COMMENTARY: Why the Christian Right’s Fight Over Evolution Isn’t About Evolution

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Religious bullying makes for colorful politics, but does little for faith or culture. As we saw in Rome’s lamentable denunciation of Copernicus and Galileo for discoveries that threatened the Church’s franchise, religious bullies can rile the faithful, intimidate secular leaders and offer easy escapes from a confusing world. But […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Religious bullying makes for colorful politics, but does little for faith or culture.

As we saw in Rome’s lamentable denunciation of Copernicus and Galileo for discoveries that threatened the Church’s franchise, religious bullies can rile the faithful, intimidate secular leaders and offer easy escapes from a confusing world. But they do little to advance human knowledge or to promote serious faith.


The latest example of religious bullying, in an era filled with it, is an assault by a subset of conservative Christianity on the science of evolution. In what seems a back door to revivifying “creationism,” a pseudo-science based on a misreading of Genesis, these conservative Christians now offer something called “intelligent design,” based on the romantic assertion that the created order is so magnificently complex, it must have been created whole-cloth by God.

They offer that assertion in supposed defense of God, as if science were at war with God, indeed as if the science of evolution were one more misdeed by Christianity’s enemies. In fact, they are a well-funded thrust by a conservative movement that is determined to gain power and to rewrite American culture to their liking. It has little to do with science and more to do with launching another front in the culture wars.

I don’t question our need to have serious debate about American culture. I wish these conservative Christians showed more concern for what actually affects people’s lives, such as jobs, justice, hatred, honesty in government, and safety. But we start where we start. If they truly believe that their agenda _ stifling diversity, marginalizing homosexuals, putting women back in their place, imposing Christian practices on all citizens, compromising basic liberties _ will make this a better nation, let’s have that debate. It is a worthy debate.

But let’s leave science alone. Science isn’t the issue. The alleged “controversy” between evolution and “intelligent design” is just a bullying tactic: get one more “controversy” on the table, one more proof that “true believers” are being “oppressed” by the dominant culture.

It’s on a par with the “controversy” about placing the Ten Commandments in public places. That alleged controversy had nothing to do with teaching the ethical values contained in the Ten Commandments. It was just a fight some bullies picked to embarrass another group and to label them as one more reason to “take back” the culture. This is a well-traveled political road: add to people’s anxiety, and then offer to resolve it for them.

Instead of politicizing science, let’s be citizens of a democracy, and let’s talk openly about what kind of nation we want to be. Let’s deal openly with ethics _ not just the ethics of sex, last year’s rile-the-people controversy, but biblical ethics, as reflected in Moses, the prophets, Jesus and Paul, and the ethics of Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Emma Lazarus.

Let’s deal openly with liberty and justice _ still “for all,” as the Pledge says, or now to be apportioned? Let’s deal openly with power: who has it, who wants it, and what’s best for the nation. Let’s deal openly with what “popular culture” is doing to our lives, starting with raunchy rap, if we must, but making sure not to stop until we have addressed the dumbing impact of television and the get-mine, live-for-today heartbeat of commerce. Let’s deal openly with immigration and whether we must shroud Liberty’s torch. Let’s deal openly with race, still the most wrenching topic before us.

I cannot imagine a more important discussion for American citizens to have. But I know two things: First, picking fights over science or courthouse decoration won’t get us anywhere; and second, once debate begins, both liberals and conservatives will pray before they speak and consult Scripture for guidance.


MO/PH END RNS

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo of Ehrich.

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