Why
identify pantheism as the religion opposing Christianity in the culture wars?
The
creation/evolution conflict continues to fester in Christianity, particularly
in intellectual and academic circles. Creationist groups such as Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research are doing good work
and seeing good results especially among lay people. But in public challenges, biblical
creation has come up on the losing end. In particular: (a) The creation vs.
evolution debates on college campuses that were popular 30-20 years ago came to
an abrupt stop when evolutionists refused to engage any further;[1]
(b) The court cases in Louisiana and Arkansas, and most recently in Dover,
Pennsylvania, all found against creation; (c) Massive compromise–more
like a stampede–to billions of years and evolution appears to be going on
in evangelical theology; (d) The
Intelligent Design (ID) movement, although inherently strong, is making near-zero
headway; (e) Most of the big evangelical churches seem to want nothing to do
with creation, being concerned more with attracting young people while ignoring
doctrine and discipleship; and (f) Evolution is being pushed ever more
aggressively in the media and schools, even Christian schools, in the face of a
mass of counter-evidence that is being assiduously ignored.
The
Kitzmiller
vs Dover School Board trial
decision in Pennsylvania was particularly unfortunate. Not only did Judge John Jones
III not deal with the constitutional issue of whether a local school board has
the right to determine curriculum, he pronounced ID and creation to be religious,
in contrast to science, which he believed is not religious. Therefore ID and creation, he determined,
have no place in the science classroom. No one seems to have the courage to
challenge that monstrously wrong decision.
We
assert that what is necessary is to identify the nature of the opposition to
Christianity in general and to creation in particular as entirely religious. Our
goal is to persuade the Church that the controversy regarding origins is not
between "science" and Christianity, but it's their aggressive
religion against ours.
The
deep conviction, the commitment to evolution in spite of overwhelming evidence
to the contrary, betrays the opposing religion. ("I readily admit that no
species has ever been known to engender another, and that there is no
absolutely definite evidence that such a thing has ever taken place. Nonetheless, I believe evolution to be
just as certain as if it had been objectively proved," said Yves Delage, Sorbonne zoologist of a century ago, a revealingly
religious statement if there ever was one!)
Understanding
the conflict this way should totally change its complexion. The perception in
the church is, if it's just atheists (and agnostics) vs Christians, that's no big deal, they just don't believe like Christians
do. Atheists and agnostics simply have absence of faith. They are a negative
something, not a positive. But if
instead it's their religion versus
Christianity...that's different. It's now religious warfare! It's their
positive vs our positive. Now we can
get some traction: What theologian wants to be syncretistic? What young person
having been raised in the church wants to go over to an alien religion? What
pastor would refuse to keep his sheep from straying into a pack of wolves? Our goal here is to identify evolution
and its "science" as outworkings of their religion, and the
controversy as warfare.
Now
what is the religion? The best answer is pantheism. We are defining pantheism
as a religion, not as a philosophy. The definition of pantheist we use is
anyone who rejects the God of the Bible and who holds to evolution to explain
origins. Every anti-theist (where "theist" refers to Jehovah God)
there is, whether atheist, agnostic, humanist, secularist, Marxist, materialist
or existentialist, who holds to evolution, is pantheistic.
Perhaps
the most basic question anyone can ever ask is, Why is
there something instead of nothing? Why does anything exist? Biblical theism
and pantheism both explain origins, both make theological statements, both
enable us to construct a worldview and interpret reality. And we hold to one or
the other with deep conviction. The one is as much a religion as the other.
Now,
just as not every Christian has the same experience of God, not every Christian
knows his Bible or theology, not every Christian has the same degree of
commitment, so not every pantheist necessarily has the same awareness of his
religion. This is especially so with pantheism because, as a religion, it's so
diffuse, so vague, so difficult to nail down as to its beliefs, practices and
any consequent worldview. Pantheism
is furthermore very difficult for a Christian to understand because our minds
are fixed on God as a Person, a Being. But pantheism has a non-being for deity;
their deity is not a person. A pantheist doesn't necessarily have to be aware
that his deity is somehow identified with nature, or even that there is any
deity. This is precisely why the first item of faith for a pantheist is not a
positive statement but a negative: there is no Creator outside nature.
For
a pantheist, the God of the Bible is not Creator. In pantheism there is no
Creator. Whether they sense god somehow in nature or not isn't the point; the
point is, God is not their god. We see their adherence to naturalism (or
positivism) either as how they demonstrate faithfulness and service to their
deity, or it's an essential pantheistic belief deriving from its core
affirmations—even though pantheists may not be conscious of the existence
of that deity.
The
second item of faith for a pantheist is that we can find meaning in allegiance
to the principle behind nature, which is perceived to be evolutionary progress.
To a pantheist, creation is on-going, progressive, directional, and inherent in
nature. Biological evolution is progressive, on-going creation. Stellar
evolution, likewise. Marxism is progressiveness. In the U.S., we're making
moral and political progress in every way: there's no more segregation, we promote
women's rights, we're intolerant of child abuse, we have welfare for the
indigent, and now tolerance of relaxed sexual mores. The rhetoric of LGBT activists,
"we're on the right side of history," demonstrates progressiveness.
So,
understanding evolutionists as pantheists identifies them as religious. Judge
Jones III got it wrong. Scientists certainly are religious (all humans
necessarily are), they are very religious and so is their explanation of
origins. Thus the conflict is not objective, dispassionate science with its
hard evidence proving evolution and billions of years against the narratives of
the Bible (which are alleged to be myths), as they want it perceived. No. It's
their religion, a wholly man-made religion (in which their religious
presuppositions always determine their conclusions), against our religion,
which comes from God through revelation. It's their grand religious myth
against our revealed truth. It's their religion, which seeks to extinguish
theism, against ours, which seeks their salvation.
Ultimately,
our warfare is not with worldly weapons (2 Corinthians 10:4), nor is it "against
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). Pantheism is a major manifestation of
that darkness. And evolution is a core doctrine of pantheism.
[1] A notable debate
occurred in Feb. 2014 between Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and Bill Nye, known
as "The Science Guy." This debate was watched
eventually by an estimated 15 million viewers. Nevertheless, the debate
was not on a college campus and so far has not had an obvious effect on
academia.