Sacrificing Our Children to Their God

A cadre of conservative Christians are mounting a determined campaign against the teaching of the science of evolution in our nation’s schools. They seek to foment a new distrust of mainstream science, along with the ancient fear of a wrathful God, to try to block children from studying any science that would lead them beyond the science found in the Bible. Pressure on school boards to abet the dismantling of mainstream science comes even from President George W. Bush, who said Aug. 1 that the nation’s schools should teach the religious theory of “Intelligent Design” as a challenge to the science of evolution.

Religious challenges to the teaching of evolution in schools are currently being mounted in 49 of the 50 states, according to Dr. Karl Giberson, editor-in-chief of Science and Spirit magazine, whose current issue asks on its cover, “What’s the Problem With Darwin? Why Americans Are Turning Their Backs on Evolution.”

Steve Abrams, chairman of the Kansas State Board of Education, said in September that evolution was incompatible with Christian beliefs. “At some point in time, if you compare evolution and the Bible, you have to decide which one you believe,” Abrams said. In a Harris Poll in June, 54 percent of Americans surveyed said they did not think human beings developed from earlier species. This was a 17 percent increase from the number who doubted evolution in 1994.

Some parents and educators are fighting back. Testimony began in federal court Sept. 26 in a lawsuit brought by parents of ninth graders in Dover, Pa., challenging their school district’s policy requiring their children’s biology teachers to discredit the science of evolution in their classrooms and advance the concept of Intelligent Design. Bob Hemenway, Chancellor of the University of Kansas, said Sept. 27, “Evolution is the central unifying principle of modern biology, and it must be taught in our high schools, universities and colleges.” At West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Geology professor Ed Crisp has spoken out strongly.

In the Ohio Valley, the Creation Research Science Education Foundation, based in Columbus, says, “Our ministry is to keep science in its proper perspective by reexamining the evidence around us in the light of the Bible. Board members believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, which we believe teaches a young earth and a worldwide Flood in the days of Noah.” The group thus completely rejects modern biological science, but Ohio Valley University Associate Professor of Natural Sciences and Education Gordon Wells counts himself among its leading members. He teaches biology and trains science teachers at the school, which is an accredited university.

Dr. Bruce Terry, chair of the School of Bible and Religion at Ohio Valley University, also takes a Creationist approach to science. Terry, whose Bible program says it “prepares ministers, missionaries, and educators,” sought to discredit tenets of mainstream science when he spoke at West Virginia University at Parkersburg Sept. 23.

Will the Creationist political movement succeed in discrediting science and convincing students to restrict their studies to the boundaries of “biblical fact”? Will they succeed in sacrificing our children’s future to their God?

In one of the most troubling passages in the Old Testament, Abraham proves his obedience to God by agreeing to make a human sacrifice of his sweet-tempered son Isaac:

“God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him… Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest… and offer him for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.… And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham…, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” (Genesis 22, KJV)

Saint Paul admired Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac,” he says. (Hebrews 11:17, KJV)

James, in his epistle, agreed. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” (James 2:21, KJV)

But would Christ have agreed with them? Christ said, “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Matthew 12:7, KJV)

Does the wrathful God of the Old Testament still rule us through fear and the threat of hell? Should we obey a God who tells us to sacrifice our children?

I have met families who could not even discuss evolution for fear of losing their souls. If these families continue to be ruled by the vengeful God who now threatens them, their children will be barred from entering into the discourse of free men and women, because they will never have an independent point of view. They will be servants all their lives to those in society who do the thinking, not because of any difference in intelligence, but because they will have been trained, under pain of condemnation to hell, to not think for themselves.

The laughing child who explores nature in the spirit of pure play ignores biblical rules about what he or she is allowed to notice and study. The Creationists want us to sacrifice that child to their Old Testament God. Will we agree?