Why do Christians Deliberately Undermine their Own Story?
By Amy Beange
According to an Old Testament professor at a Calgary university, Christians who don’t believe in evolution are on par with those who believe in conspiracy theories. It is inevitable that believers will hold different positions on a variety of issues, which is why charity is so important in managing our relations. But the good news of salvation by grace through faith comes after the bad news of a good creation corrupted by human rebellion, punishable by death and eternal dismissal from God’s presence. This is central to any genuine Christian message and must not be compromised.
So, if the gospel is crucial to the Christian message the beginning of the gospel is even more critical. If that is compromised, the rest comes into question. For believers, the disagreement over origins is not minor; it is much more important, say, than a debate over sprinkling vs. immersion. It involves the nature of the gospel itself. When a Christian educator compares a commitment to the biblical view of creation to believing in conspiracy theories, he is undermining the biblical narrative and encouraging the secular culture to do so also.
The concern this article addresses comes out of a CBC News article “How conspiracies like QAnon are slowly creeping into some Canadian churches,” in which Concordia University doctoral student Marc-Andre Argentino suggests that conspiracy theories might be attractive to religious communities:
“[Religions and conspiracy theories] have this function where they permit the development of symbolic resources that enable people to define and address the problem of evil,” he said. “So, whether you want to know why something is happening, whether you're blessed or cursed—God or the devil—it's the same thing with QAnon. This conspiracy theory is providing a mainstream narrative for things like a pandemic or war or child trafficking.”
That humans tend to understand the world in terms of narratives is something to which we can all personally attest. We describe life’s events in terms of characters, settings, plot, conflict, complications, and resolution. And we expect others to speak to us the same way. For instance, effective political speeches aren’t dependent upon facts, but compelling stories. We not only understand specific events in terms of narrative, but we all look for a larger, overarching story to explain all the smaller ones, stories that answer the questions everyone confronts. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Why do bad things happen? And what happens when we die?
Over the past 150 years or so, westerners who turn from Judeo-Christianity have looked to alternative ways of answering these questions. (1) Karl Marx found his overarching narrative in the idea that matter is the ultimate reality. Humanity’s basic problem, he argued, came about with the rise of private property, and salvation would only be found in overthrowing the oppressive property-owning class. (2) Rousseau proclaimed that human beings were meant to live as independent individuals. He believed humanity’s basic problem is found in forced relationships, such as that of parent and child. Salvation, he said, could only come when those bonds were dissolved and replaced with relationships that were entirely the result of free choice and careful definition, as in the relationship between citizen and state. (3) Pantheism (mostly connected with the rising popularity of eastern religions) finds ultimate reality in a universal spiritual essence, an essence that goes unrecognized so long as humans insist on seeing themselves as individuals. For Pantheists, salvation is found in reuniting with this essence—coming to realize that we are one because collectively, everything is God.
So, if everyone turns to a grand narrative as the basis for their worldview, why does it appear that a significant number of Christians support conspiracy theories that, among other things, argue the Covid-19 pandemic is a planned event, or, a la QAnon, that Trump is secretly battling a child sex-trafficking ring?
Leaving aside the matter of whether these conspiracy theories can make any realistic claim to authenticity, it must be acknowledged that, having emerged from outside mainstream media, they are often thought of by observers as a kind of wish fulfilment, having no foundation in fact and akin to believing the earth is flat.
Colin Toffelmire, associate professor of Old Testament at Calgary’s Ambrose University, that I began this blog with, suggests that some conservative evangelicals seem to embrace these theories out of a literalistic approach to Scripture. He sees their position as coming from the same source as the “long-standing objection in evangelical subculture to really well-accepted scientific theories, like the theory of evolution by natural selection.” Those objections, he says, are “centered in versions of Christianity that believe that everything in the Bible is exactly historical and scientifically accurate.” This, he suggests, “could make certain individuals suspicious of mainstream ideas in science and history.” In other words, rejecting evolution, a theory that according to Toffelmire “everyone knows is true,” prepares people to believe the moon landings were a hoax.
