s racist eugenics
program, and the Nazi undermining
of sanctity of human life, eugenics and the
Holocaust. Note that eugenics
was invented by Darwin’s first cousin, Francis Galton,
who justified it by Darwin’s evolutionism. And in 1912, Darwin’s son
Leonard gave the presidential address at the First International Congress of Eugenics,
a landmark gathering in London of racial biologists from Germany, the United States.
Darwin’s immense achievement was to develop a big theory which went a long
way to explaining aspects of the world around us. But to treat it as an all-embracing
theory of everything is to travesty Darwin’s work. The difficulty is that
his theory of natural selection has been so effective within the scientific community,
and so easily understood in outline by everybody, that it has been inflated into
a general theory of everything—which is not only erroneous but dangerous.
The real travesty is the willingness of so many churchians to embrace Darwin’s
hypothesis, ignoring the clear
evidence of design and Darwinism’s inability to explain the
encyclopedic quantities of information in all living creatures, and
abandon Scripture.
Capacity to love consistent with Darwin
Christians will want to stress, instead, the human capacity for love, for altruism,
and for self-sacrifice. There is nothing here which, in principle, contradicts Darwin’s
theory.
Photo Julia Margaret Cameron, wikipedia.org
Charles Darwin, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron
No, but Darwinian theory would explain this as the result of selfishness, either
among creatures or genes—see
Altruism and kin selection .
Humanity has acquired the capacity to reflect, to imagine, and to reason from what
is known to what is not yet known. Some animals may have these features in a very
rudimentary form, but the human capacity is so much greater as to be effectively
unique. It is our capacity to imagine other people as more than bodies, but as persons,
which marks us out. It is that, above all, which has enabled the human mind and
will to achieve so much. And if this capacity—which we can characterise as
the capacity for love—is consistent with Darwin’s ideas of natural selection,
it suggests that our capacity as a species to act in ways which appear to be against
our personal interests has, paradoxically, enabled us to survive as “fitted”
to our context and environment.
But then there is no objective reason for unselfishness, given that it can be only
an illusion that really fosters an underlying selfishness.
So the pseudo-Darwinian reductionism, which elevates selfishness into a virtue and
celebrates power and dominance, is not only a misunderstanding of Darwin but may
even contribute to human decline by eroding those aspects of being human which have
given us such a natural advantage.
Hardly a ‘misunderstanding’: selfishness is at the root of Darwinism;
treating altruism as a means to an end does nothing to soften it.
Even the more sophisticated versions of ‘Social Darwinism’, which interpret
all human behaviour in terms of the struggle for dominance and the maximisation
of genetic advantage through the generations, risk presenting us with an image of
being human which makes us slaves to some kind of evolutionary imperative, as if
we are programmed in ways we cannot over-rule. But the point of natural selection
is that it is precisely by being most fully human that we demonstrate our fitness.
And being fully human means refusing to abdicate our ability to act selflessly or
lovingly and to challenge thin concepts of rationality which equate “being
rational” to material self interest.
But Darwinism can select only for survival value, not for altruism per se.
It also can’t provide any basis for calling unselfishness objectively good
and selfishness objectively wrong; all it can do is assess their selective
advantages.
It is vital that Darwin’s theories are rescued from political and ideological
agendas that are more about controlling human imagination and unpredictability than
about good science.
Translation: Darwinism should be sugar-coated to hide its real evils from unsuspecting
churchgoers and parents.
Discerning where culture threatens Christianity
All that I have said so far will remain contentious in some circles. Some Christian
movements still make opposition to evolutionary theories a litmus test of faithfulness
and—the other side of the coin—many believe Darwin’s theories
to have fatally undermined religious belief and therefore reject any accommodation
of one by the other. Why should this be?
Because they really are incompatible, despite the political waffling by
compromisers. Note that we don’t claim that one can’t be a Christian
and a biblical errantist (or evolutionist or long-ager). Many people are saved despite
‘blessed inconsistency’—there is no hint in the Bible that the
ability to hold mutually contrary thoughts in the same skull is an unforgivable
sin. People are saved
by grace through faith, not by works (Eph. 2:8–9), and the content of this saving
faith is that Jesus Christ, the God-man, died for our sins, was buried and rose
again (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). See also:
The Church of England in 1860 was already facing challenges to its former pre-eminence.
Freethinking and non-conformist Christianity were confronting the power of the established
church—and then came Darwin. These were nervous times for Anglicans, and when
worldly power is thought of as God-given, threats to power are perceived as attacks
on God. What was true for Anglicans in 1860 is largely true for all kinds of Christians
today, although (depending where you are in the world) the threat may be perceived
to come from radical Islam, secularism, consumerism or atheism.
Photo Brian G. Bukowski, wikipedia.org
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury
This doesn’t apply to those churches not connected with the State. But it’s
notable that many evolutionized clergy not only have appeased secularism but also
appeased radical Islam: the leading cleric in the CoE, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, stated earlier this year that
adoption of sharia law in the UK seems unavoidable . Then in the manner
of liberals everywhere, he
claimed that he had been misunderstood.
The cultures within which Christians try to be faithful are widely seen to be hostile,
at least in some respects, and discipleship means, at some level, standing against
some social trends. The problem for all Christians is discerning where the surrounding
culture is really a threat and where it is compatible with our understanding of
God.
This much is true: but the means for discernment should be comparison with God’s
written Word, the Bible. What does the Rev. Dr offer but the shifting sands of episcopal
opinion?
