Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
mysticism or Scientific <strong>Creationism</strong>? The answer is obvious. The New Age mystics allow secular<br />
humanists to retain the heart of their Darwinian religion: human autonomy.<br />
Christians need a better alternative than historical despair, both <strong>for</strong> themselves and <strong>for</strong> their presentation<br />
of Christ’s gospel of redemption. We are at war with post-Darwinian evolutionism, and this war<br />
encompasses every area of life. Very few Christians recognize the comprehensive, literally life-and-death<br />
nature of this war, including members of the Scientific Creation movement…<br />
This indicates that the vast majority of Christians still do not believe that the doctrine of the six-day<br />
creation is relevant <strong>for</strong> Christian spiritual life. There is a reason <strong>for</strong> this: Scientific Creationists have<br />
written virtually nothing on how and why the doctrine of the six-day creation must reshape all of modern<br />
Christian theology and the entire Christian way of life. Christians have not been shown clearly and<br />
decisively that Darwinism is a total worldview, and that by accepting any aspect of this worldview,<br />
Christians compromise and weaken the presentation of the Christian worldview, as well as risk disobeying<br />
God. They have not been shown how evolutionism spreads like cancer from the geology or history<br />
textbook to every area of personal ethics and public policy. Worse, they have not been shown why and<br />
how six-day creationism leads to a fundamentally unique worldview that encompasses things other than<br />
academic topics like historical geology and biology. To win the battle with Darwinism, which is above all<br />
a comprehensive worldview justifying comprehensive power, six-day creationists must believe that the<br />
stakes are far larger than mere laboratory experiments or one-evening debates. Creation scientists must<br />
demonstrate that six-day creationism really makes a difference in every area of life…<br />
The only people who seem to understand how much of a threat the six-day creation doctrine is to all of<br />
modern secular humanism are the best-in<strong>for</strong>med secular humanists on one side and the Christian<br />
Reconstructionists on the other. The secular humanists reject the conclusions of the Scientific Creationists,<br />
and argue that the creationists’ official methodology (the appeal to scientific neutrality) is a charade, while<br />
the Christian Reconstructionists accept the creationists’ conclusions but reject their methodology as selfdeception<br />
rather than a charade. [1988:xiii-xv]<br />
Gary DeMar’s American Vision publishes The Biblical Worldview. A recent<br />
article, explaining how the Bible was to be applied to education, criticized the ICR-style<br />
“twomodel” approach:<br />
We must not encourage [students] to doubt God or to question Him. Neither should we encourage the<br />
students to set themselves up as judges over the Word of God. Un<strong>for</strong>tunately, the current “creationscience”<br />
movement falls into this error (among others). According to this view, the students are to be<br />
presented with the evolutionary view of origins and the creationist view (which is totally divorced from<br />
God and His Word), and allowed to make up their own minds as to which is true and which is false. In<br />
effect, students are being told, “Here are two guesses about origins: one is prevalent among modern<br />
scientists, and the other comes from the Bible (although we won’t tell you that). You decide if God is right<br />
or if He is wrong.” We must soundly reject such an approach. God does not call upon us to judge His<br />
Word; His Word judges us, and determines whether or not we are faithful to Him. We must reject the<br />
“creation-science” approach to science. (Let me add that much of the work of creation scientists is very<br />
helpful; I am merely speaking here of the recommended methodology of teaching creationism in the<br />
schools.) [R. Kirby 1989:6]<br />
We should declare, says the author, that the reason we do not believe in evolution is<br />
because the Bible teaches creationism, not because evolution is unscientific (though that<br />
is true too).<br />
The Plymouth Rock Foundation has organized “Committees of Correspondence”<br />
(named after Revolutionary War-era patriot groups) nationwide to reclaim America <strong>for</strong><br />
Christ. (Curiously, the organized anti-creationist in<strong>for</strong>mation network, which pre-dates<br />
the Plymouth Rock groups, also calls their local groups “Committees of<br />
Correspondence”). Rus Walton, leader of Plymouth Rock, includes a chapter “Evolution<br />
vs. Creation” in his book Biblical Principles Concerning Issues of Importance to Godly<br />
Christians (1984). Teaching only the evolution view, says Walton, violates the religious