Sigh. Seriously? If I reject evolution via natural selection I’ve somehow become a wingnut that would just as soon believe the Jews are plotting to take over the world? This continual mischaracterization of creationist beliefs got old long before I started writing this blog.
“If the gospel is crucial to the Christian message the beginning of the gospel is even more critical. If that is compromised, the rest comes into question.”
First, my understanding of the Bible as historically reliable stems from a simple belief that God doesn’t lie or misrepresent his actions. If I believe that God created vegetation via divine fiat (command), rather than a long process of natural selection, I do so because that is what the text says. It’s right there on the page! “God said ‘Let the earth bring forth grass’…and it was so…So the evening and the morning were the third day.” God made certain we would know what He meant by “day” when He included the phrase “evening and morning” and the ordinal “third”. He even told us to pattern our own six-day cycle of work and rest on His pattern of creating the universe in six days and resting on the seventh (Exodus 20:8-11).
Moreover, in order to combat the false worldviews held by surrounding pagan cultures - worldviews that reduced God from the all-powerful creator who spoke everything into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing) - the Hebrews were in need of an accurate history of origins. They did not need a story about enthronement ceremonies or a figurative story – they just needed to know what actually happened.
None of us were there when it happened, nor do we possess a time machine to take us there. We need God to tell us what happened, and if God told us He created fully formed complex organisms instantly when in fact He created simple ones and superintended their gradual development over vast spans of time, that would either make Him a liar or an incompetent communicator.
Second, evolution via natural selection may be “really well-accepted scientific theory,” but so what? It has many detractors, and I don’t just mean scientists who believe the Biblical account of creation. I am referring to scientists who believe creation is exclusively the result of natural forces, but who seriously doubt natural selection is the mechanism that accounts for it. You can find 70 such dissenters listed at The Third Way of Evolution. Obviously, rejection of natural selection doesn’t mean you checked your brain at the door; it just means you evaluated it and found it wanting. Isn’t that what science is supposed to involve? Testing theories? Trying to find their weaknesses? Discarding them if those weaknesses cannot be accounted for? Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 and we’ve learned a bit about biology since then.
Third, evolution via ANY natural mechanism also has plenty of detractors and I don’t mean just Creationist scientists. There are many scientists who see apparent design in nature and conclude such design could not come about via natural processes. You can find such scientists at The Discovery Institute. In fact, detecting evidence of design in nature isn’t rocket science. The SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Life) project specifically looks for evidence of design. When scientists listen to the radio noise coming from space, they believe they will have no trouble distinguishing between signals created by natural phenomena and those that, theoretically, come from little green men. Why, then, should it be grounds for derision when someone highlights a complex biological process that cannot function without a specific complement of parts, and therefore cannot be thought to arise from anything simpler?
“My understanding of the Bible as historically reliable stems from a simple belief that God doesn’t lie or misrepresent his actions.”
Evolution may be a widely accepted theory, but its rejection doesn’t mean the rejector is an ignoramus or close-minded. All evidence is interpreted in a framework of assumptions and science does not require a person to eliminate God from that framework. Because science deals with natural phenomena it cannot be used to study God, nor can scientific descriptions of a phenomenon refer to God. For example, science cannot offer, “Earthquakes occur as a combination of plate tectonics and the work of God,” as a scientific explanation for why earthquakes happen.
But without the slightest strain upon its basic principles, science can offer the following: “Because of the complexity of the information contained in DNA, an intelligent source may probably be inferred.” To be clear, design, intelligence, and the link between the two, can indeed be detected using scientific methods. Of course, intelligence as an explanation for DNA may be rejected because naturalistic scientists easily grasp that intelligent design supports the argument for God. Naturally, they shrink from the inexorable logic that if God exists, then He, or She, might conceivably demand the scientist’s worship.
