The Current Question: Should Creation Have Equal Time With Evolution In Science Classes?
A BIBLICAL VIEWPOINT
EVEN RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS ARE IN DISAGREEMENT
CHRISTIAN Fundamentalists in the United States are campaigning to get “scientific creationism” taught along with evolution in science classes in the public schools. One report claims that as many as 40 state legislatures have considered bills requiring this. Arkansas has passed such a law. The issue has been argued in court. Textbook changes have been made. The issue is also being debated in Canada.
Many Christian parents feel their children are under attack. The target, their children’s faith. The place of attack, the classroom. The attackers, evolutionists. The ammunition, assertions—not science. The technique, browbeating and brainwashing. The result, decay of values.
Evolutionists disagree with these statements, especially the last one. Historian H. G. Wells did not. In his “Outline of History,” pages 956, 957, he referred to Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” and said: “A real demoralization ensued . . . There was a real loss of faith after 1859. The true gold of religion was in many cases thrown away with the worn-out purse that had contained it for so long, and it was not recovered.”
Runaway Collapse of Morals
Today the moral breakdown is far worse, and worsening daily. Premarital sex, premarital pregnancy, birth control by abortion, homosexuality—anything goes. Do your own thing, whatever seems right for you. However, “there is a way that some think right, but it leads in the end to death.”—Prov. 16:25, “The Jerusalem Bible.”
The answers given by religious groups to the question of teaching creation in the classroom are not uniform. Some say it should be taught, others say no, and many times there is disagreement even within one church group. Opposers say it violates the principle of separation of Church and State; those favoring it protest that their tax dollars are now used to teach godless evolution. The issue has become political.
How do Jehovah’s Witnesses view all of this? They do not engage in worldly politics, but look to Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ as the solution to the vast array of problems now confronting mankind. (John 18:36) They busily preach God’s kingdom as the only hope—which preaching includes the Genesis account of creation.
Many times representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses are invited to speak about their organization in classrooms. These talks include material on creation. Some teachers have even used their publication entitled “Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation?” for classroom discussions.
Parents Teach Their Children
The children of Jehovah’s Witnesses often discuss creation when the teacher talks about evolution. They can do this because they have been taught the subject at home. These parents teach their children about origins, rather than leaving such instruction up to secular instructors or Sunday-school teachers.
Thus Jehovah’s Witnesses meet the Biblical responsibility placed on parents: “Fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.” Also, “You must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”—Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:6, 7.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and their children put no credence in evolutionary philosophies, but recognize Jehovah as ‘the Creator of heaven and earth and the One giving life to all people.’—Isa. 42:5.