Because “science” has been widely regarded as offering a total theory
of everything; because some scientists have encouraged this claim; perhaps because
we all know how reliant we are on scientific ideas which we barely understand and
which make us nervous of our ignorance; and perhaps because the churches have not
been good at equipping people to see God at work in the contemporary world—
How about, the appeasement of much of the church to secularism and failure to equip
their flock with reasons for their faith (1 Peter 3:15) and ways to demolish opposing arguments (2 Corinthians 1-:4–5).
for all these reasons and others, a parody of science has become a focus for certain
forms of social unease. In so far as the practice of science has its hubristic side,
there is a case for science to answer.
But why should they? The church has already appeased secularists about world history,
so why shouldn’t they wait for further appeasement? For example, secularists
claim that dead men don’t rise and virgins don’t conceive, and that
miracles are impossible, so should we appease them by denying the
bodily Resurrection, Virginal
Conception, and miracles
of Christ? And in the
areas of morality, some evolutionists claim that
homosexual behaviour and adultery are in the genes, so should we throw out
biblical morality as well? Actually, a number of ministers in the CoE (and certain
other denominations) have ‘reasoned’ precisely this way, such as the
former American Episcopalian bishop
John Shelby Spong.
In so far as ‘Social Darwinism’ has diminished our sense of being human
and being in relationships, there are real problems to address. But first it is
important to recognise that the anti-evolutionary fervour in some corners of the
churches may be a kind of proxy issue for other discontents; and, perhaps most of
all, an indictment of the churches’ failure to tell their own story—Jesus’s
story
But in the Rev. Dr’s case, ignoring the parts that contradict his seeming
idol of Darwinism. But Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:12): ‘I have spoken to you of earthly things
and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’
If Jesus was wrong about earthly things (like a recent creation and a global flood,
as above), was He also wrong about a heavenly thing like John 3:16, only four verses later? If not, why not?
—with conviction in a way which works with the grain of the world as God has
revealed it to be, both through the Bible and in the work of scientists of Darwin’s
calibre.
God doesn’t contradict Himself, so real science will back up the Bible.
Rapproachment [sic] between Darwin and Christian faith
At a university in Kansas, I asked a biology professor how he coped with teaching
Darwin’s theories to students whose churches insisted that evolution was heresy
and whose schools taught creationism. “No problem,” he replied, “the
kids know that if they want a good job they need a degree, and if they want a degree
they have to work with evolution theory.
Yet some have whinged that the movie
Expelled was lying about the overt discrimination practiced against creationists. Indeed, even evolutionists who even so much as suggest that creation should be discussed in school science classes have lost their jobs, such as the Royal Society’s director of education, Rev. Professor Michael Reiss a few days ago (see Reiss resigns as Royal Society stifles debate on evolution).
The leading misotheist Richard Dawkins has no time for those who try to marry evolution
with Christianity, saying:
‘Oh but of course the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t
it? Symbolic?! Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent
individual. Nobody not brought up in the faith could reach any verdict other than
barking mad!’
I.e. he has as much contempt for churchian appeasers of evolution as
Hitler had for Chamberlain.
Creationism is for church, as far as they’re concerned. Here, they’re
Darwinists.” Perhaps he was over-cynical.
Or deceitful, like evolutionary
educrat Bora Zivkovic, who bragged about misleading students about this
‘non-overlapping magisteria’ (NOMA7)
view:
Yes, NOMA is wrong, but is a good first tool for gaining trust. You have
to bring them over to your side, gain their trust, and then hold their hands and
help them step by step. … Better NOMA-believers than Creationists, don’t
you think?—
But he was also pointing to young lives which could not be lived with integrity—the
very opposite of how Christians are called to live. There is no integrity to be
found either in rejecting Darwin’s ideas wholesale or in elevating them into
the kind of grand theory which reduces humanity to the sum of our evolutionary urges.
For the sake of human integrity—and thus for the sake of good Christian living—some
rapprochement between Darwin and Christian faith is essential.
Rather, real integrity comes from accepting the Bible as true—including the
history that underpins faith and morality. The real double-mindedness comes from
trying to hold mutually contradictory ideas in the same skull, as
one of CMI’s Ph.D. biologists, Dr Don Batten explains.
And now comes the pathetic apology:
Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology
for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others
to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of ‘faith seeking
understanding’ and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your
reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents
but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion
needs to work constructively with good science—and I dare to suggest that
the opposite may be true as well.
On a lighter note, but very relevant to this sad situation, we believe that most
visitors to this page, including our many C of E/Anglican friends and supporters,
will appreciate the satire of the Church of England’s accommodation of liberalism
in the episode ‘The Bishop’s Gambit’ (1986) from the classic British
comedy series Yes, Prime Minister (in four parts). No, we are not thereby
endorsing everything in that clip, or series, or any other secular item we might
refer to, but it is interesting to note that the ‘world’ can sometimes
see things more clearly than we think.
Related articles
Further reading
Related resources
References
- Berkhof, L., Introductory volume to Systematic Theology,
p. 60. Return to text.
- Berkhof, Ref. , p. 96. Return to text.
- Thanks to Gerry Keane of Melbourne, Australia, for this
information. Return to text.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,
First Part, Question 69: On the Work of the Third Day,
1265–1274. Return to text.
- Aquinas, Summa,
First Part, Question 73. The things that belong to the seventh day.
Return to text.
- Aquinas, Summa,
First Part, Question 74, All the seven days in common. Return
to text.
- This attempt to evade facing the conflict between the truth-claims
of Darwinism and the Bible insists that science and religion occupy totally different
realms and have nothing to say about each other. Return to text.
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