Much of the church today is slipping into the morass of complacency, formalism, and compromise. In many cases the churches have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. One of the greatest spiritual plagues afflicting the church is the theory of evolution. Ironically, this erroneous concept was originally conceived and presented to the world, not from a generally paganistic background, but from the Bible-influenced British Isles. As a consequence, Europe and North America, once strongly Reformation-influenced, are now a mere shadow of their former selves.

Darwinian concepts are influencing new legislation promoting what the Bible so vividly describes as “calling evil good and good evil, woe unto them!” (Isaiah 5:20). The devastating family- and nation-destroying evils of abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia are now almost universally protected by law. Never before has civilized humanity enacted and enforced so many godless laws.

Curricula based on evolution have had a devastating effect on all public education, to the point that this false view is now being taught to the exclusion of almost anything contrary. As a consequence, evolution has completely dominated all secular thinking, leaving no room for debate.

Horace Mann, a Massachusetts lawyer and state legislator, often considered to be the father of public education, stated in his Report On Education for 1845: “It becomes then a momentous question, whether the children in our schools are educated in reference to themselves and their private interests only, or with a regard to the great social duties and prerogatives that await them in later life. Are they so educated, that, when they grow up, they will make better philanthropists and Christians, or only grander savages?”

The theory of evolution is by no means innocent. It has caused many a child of the covenant to waver and others to fall away completely. The devil is very subtle! Darwin’s theory of evolution seems rather impressive, often almost plausible. His English phraseology is quite magnificent; at times he appears to be almost apologetic. At one point he confesses that: “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” And yet, he vigorously maintained and defended the folly of evolution throughout his life, to the very end.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the development of very serious social consequences directly related to the rapidly spreading evolutionary mindset of new leaders of both Communism and Nazism. Both Karl Marx and Lenin were supporters of Darwin and his evolutionary theories. Marx went so far as to send a copy of his book Das Kapital to Darwin. Karl Marx’s work was based on a material view of the world that showed natural causes and effects for all aspects of human society and economy. He recognized that Darwin’s work provided a similar explanation for all of nature (natural selection), thus supporting Marx’s world view. Marx, Lenin, and Engels were the primary and original developers of what later became the Russian form of Communism, which was ultimately brought to full fruition by Joseph Stalin. This terrible dictator seems never to have had a moment of regret concerning the millions of people who died a most cruel death under his dictatorship. It has been estimated that by 1959 some twenty million of the Soviet population had been murdered outright.

In his Descent of Man, Darwin warns that measures must be taken, “to prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men.” Both Stalin and Hitler took this to heart and indeed made it their creed to live and govern by. Less than a century after Darwin’s demise, Hitler described the struggle for existence in Darwin’s terms in his chapter on “Nation and Race” in his book Mein Kampf: “The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness; only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher evolution of organic living beings would be unthinkable.”

   

     

Darwinism considers humanity to be but one small step above their pet dog, rabbit or goldfish. Even in this country, early on, this scourge infected the mindset of a number of responsible individuals. Mandatory sterilization in the spirit of Darwin’s theories was at one time approved by the Supreme Court. Concerning the Virginia compulsory sterilization law focusing on “feeble minded” women, Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1927 wrote his infamous line: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who wanted to eliminate the races in this country that she believed to be inferior. At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York, Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf warned of the menace posed by the ‘black’ and ‘yellow’ peril. Knopf was a member of Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League, which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood, now a powerful pro-abortion organization. Margaret Sanger’s crusade for legalized birth control eventually spurred the Women’s Liberation movement.

To date at least forty-six million pre-born children have been murdered in this country, either by abortion or infanticide—partial birth abortion! This number probably already surpasses the number of murders committed by Stalin and Hitler combined.

It is horrendous how far humanity is able to sink apart from the grace of God. When the things done as medical experimentation in the German concentration camps during the Hitler regime came to light at the 1949 Nuremberg trials, the world stood absolutely aghast! Now, a little over sixty years later, these very same things are taking place in one form or another on a daily basis. Not only are they taking place, they are protected by law without causing as much as a stir.

The worst of these scourges, at least to date, is the terribly inhuman and heinous sin of partial birth abortion. This murder process requires the attending killer in a white coat to turn the baby within the birth canal so that he is born feet first, in the hope that the child will smother before being entirely ejected. While the baby is yet feebly kicking in a desperate attempt to cling to life, the murderer extracts the child just far enough so that the base of the skull is exposed; he then proceeds vigorously to penetrate the skull at its base with a sharp instrument such as a scissors and subsequently suctions out all brain matter so that the skull collapses. By doing this, in the eyes of secular law, he prevents the baby’s transition from a so called “fetus” to a “child.” The baby is then considered stillborn.

