Darwin’s Deadly Deception and the Devil’s Gospel, Part 9

By Clint Bishard

Jesus Created Ministries

Continuing our series on Darwin, I want to note that the really sad chapter to naturalism’s takeover of science in the 1800s is the churches’ tolerance of the new naturalistic worldview.  Although some did protest to the rejection of the global Flood view of geology (see Dr. Mortenson’s work noted last time), most all naturalists of Darwin’s day had accepted alternative explanations for the geologic column.  Darwin’s own seminary professors, Henslow and Sedgwick, had been the very ones who influenced him to accept these old age and non-biblical views of geology (although Sedgwick later harshly rejected Darwin’s biological views).  Darwin could even note some of the clergy who had believed in his theory of evolution via natural selection.  In a personal letter to Asa Gray just after the publication of the Origin, Darwin wrote “Several clergymen go far with me.  Rev. L. Jenyns, a very good naturalist.  Henslow will go a very little way with me, and is not shocked with me.  He has just been visiting me.”[1]  By the end of Darwin’s life, the Church of England was so engrossed in the new naturalistic teaching that “In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.”[2]

This tolerance of the naturalistic world view by the Church of England has had devastating consequences to England.  I believe naturalism is the cause, more than any other, for the virtual death of Christianity in England.  Today, less than ten percent of this once great Christian nation attends church in a given week.  Note: Accepting the notions of naturalism did not immediately move people away from belief in God.  Even Darwin held to the belief in some form of god as mentioned in the Origin, but just not the God of the Bible.  However, accepting the naturalism quickly eroded the authority of the Word of God in people’s minds resulting in the great turning away from Christ that we have observed in England.  This resulted in people first doubting the truthfulness of God’s Word while still attending church, and then eventual abandonment of church altogether.

Fortunately, America did not have the same acceptance level for the new naturalistic worldview.  However, this all appears to have changed with the Scopes Trial in 1925 (future article coming on the Scopes trial).  Since then, America and the church in America have progressively begun to tolerate the new naturalistic worldview.  As a result, we are now watching a repeat of what has happened in England.  Note: Once again, this does not mean that people no longer believe in a god.  A 2006 Barna report showed that 96% of Americans believe that there is a god, yet only 9% of the population accepted a basic level of Biblical truth.[3]  America appears to be in the first phase that England experienced in its decline.  People still went to church even though they were loosing a Biblical foundation, but eventually left church altogether.  Now, America still has a 47% church attendance on a given week, but we are rapidly losing our Biblical foundation.  The statistics show that the current generation coming out of high school is forgetting church altogether with less than 1/3 attending church on a given week.[4]

Once again, God’s promises are holding true that if a generation fails to uphold God’s Word, He will forget their children (Hosea 4:6).  I hope you will join me next time as we continue this discussion concerning Darwin.