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Evolution and the breakup of Christendom1

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Flickr/Paleontour Evolution, in its challenge to biblical authority, can be likened to a ‘battering ram of unbelief’
Evolution, in its challenge to biblical authority, can be likened to a ‘battering ram of unbelief’

Over eighty years ago, a book was written by one Rev. C. Leopold Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college.2 Not only is that book ‘bang up-to-date’, but I believe it is more relevant now than when it was first published in 1930.3 The bulk of this short article (except the subtitles) is extracted and assembled from Clarke’s own words (with minimal editing), to bring the admittedly ‘in-your-face’ message to us afresh. Although we are living in the ‘enlightened’ and technologically advanced Twenty-First Century, Clarke’s words have a very contemporary ring about them. In fact, if we consider the moral and spiritual disintegration that has occurred over those intervening decades (and the ongoing breakup of Christendom in the once-Christian West), his words are strikingly prescient.

A battering-ram of unbelief!

Evolution [is] the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration. It is a battering-ram of unbelief—a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high.4 The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously—and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses.5

Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale, has been produced by the impact of this teaching—an effect which can only be likened to the … collapse of foundations. … The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the [truth] of the account of Creation, as in that of the person of Christ …6

Helping people lose rather than find God!

But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see [church leaders] more eager to be abreast of the times, than “earnestly contending for the Faith once for all delivered unto the saints” [Jude 1:3]. … It is high time that the Church separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date, and to escape the charge of ignorance. What, after all, have the custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has, and can have, no message of comfort or help to the soul?7

The trend of present day science is not to help men find God, but to lose Him. … Having decided for us that we have no objective Spiritual certainty, [certain evolutionary scientists] are kindly formulating plans by which we may keep the vestiges of the Church and the motives of virtue without [spiritual certainty], … busy telling us in what light we are to regard Jesus Christ, other than as the “express Image of the Father’s Person” [Heb. 1:3]. … And these [evolutionary scientists] are the men that organised Christianity delights to honour, and to give the chief places at its feasts!8

Authority of Christ and His Word challenged!

The essence of [unfaithfulness] is to contradict the Divine Redeemer, and that most assuredly is done in the [modernist Bible] Commentaries. That it should be done while reverence is professed, is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism. … “He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,” claimed Christ of Himself [John 3:34], and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.9

It is obvious, of course, that the “falling away” of Christendom from the faith of God could not proceed while the Bible held its rightful place in the judgment of the generation. It has been displaced, as was foretold [2 Thess. 2:11], by the invasion of the modern intellect with the “strong delusion that shall believe a lie.” There is no evidence against the Bible, but there is the violent prejudice of the modern spirit and the modern cast of mind—the spirit that reckons God Himself to be out of date.

A sobering assessment

If the teaching of Evolution … is inconsistent with the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ; if it is another Spirit, teaching another Gospel; if it is a frank apostasy from “the Truth as it is in Jesus”; no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate those Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn, and to sever themselves from such teachers and such teaching. Under the shelter of “scholarship” there stands a compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying company of men today … 10

C. Leopold Clarke’s words are a clarion call to the church today. True Christians must choose whom they will serve, whose word they will believe, whose cause they will follow. We must all remain motivated and ensure that we are well equipped to boldly take our stand. CMI exists primarily to serve the Christian community, helping to stop the evolutionary rot and its baneful influence in peoples’ lives, like Matt D. who recently sent me this message,

“I wanted to express my gratitude for your work at CMI-UK. I used to class myself as a consistent atheist … God rescued me from self-destructive darkness roughly 2 years ago. I then classed myself as a theistic evolutionist for a time, before finding CMI seven months ago. I am overwhelmed by the quality of information you guys put out and overjoyed to have discovered what a fraud the unbiblical theory of evolution is. I can now read and understand scripture without all the unnecessary ‘mental gymnastics’. Praise God!”

At large sporting fixtures (such as the recent London Olympics) teams of trained, disciplined sportsmen and sportswomen represent their home countries. What more could you personally be doing on the ‘Creation team’, going not merely for gold but for God? Now is not the time for ‘shilly-shallying’ and inaction.

Published: 27 November 2012

References and notes

  1. This is a slightly modified version of a Creation Extra letter, CMI-UK/Europe, June 2012. Return to text.
  2. He was tutor in Church history and comparative religions at Wickliffe Bible College, Finchley, London. Return to text.
  3. Clarke, C. L., Evolution and the Breakup of Christendom, Marshall, Morgan & Scott Ltd, London, 1930, 271 pages. The capitalisation of words throughout the quoted text is taken from the original and only a minimum of editing has been done to improve readability. Items in [square brackets] are added. Return to text.
  4. Ibid, p. 36. Return to text.
  5. Ibid, p. 57. Return to text.
  6. Ibid, p. 47. Return to text.
  7. Ibid, p. 66. Return to text.
  8. Ibid, p. 67. Return to text.
  9. Ibid, pp. 84–85. Return to text.
  10. Ibid, pp. 86–87. Return to text.

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