The evolutionistic view of humanity also reveals itself in its attitude toward the elderly. In a number of countries that have adopted socialized medicine, those elderly who are considered to have become an excessive expense and burden on society are routinely starved and dehydrated to death. If this is too slow, an overdose injection is administered. In the small principality of Luxembourg, until recently, no law could go into effect without the formal consent of ceremonial ruler Grand Duke Henri. When he refused to give his blessing to a new law allowing euthanasia, he was stripped of this veto power.

Currently the animal rights movement is attempting to raise the rights of animals to the level of human rights. Many proponents of animal rights hold that if animals and humans have the same nature, then we cannot withhold protective rights from animals. Spain recently enacted a law providing apes equal rights with humans. If you shoot a chimp, you will stand trial for murder. Switzerland’s Supreme Court is considering similar laws. This God-defying evolutionistic thought has infected a considerable number of formerly strong, Bible-based Reformed churches to one degree or another. As a consequence, our Christian institutions of higher learning have suffered as well. In many once-solid churches and schools some aspects of Darwinism are tolerated, at times incorporated into the teaching of certain tenets of the God-revealed truth of the Scriptures, and in some cases adopted outright. Often, those in opposition are too kind in their condemnation of this evil to take a strong and positive stand against evolution.

Over the years theologians, preachers, and teachers have compromised themselves in one way or another and introduced various erroneous concepts. A primary stumbling block is the confession of six literal, twenty-four-hour creation days. The following views stand out most vividly:

Co-Creation: allows for long periods of time, incorporating the evolutionary process. It claims that God, at times, used natural processes of selection to bring everything into being.

Framework Hypothesis: asserts that the biblical account of creation in Genesis 1 is not to be taken literally. Instead, proponents say that it should be viewed as being poetic, thereby allowing for a more liberal interpretation of God’s creation work. Theistic Evolution: directly incorporates evolution into the creation as the tool used by God.

Gap Creationism: posits that the biblical creation account is historically accurate, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and second verses of Genesis.

The common thread in all of these views is that they are innovations put forth by those who have been influenced by the modern intelligentsia advocating secular Darwinism; consequently they seem to have a problem accepting the biblical record of how God created the universe. Many advocates of these concepts will say that these views should not be troublesome because they do not directly affect our Christianity, nor are they salvation issues.

However, if we have a problem with what God tells us in the first few verses of the Bible, can we not expect to run into the same problem elsewhere? Since the problem seems primarily to involve periods of time, if we will not accept instantaneous creation out of nothing, then how can we accept any of the instantaneous actions of God? How can we accept the miracles described elsewhere in the Scriptures? What about the events described in Joshua 10:12, when the sun stood still, or in Isaiah 28:8, where the sun actually turned back ten steps or degrees? Considering that the earth’s rotation is at a rate of a little over one thousand miles per hour at the equator, imagine what would happen to us and everything else on this earth if it came to a sudden stop! Without God’s direct intervention this could never have happened; none of us would be here today! What of the parting of the Red Sea? Christ’s return will be in the twinkling of an eye, and we will all be changed. What of our Lord’s miracles: the instant healings, raising the dead, walking on water, and calming the storm?

These concepts derived from evolutionary thought, applied to the scriptural account of creation and God’s control thereof could never have been conceived, originated, or developed within the seriously God glorifying, Christ-honoring Christian mindset. Sadly, they are compromises consisting of derivatives of Darwinism. Any compromise must be considered to be a feeble attempt to make the church of Jesus Christ appear palatable to the world, thereby limiting the absolute omnipotence and holiness of almighty God. To say that this thinking does not affect our salvation is mere folly!

Dr. Frank Turek of Crossexamined.org makes the following claims concerning most modern institutions of higher learning: “Seventy to seventy-five percent of Christian youth leave the church after high school. Intellectual skepticism is the reason they walk away. Most Christian students are unequipped to resist rabidly anti-Christian college professors who are intent on converting their students to atheism. More than half of all college professors view evangelical Christian students unfavorably.”

Churches today must reevaluate their position; they must regain their spiritual strength; they must be pure and reassert themselves, to be the light of the world as they were intended to be! Simply stated, we must believe and be convinced that the Bible is the absolutely infallible Word of almighty God. Not one iota will fall away until all that is written has been accomplished. We must believe and vigorously defend the fact that all of Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We must acknowledge that every sphere of life, secular as well as spiritual, is under the constant scrutiny, indeed the absolute control of God, and that at the last trumpet every knee shall bow before the Lord. The church’s calling therefore is to call all of mankind to repentance.

Mr. Nick Lindemulder is a member (and often elder) at the Pompton Plains Reformed Bible Church (URC), Pompton Plains, NJ.