Darwin’s Unbelief is News?

Darwin’s Unbelief is News?

Oct 8, 2016 | Culture

Over the years I’ve read a variety of things about Charles Darwin’s faith and his so called struggle with it, as if he was truly ambivalent about it. The deeper he got into his theory of evolution, the story goes, the more his faith gave way to doubt and eventually to nothing. A short letter by Darwin was sold at auction affirming he in fact did not believe in the Bible or in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and I guess for some this was news.

[T]his is only news if we have accepted the usual stories—indeed, myths—about Darwin’s alleged struggle between faith and doubt. The usual story we’ve been fed is that he was a faithful Bible-believing Anglican until he discovered incontrovertible evidence for evolution on his 1831-1836 journey on the HMS Beagle (mythical option 1), or until spiritually broken by the death of his beloved daughter Anne (mythical option 2).

The truth is that Darwin’s unbelief was a family inheritance, as was his adherence to a godless account of evolution, reaching back through his father, Robert, to his grandfather, Erasmus. Charles could have written that letter long before he ever set foot on the Beagle.

 

 

Christians Are Coming Out of the Cultural Closet

Christians Are Coming Out of the Cultural Closet

Oct 8, 2016 | Culture

With hit “faith-based” movies like War Room and Captive, there was much discussion about Christians and film making. Interestingly enough, some of the harshest critics of these movies are from Christians themselves who seem embarrassed by what I call the cheese factor in many such movies.

A good example can be found at The Federalist by Christopher Hutton. The title of the piece: “‘War Room’ Is Just As Cheesy As All Kendrick Brothers Films.” There is no doubt that many of these movies, not just those by the Kendrick brothers, have a generous helping of cheese, but such criticisms are in many ways myopic. They are especially so in light of the history of evangelical Christianity in America. I’m actually encouraged, as a Christian, that these movies are being made at all, cheese notwithstanding.

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