Mike's musings

Preaching against creationism and so-called "Intelligent Design"

Well, I've got people clamouring on Facebook to find out what I preached on. I they don't seem that interested in other issues, so I probably shouldn't talk about taking the girls swimming to Halstead pool, or how it was Miri who was a pain to get to sleep tonight, but it was Moo who ended up putting her to bed.

Well, I preached on the theory of evolution. I started by introducing Charles Darwin as a fervent abolitionist and also an agnostic, and then talked about how he wrote a book which many Christians have had problems with, but which has lots of mistakes in it. I then introduced the Bible, in particular the Book of Genesis, with which it is often compared. I then explained how although Darwin got quite a few things wrong, the theory that he came up with has stood the test of time, and has turned out to be very resilient. How could you expect him to get it all right when he didn't have all the benefits of modern genetics, or the evidence that people have been gathering to refine the theory over the 150 odd years since he published "Origin of the Species"? The theory of evolution is a strong, resilient theory which has been shown to be usable to make predictions, and which is almost universally accepted by the scientific community worldwide.

What about the Bible, and the account of creation in Genesis? First of all, I believe that it's fantastic poetry, but I don't read Hebrew at all, so I couldn't tell. Second, it's a description aimed at people who lived 3, maybe 4 thousand years ago. And third, it's not science, and neither was it ever meant to be. The idea of science as, well, a "thing", a "discipline", even an idea is completely alien to the Old Testament (well, the New Testament as well): this is not a scientific account, but an attempt to explain how God's love moved into our world through creation.

I then went on to explain that creationists, and those who espouse so-called "Intelligent Design", rather annoy me, because at least part of my background is as a scientist. The theory of evolution has passed the test of time and the scientific community: why are we worried by this, when the alleged "alternative" account was never meant to fulfill the same role at all? And more than that, the God who _I_ believe in is greater than the one they seem to believe in. The God I believe in can work through evolution, through the theories of Newton and Einstein, and isn't worried that we'll work out how the world works: creation, and His acting through it, is the out-working of his love, and this God is not so weak that He has to tweak evolution from time to time in order to make, for instance, the eye. I think that's poor theology, let alone poor science.

So, that's my sermon, give or take. I gave it twice - once at the 0800, and once at the 1000. Slightly different each time, as I wasn't using notes - and I got positive feedback both times. People _want_ to hear about these things, and as it's so rarely the liberal view which is expounded with any passion, hopefully I'm redressing the balance somewhat.

Labels: preaching, science, theology