But rejecting intelligent design because one’s metaphysical preferences leave no room for divinity has nothing to do with science. Again, a scientist can certainly reject the idea of an intelligent agent as a parameter for research into biological origins, but to do so eliminates a powerful, and not unscientific means of explaining complex phenomena. Interestingly enough, restricting science to nothing more than natural processes has up to now proven so fruitless that not even a $10-million prize, by far the largest single reward ever offered in basic science, has been able to stimulate a naturalistic solution to the origin of the genetic information found in all living cells.
As a Christian, it is natural for me to reject evolution. Why? Because God tells me he created me, for one thing, and because natural processes are insufficient explanations for the origin of life. The latter is for me a thick black line underscoring God’s testimony. Nor can it be ignored that intelligence as an explanation for biological design is an entirely reasonable assumption, which again underscores God’s testimony.
Here is why a discussion about intelligent design matters. We are all in need of an overarching story to help us understand why the world is the way it is and our place in it. If there is no meaning or purpose for life on planet earth, I’m free to create whatever story I want. But if there is a supreme intelligence behind all of this—and modern scientific discoveries strongly suggest that there is—then it should be to my advantage to do everything possible to discover who this being might be, and whether he, or she, has any expectations of a relationship with me.
This logically inescapable truth can be coupled with the accompanying fact that a book exists, The Bible, that purports to be a message from this supreme intelligence, a testimony of what he has done, and why, and my purpose in his plan. In an effort to keep intelligent design at bay naturalistic scientist Carl Sagan once stated that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” but even if that were so, and I am well aware that by “extraordinary evidence” Sagan meant evidence he believed would be impossible to obtain, it is my conviction that the Bible rises above even his exacting standard.
“Rejecting intelligent design because one’s metaphysical preferences leave no room for divinity has nothing to do with science”
Why? Well, partly because what the Bible reveals about humanity’s origin and formation squares with what we can detect through our own limited means. In other words, Biblical revelation squares with our own experience—that humanity is fundamentally broken because rebellion against our Creator has put us at odds with Him, with our fellow human beings, and with nature itself. This alone can explain why our utopias never quite work out, why relationships are hard, and why we get sick, and old, and die.
What the Bible reveals about morality also squares with human experience. Lying, killing, adultery, and covetousness never contribute to human flourishing, but subordination to a transcendent, loving authority always does. Evil demands justice and life yearns for immortality. This is our narrative; a good God created a good world, but it went wrong when his creatures rebelled. Now that good God is at work to restore His creation for all eternity; to grant justice for every evil and to swallow up death in immortality.
In opposition to all this, Darwin proposed descent via natural selection as a means of explaining biological diversity without God and in contradistinction from the “manifestly false history”(1) of the Old Testament. How is it reasonable to demand acceptance of his explanation, which undermines the gospel, in order to demonstrate sound Christian thinking?
It is certainly a weighty matter. How do we talk to our fellow Christians about such things? We can’t take for granted what anyone thinks, so in order to have a clear understanding of someone else’s mind, we need to ask some probing questions:
What do you believe about the historical accuracy of the Bible? How did you come to that conclusion?
What do you believe the Bible to teach about origins? Why do you believe this?
Does Genesis 1 give historical facts or theological meaning? Why?
If God used evolution to create all living things, doesn’t that mean that death came before sin?
From an evolutionary perspective what is the origin of physical death?
What did God mean when He said, “In the day that you eat [of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you shall surely die?” (Gen. 2:17)
Was Adam’s death physical or spiritual? Did it have any effect on his descendants?
We may also discuss with us these Bible verses:
Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
1 Corinthians 15:21 “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.”
The good news of the gospel lies within the pages of holy scripture and it is a message that only makes consistent sense of the world if we take it as written, the clear words of the One Who is our eye-witness to history.
(1)The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
CHRISTIANS NEED TO STAND STRONG. YOU CAN HELP THEM.