Evolution Weekend Revisited

On February 15, 2009, I presented a sermon entitled "Evolution Weekend" (click to read) to examine the strange union of some churches and Darwinian evolution.  I used this title because it is the name of an annual event observed in certain churches as a celebration of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.  This event has been scheduled annually since 2006 to coincide with Darwin’s birthday (2/12/1809).  The founder of this event is an evolutionary biologist named Michael Zimmerman, who is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Butler University.  After convincing a Wisconsin school board to reverse their anti-evolution policies in 2004, Zimmerman started an organization called the "Clergy Letter Project.”  This organization urges members of the "clergy” to sign a letter that affirms harmony between the Bible and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (this letter has been signed by 12,710 members of the "American Christian clergy” as of 2/11/11).  The organization also promotes the observance of "Evolution Weekend” as a way to promote Darwinian evolution to religious people, who historically have been most resistant to it.  This is an ingenious way to infiltrate churches and corrupt their members through their own leadership.

I noted in the sermon that the primary goal of the Clergy Letter Project according to the organization’s website is "to demonstrate that religion and modern science are compatible.”  I showed that this issue is not really a matter of science (for true science confirms the Bible account of creation), but rather it is a matter of Bible interpretation.  How can the Bible be interpreted so that the six-day creation account of Genesis is compatible with the millions of years required for the theory of evolution?  The Project claims this is possible because the Bible account of creation is figurative and allegorical, but there is nothing in the first two chapters of Genesis to support this claim.  Moreover, it is not just the book of Genesis that proclaims God’s creation, but the entire Bible is consistent on the issue (Ex. 20:11; 31:17; Job 38-41; Ps. 33:6, 9; 148:5; Isa. 40:21-31; 45:18; John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-16; 1Tim. 2:13; Heb. 11:3; 2Pet. 3:4-6).  In fact, even the Lord Jesus can be quoted on the matter of creation (Matt. 19:4).  Therefore, just by comparing the timeframe of the creation account to the timeframe of the theory of evolution, we can quickly see that these two views of life’s origin are absolutely incompatible.

I want to revisit this issue now because the time for "Evolution Weekend” (2/13/11) has come again and because there are some vitally important points I did not make in my sermon two years ago.  I demonstrated the incompatibility of the Genesis account of creation and the theory of evolution by showing the difference in their timeframes, but I did not analyze the issue from a theological standpoint.  The most fundamental truth of the Bible’s theology is stated in Romans 6:23 – "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This means that death did not enter the world until there was sin.  However, the theory of evolution requires that millions of years of death took place before the first sin was committed.  Theistic evolutionists (people who attempt to combine religion and evolution) would have us to believe that God created a world that was filled with suffering, disease, killing, and death even before sin, but the Bible does not teach this.  Instead, the Bible teaches that every part of God’s creation was good (Gen. 1:31) and that death did not enter the world until after man sinned (Rom. 5:12).  Again, we see that the Bible is incompatible with the theory of evolution.

I also want to make a point about the influence of Darwinian evolution on the world and the consequences of it.  Darwin’s theory of evolution has been used to justify unthinkably evil practices all over the world.  Many of the atrocities of the twentieth century, which was the most violent century in the history of the world, were based on belief in evolution.  Men such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler believed they were justified to terminate the lives of anyone who was weak, burdensome, or troublesome because evolution teaches that "survival of the fittest” is the rule of nature.  By eliminating God from the explanation of the world, all moral restraint was removed, and the value of human life was reduced to that of a highly evolved animal.  When man is not considered to be created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26), it is easy to justify murder in the interest of society.  Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, took Darwin’s theory a step farther by advocating for selective breeding among humans to improve society.  Others put Galton’s suggestions to work, such as Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood as a means of eliminating persons she considered to be less desirable through sterilization and abortions.  Today, Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill responsible for the murders of millions of unborn babies (funded in 2010 by $360 million from taxpayers).  I ask you, is anything that I have described here compatible with the religion of the Bible?

It grieves me to know that thousands of Americans who think they are Christians will be celebrating the ungodly theory of Charles Darwin in their church assemblies on Sunday.  How could there be such ignorance of the Bible and so little faith among them?  Actually, it does not surprise me when I consider that most Americans have been educated in public schools, which are prohibited from teaching about God in any way (the very definition of godlessness) but teach evolution in abundance.  Nevertheless, let us never give into the pressure of the masses, but rather let us stand with God, for the Scripture says, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar” (Rom. 3:4).

Stacey E. Durham