The best defense is a strong offense

by Paul Price

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As Christians, we often state that the Bible is our sole authority in all areas of life, including science. While this is something CMI affirms, sometimes this idea gets misapplied, and it can have negative effects on subsequent generations. For instance, some people don’t want to teach their children about evolution at all, and simply trust that because they have been taught the biblical account, they will be equipped to answer evolutionary theory if they encounter it later in life.

So prevalent is this attitude, in fact, that popular Christian satire website Babylon Bee recently published an article entitled, “Congregation Prays Graduating Senior Be Protected From Basic Secular Arguments They Never Bothered To Prepare Her For.”¹

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a bit of pointed humor to bring home a glaring reality. The fact is children will be exposed to evolution in school, in college, in media, and through their friends.

Know your enemy!

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:4–5, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ … ”

Note here that the Bible uses the symbolism of warfare. In a war, one cannot blindly walk into the enemy camp without knowing what one is up against. In the same way, being able to ‘destroy arguments’ requires one to understand what secular arguments are being made. This is where creation apologetics comes in. At CMI we have one primary purpose: to equip the church for more effective witnessing in a hostile, secularized world.

Our youth, having grown up in a protected, ‘safe’ Christian environment, head off to secular universities totally unaware of the challenges to their faith they are about to face. Professors make no bones about the fact that they are there to attempt to influence their students to adopt their own (liberal, anti-Christian) point of view. University professor Bill Savage wrote,

“After a teary-eyed hug, Mom and Dad will drive their SUV off toward the nearest gas station, leaving their beloved progeny behind. And then they are all mine.” ²

Of course, Savage claims he is not indoctrinating his students, but simply teaching them to “think for themselves”. Yet, strangely, the idea that his students ’thinking for themselves’ could result in any outcome other than their submission to his own leftist worldview seems foreign to him!

Whether professors like Savage want to admit it to themselves or not, though, indoctrination is exactly what they are doing. When nearly all the faculty of most secular colleges are hostile to biblical Christianity, especially the ‘biblical creationist’ type, it would be naïve to think this attitude would not have an impact on unprepared students. But professors like Savage are not, in fact, so naïve. They see it as a mission to change the outlook of their students to match their own and rid them of their ‘archaic and unscientific’ views. Even many ‘Christian’ colleges have the goal of liberalizing students, which wrecks their faith even more effectively, because no one thinks this will happen in a ‘Christian’ college.³

Stop the FALLOUT!

Recently, we produced a mini-documentary entitled Fallout about exactly this (see creation.com/fallout). Our US CEO, Gary Bates, asked students if they were continuing to attend church after going to college. Sadly, the majority were not. Without exception, all of these students also accepted evolution as a fact. The exciting thing, though, is the handful of students who affirmed biblical creation still attended church regularly—every one of them! Arming your children with answers to secular attacks on the Bible, starting with Genesis, is the best way to ensure they stay in church. Speaking with parents at local events, our staff members continually hear reports confirming this! We really are fighting on the front lines of the ‘culture wars’, and we need your support to keep up the effort.

Introducing your congregation to creation is easier than you think

If you have never had a CMI speaker at your church, the single best thing you could do would be to talk to your pastor about inviting one of our accredited creation speakers to give a creation presentation (send him to creation.com/pastors). It just might be the first time many in your church will have ever been exposed to this faith-building information, and it could be the key that keeps the kids in your church from falling out.