Monday, July 2, 2018
607 - Arrested Development
Spirituality Column #607
July 3, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Arrested Development
By Bob Walters
The kind and generous engineer – an electrical-with-a-Master’s-degree
type, not the railroad type – was part of our luncheon group at a large marina
recently.
It is a
nice marina in northern Lake Michigan, and the discussion mentioned a
particularly large yacht up there last summer owned by the DeVos family of
Grand Rapids, Mich., the family that co-founded Am-Way and also that of Bible-believing
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The boat is a stunning 165-footer, a
Westport …
But … this
is about believing in Jesus and the Bible, not pleasure boating. And what the engineer added to the lunch at
that moment was food for thought. He
said:
“Betsy
DeVos. She’s that woman who doesn’t believe in evolution. Some people are so foolish.”
I was
actually away from the table briefly when the comment was made, so I didn’t have the
chance to glare at the speaker or say something quick and potentially
unkind. Some of you are endowed with
perfect, irenic pitch when responding to such theological throw-downs. My batting average in those situations is not
exactly perfect.
Soon, in
the private, non-confrontational sanctuary of my own thoughts as we rode our
bicycles along the shore away from lunch (Yes, bikes. You assumed a yacht? A
nice boat? Uh, no.), the engineer’s
statement spawned much reflection. Such
as …
- “…
believe in evolution …” The worst thing you can say to an evolutionist is that
evolution is a matter of belief, but that’s what they always say: “I believe in
evolution.” It’s a theory, evolution is,
a very practical one that gave the end-of-the-Enlightenment humanists and
start-of-the-technical-age scientists – in the latter half of the 1800s – a
method of fending off religious guidelines on human and community morality. They’d say it was foolish to believe in a God
they “couldn’t see” and ran with the philosophy that it was up to mankind to
assign God a proper place, which is just backwards.
-
Education. The “foolish” remark was directed at all of us crazies who think the
Bible is the first arbiter among all human endeavor. That is Ms. DeVos’s sin in the eyes of the
evolutionists; “that’s not education.” When I read the Creation story in the
Bible I see that God made everything, he made everything “good,” and he made
mankind “very good” in the image of Himself.
There’s more to that story, as you no doubt are aware, but somehow 150
years ago culture got its feet tangled up trying to “prove” the Bible the way
science “proves” a physical theory. The
academy has not been the same since.
- Which
evolution? When someone suggests they
“believe in evolution,” the first question to ask – if you dare – is, “Which
part?” Are they talking about the beginning of the Cosmos? The foundation of
the world/Earth? The creation of
life? The origin of species? History?
The absence of divine purpose, objective truth, and morals?
A Supreme
Being with Glory, Authority and a Loving Plan – Jesus – is surely better news
for humanity than meaningless, inexplicable, evolutionary happenstance.
My point isn’t to settle the debate,
just to ask the evolution crowd to think more deeply about what they imagine
they are ridiculing when they ridicule those who believe human life contains
biblical truth and purpose. The scandal
is, Evolution does not.
0 comments:
Post a Comment