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Don’t ignore the main weapon!1

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Wikipedia: Alex C. Sauceda, U.S. Marine Corps It’s no use taking ‘pot shots’ at the issues while failing to deal with the main weapon!
It’s no use taking ‘pot shots’ at the issues while failing to deal with the main weapon!

There is no doubt that secularists and humanists are stepping up their campaign against Christianity and the Judeo-Christian values which undergird our society (e.g. see here). There is growing concern within the Church about these attempts to sideline and even to undermine Christianity. In the UK, the latest threat is from the Government itself, which wants to legalise ‘gay marriage,’ even though the Prime Minister recently called on the Church to defend the “values and moral code” of the Bible—which includes marriage only between a man and a woman.

The foundation

Imagine a real battlefield, where the enemy brought out a new deadly weapon, capable of mass destruction. Then imagine that the other side completely ignored it, preferring to take pot shots at lesser targets. By and large, this is what is happening in the battle between Christianity and secular humanism. Ever since Darwin, the enemies of the Christian faith have used evolution as their main weapon. Yet, in defending their faith, most Christians totally ignore this, believing the creation/evolution issue to be irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this article shows.

Take the issue of marriage as an example: When Jesus replied to a question about this, He quoted from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24: “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ” (Mark 10:6–8).2

The principle of marriage being only between one man and one woman is based on Genesis. However, if humans evolved from ape-like ancestors then marriage was not a creation ordinance but something that ‘evolved’ along with us. Without the Genesis foundation, those who defend marriage have to appeal to ‘tradition’ and the campaign to defend it is weakened. The same could be said of campaigns to uphold the sanctity of life and oppose abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. The only real argument against the secular view is the fact that people are created in the image of God. Biblical values begin at the beginning of the Bible! The enemies of our faith know that if they can undermine the foundation they have won half the battle.

Exodus of the young

There is growing concern over the exodus of young people from the Church. This often happens when they go to college and university, where they find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of secular humanists. Many churches try to keep their young people by using modern music and worship styles, yet forget to teach them how to defend their faith, especially belief in creation. The Church needs to rediscover the importance of biblical apologetics in order to counteract the attacks of secular humanists.

Siege mentality

Many people within the Church feel intimidated by the increasingly vocal campaigns of secular humanists, and it’s easy to adopt a siege mentality, like that envisaged in an old gospel hymn:

“Hold the fort, for I am coming,”

Jesus signals still;

Wave the answer back to Heaven,

“By Thy grace we will.”

However, we must not be defeatist, but engage with those who oppose us, and not ignore their main weapon—evolution. Another old hymn is more realistic and biblical:

Strong to meet the foe, marching on we go,

While our cause we know, must prevail.

We are on the winning side. Jesus rose from the dead, and His Kingdom cannot fail! Although we use the language of conflict, this battle is a spiritual one. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:3–5). Evolution is one such “stronghold”; but with the resources now available, backed by prayer and the Holy Spirit, we have the means to demolish it!

Published: 20 September 2012

Notes

  1. This article first appeared in Creation Update, Spring 2012, Creation Resources Trust, UK; used with permission. Return to text.
  2. It was “at the beginning” that God made them male and female, not 4 ½ billion years after the beginning, as theistic evolutionists claim! Return to text.