I originally wrote this piece in 2005 after being in an online chat room. It was a Christian chatroom, and the topic of evolution came up. Predictably, some in the room felt that evolution was a secular religion, others that it was a Satanic, anti-Christian doctrine, others that it simply did not matter. But those are not the ones who worry me.
First of all, I have read the statement sent at that time by scientists to the Kansas Board of Education. There was no fear in it. Scientists were not "running scared." Instead, there was disapproval and concern. The scientists -- like all intellectual thinkers -- knew that when pseudoscience is given equal footing with science, all progress in knowledge comes to a halt. Shall we teach alchemy alongside chemistry and let the students decide for themselves? Shall medical schools give equal classroom time to phrenology and neurology, so that the aspiring future doctors can choose for themselves which one they believe? Fortunately, the Kansas decision was reversed within a year.
More importantly, though, that gleeful, zealously-ignorant Christian did not stop to think what he was really cheering for. Edmund Hamer Broadbent (1861-1945) traveled throughout Europe and into Asia, uncovering the true history of the Christian faith. He discovered one very important recurring theme: regardless of denomination -- whether Catholic, Lutheran, Swiss Reformed, or Anglican -- every single time a church united with, or accepted help from, a State, it invariably became an instrument of evil. Down through history, State Churches persecuted and killed more Christians than hostile heathen ever did.
Now the same thing could have happened again. Kansas was a State, offering State support to the Church by advocating a particular doctrine. This should have had Christians, both in Kansas and elsewhere, running scared. All Cristians who supported this decision should repent.
One of the historical figures I admire most is Roger Williams, who lived in the 1600s. Williams was a man devoted to Christ from childhood; but because his opinions differed from the State Church of Massachusetts (Puritanism), he was persecuted, and had to flee. He went south, and founded Providence, in what is now Rhode Island.
Being of a Baptist persuasion, Williams could have made Rhode Island a Baptist State. But he did not. Instead, he made it a state open to people of all beliefs, whether such persecuted Christians as Baptists and Quakers, or non-Christians such as Jews, or even antireligionists. He recognized that a man compelled to conform outwardly to beliefs he does not hold inwardly, is just as lost as a man living in open defiance. He had a public debate with Puritan leader John Cotton, in which Cotton was in favor of State-enforced religion, Williams opposed. When one reads this debate, one sees that Williams' argument was filled with Scripture from beginning to end, while Cotton made only occasional reference to Scripture in an argument that was mostly his own opinion.
This is why I have never made any gifts or contributions to any of those Christian organizations whose mission includes influencing legislation. Such legislation can lead only to oppression, which is a move backward. The world of the Old Testament was a theocracy, in which worship of YHWH was enforced on pain of death. Anyone who carefully reads Leviticus will see that life under that law was as restrictive as the worst excesses of radical Sharia today; I challenge any conservative Christian to live under anything comparable. Christian leaders who wish to legislate Christian values should be seen as equivalent to the Taliban, and disavowed by moderate Christians.
