Universal Acid
Originally posted 27 September 2008
Rev Dr Malcolm Brown papers over the Grand Canyon at
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin/malcolmbrown.html
and CMI critiques his article at
Church of England apologises to Darwin
Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite appeasement of secularism
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/6048
“… it is important to recognise that the anti-evolutionary fervour in some corners of the churches may be… an indictment of the churches’ failure to tell their own story – Jesus’s story – with conviction in a way which works with the grain of the world as God has revealed it to be, both through the Bible and in the work of scientists of Darwin’s calibre.”
Rev Dr Malcolm Brown (who looks like a nice man) surely must understand that the philosophy of evolution is exactly the reason for the decline of Christianity in the west, and the rejection of what he calls Jesus’ ‘story.’ It contradicts at a very fundamental level both the Old Testament and the obvious beliefs of Jesus Himself. A child can see that. I recommend the critique of Brown’s article and would be interested to see Brown’s response.
From CMI’s critique:
“…philosopher Daniel Dennett calls Darwinism a universal acid that ‘eats through virtually every traditional concept’—mankind’s most cherished beliefs about God, value, meaning, purpose, culture, morality—everything.”
Universal acid. There you go. Apologising to Darwin for ill treatment is one thing. Serving his wormwood to the world’s thirsty is quite another. That is the true failure of the church, Rev Dr Brown: compromise with philosophy masquerading as science, and denial of the obvious consequences. It was the very basis for our culture’s rejection of God. It freed us from the logical constraints of belief in a Creator.
Without resorting to sophistry, or fluffy gnosticism like Brown’s, a belief in evolution logically leads to a rejection of the Scriptures. They are chalk and cheese, oil and water.
How about this clanger: “Christians will want to stress, instead, the human capacity for love, for altruism, and for self-sacrifice. There is nothing here which, in principle, contradicts Darwin’s theory.”
So the “eat your neighbour to survive” of natural selection somehow developed into self-sacrifice because it was socially practical? Brown’s article contradicts the clear teachings of the Bible, and not just early Genesis.
The Bible uses the word beast to describe “might is right” living. It clearly teaches that Adam seized dominion, instead of humbling himself and receiving it as a gift (like Joseph, Daniel, Mordecai and of course Christ). Either he was innocent when tested, or already condemned by living in a “might is right” world. It is a rejection of the Scriptures by sleight-of-hand.
Or this: “It is vital that Darwin’s theories are rescued from political and ideological agendas that are more about controlling human imagination and unpredictability than about good science.”
Ideas always have consequences. Why else would there be such a fight about this one in particular? It is incredibly naive to think such a ‘rescue’ is possible. It is actually the divorce of ideology from reality.
Darwin’s STORY cannot exist in a vacuum. It is a fight between one history and another, between one ‘truth’ and another. Darwin effectively rewrote history. Whether or not he understood the logical consequences is beyond the point.
Brown’s article would be comic if it wasn’t so tragic. Based on the following definition, he is a gnostic:
“Throughout history, the Christian Church has had to guard against the heresy of gnosticism. Gnosticism is not an ordinary heresy, because it does not manifest itself as a set of defined beliefs. Rather, gnosticism is a tendency: the tendency to replace the historic facts of Christianity with philosophical ideas.
Gnosticism is the tendency to de-historicise and de-physicalise the Christian religion. Gnosticism transforms history into ideology and facts into philosophy. Gnosticism tends to see religion as man’s reflections about God and reality instead of as God’s revelation of Himself and His Word to man.
As a tendency, gnosticism has always plagued the Church, and it is alive and well today, openly in “liberalism,” and in a more concealed fashion in “evangelicalism.” James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days, A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Chapter 4: Gnosticism Versus History.
So, which is it? Either the Bible is history or ideology. If ideology, it has no authority. It has no connection with Brown’s imaginary ‘real’ world at its very heart. Everyone seems to understand that except theistic evolutionists. And the CofE wonders why Christianity has become irrelevant.
CMI’s article ‘Univeral Acid’ is here:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/594
