Young evangelical writer: 'Move on' from evolution-creationism debate

Excerpts from
Young evangelical writer: 'Move on' from evolution-creationism debate
By Bob Smietana, The Nashville Tennessean
Full article @ http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-07-23-scopes23_ST_N.htm

Rachel Held Evans had a choice while growing up in Dayton, Tenn., site of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Believe the Bible or believe evolution.

"I was taught that if you don't interpret Genesis 1 and 2 literally, then you don't take the Bible seriously," said Evans, 29. "I held on tightly to that for a long time."

"I learned you don't have to choose between loving and following Jesus and believing in evolution," she said. She chronicled her personal journey in a new memoir Evolving in Monkey Town.

Evans is part of a movement of mostly Protestant writers and scientists trying to reconcile faith and science, 85 years after the trial ended. Instead of choosing sides, some prefer the middle ground of intelligent design, which claims God designed how life evolved. Tennessee gubernatorial candidates Ron Ramsey, Zach Wamp and Mike McWherter all advocate teaching intelligent design in schools.

Giberson, the son of a Primitive Baptist pastor from Canada, grew up believing evolution was wrong, but his views changed once he studied physics in college. Now a member of the Church of the Nazarene and a teacher at a Christian college he's convinced evolution is true.

"My generation of evangelicals is ready to call a truce on the culture wars. It seems like our parents, our pastors, and the media won't let us do that. We are ready to be done with the whole evolution-creation debate. We are ready to move on."

Christians who have become Intelligent Design (ID) supporters believe the ID theory to be a compromise between creationist and evolutionist theories of man's origins. They feel that supporting ID allows them to retain faith in the Biblical creation account while being scientifically-minded, modern men and women. The version of ID that many Christians try to set alongside their Bibles states that God created the world in a way that essentially set into place the first link of the evolutionary chain that would lead life on this planet to its present state.

ID provides the only point in the origins debate where a fundamentalist Christian and an evolutionsist may find surprisingly full agreement: It is impossible for "intelligent design" to be the explanation for our origins if the "intelligent designer" is the God of the Holy Bible. The state of creation today, including man, is flawed. No one can argue this. The most perfect rose that blooms today is already beginning to wilt. Therefore, if ID tells us that what we see today is what we have evolved to after God ignited the evolutionary creative process upon this planet, man first walked the earth with serious design flaws.

No one who reads and believes the Holy Bible text can put any stock in such a theory. It goes against everything the Bible teaches about God and His crowning creation, man.

God created man in His own image and breathed life into man's nostrils. Man was created in perfect harmony with God and with the creation God gave to man. Man was to be fruitful and multiply and, having access to the Tree of Life at the center of the garden, man was created in such a manner that he would never die.

Today, man dies. Therefore, man is less perfect today than on the day of creation. Man is not evolving. Man is de-volving. The Holy Bible explains to us that this is because man did not believe God when He said one tree brings life and the other brings death. Man ate from the tree that brings death, and began the process of dying.

To die, man must deteriorate. This did not happen overnight. For many generations from Adam, men lived for hundreds of years, up to nearly a thousand. Eventually, man's years were numbered at 120, and then 70. In the Middle Ages, the average lifespan was around 40 years. This is the effect of sin on the creation, brought on by man's choice to eat from the tree that brings sin and death.

In recent years, man has made advances in nutrition, sanitation, technology, and medicine that increase the average lifespan to seventy years or more in 147 out of 224 nations listed in the CIA Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html). Science believes that within a generation or two, we can return to a 120-year average lifespan. Some believe that with advances in technology over the next thousand years or so, man can return to his pre-fall state of eternal life.

This outlook relies on the evolutionist theory of man evolving from a mix of amino acids happened upon the earth by passing comets and asteroids. The ID theory says that God put those basic elements of life on the asteroid and hurled it to the earth. Both conflict with the most basic teachings of Scripture and violate at least two of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.

Further, ID fosters the notion that man is evolving toward something better. This plays into New Age teachings that an advance in consciousness and in our DNA is awaiting us, perhaps just around the corner if man were to count years as steps down the street. Man will do this without atonement or repentence. With its denial of man's perfection at creation, ID leaves no room for an accounting of man's current state as being a result of his choosing sin that leads to death. Without sin as the cause of death, man has no need of a Savior to make atonement so that man can regain eternal life. It dovetails perfectly with the New Age expectation of a sudden transformation that leaps man into the form and mind that is our man-focused shared destiny.

An intellectually honest and Spirit-filled Christian cannot believe in Intelligent Design. Contrary to the title of the article and the hope of that bright young woman, we cannot possibly ever "move on" from this debate. That God created man in His image and likeness, perfect man for a perfect world, is foundational to all that God says to man about our fallen estate and need for a Savior. And that, my friend, is the message of the Holy Bible from cover-to-cover. It is everything that is essential about our faith.

I believe in intelligent design, to wit," in the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth".

In 6 literal days and yes, HE is very intelligent.