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From: Ian Wishart/Radio Rhema
Category: Category 1
Date: 29/03/03
Time: 00:12:07
Remote Name: 210.86.100.59
I’m feeling a little like I’ve been in a warzone this week….under fire from all sides which I guess, as a journalist, indicates you’re probably doing your job.
The first missile to come over the horizon was the result, ironically, of one of my Soapbox pieces a couple of weeks ago when I talked about NASA confirming the Big Bang origin of the Universe and – even more significantly – that our Universe is a one off that is in the process of dying and will never exist again.
In other words, NASA is corroborating the principles of Scripture, if not the detail.
And that’s what the complaint was about.
A listener wrote to me worried that as Christians we should not be accepting NASA science over what is written in our Bibles.
I agree, we shouldn’t. But the listener and I have a disagreement. You see, I’m of the school of thought that says there is nothing in the Bible that conflicts with modern science or with history.
My friend is a Biblical Creationist who begins from the position that the Earth must be only a few thousand years old and therefore that NASA and the rest of science has got it seriously wrong.
With the Intelligent Design seminar in New Zealand this week, I’m sure many of you are wondering how Intelligent Design science compares with Creationism when there appear to be some fundamental differences.
Let me reassure you, the differences are only skin deep.
What Intelligent Design does is that it uses the tools and discoveries of science to prove that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is wrong.
What Creationism does is use the Bible, the inspired and inerrant word of God, to prove that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is wrong.
One uses science to beat science. The other ultimately relies on religion to beat science. But atheistic scientists pay little attention to Creationism. It is all very well for us as Christians to hold up a Bible and know that it is right, but those scientists couldn’t care less. The Bible, as they correctly point out, is not a science textbook, it is a history lesson.
And so those atheistic scientists continue to teach our children their precious, Godless theory in school as if it is a fact.
But as I explained to my friend, the ID movement takes the fight directly to scientists in a language they can understand.
“OK, they say”, let’s accept for argument’s sake that the Earth is 13.7 billion years old based on your own evidence. Look at this, the evidence also proves the Universe was created, it isn’t an accident as you like to claim!”
There are debates like this taking place every day now between scientists from both sides, and many previously agnostic scientists are beginning to admit that perhaps there really is an Intelligent Designer.
They may not be Christians at this point in time, but they’re one step closer to God than they were.
As I pointed out to my friend, God not only gave us his Word, but he also tells us that all men can recognise his hand in the wonder of natural revelation. As a Christian, I know that the Bible does not conflict with itself when correctly interpreted. I also know that God’s special revelation through the Bible and Jesus will not conflict with his natural revelation.
Science is the study of that natural revelation.
Ultimately, there may yet be scientific discoveries that reconcile the lingering belief among Christians that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, with science as we know it.
As a Christian, I certainly have no problem with the fact that human scientists get it wrong and may be as wrong about the history of the Earth and the Universe as they were about the Earth being flat.
But I accept the tools I am given by God. If the Intelligent Design movement can use the evidence produced by scientists to show them that an Intelligent Designer exists, then that will have a maasive impact on our society.
It is relatively easy to get a scientific theory debated in our schools – it would be impossible to get Creationism included in school science classes.
I’ve also been under attack this week from some rabid non-Christians…as a result of Investigate magazine’s latest issue. Our front cover story, in big letters, asks the question: Does abortion cause breast cancer?
Recent scientific discoveries indicate women who have abortions can be up to eight times more likely to develop breast cancer later in life.
Before the magazine even hit the streets last weekend hate emails had started to arrive on our website, and the Abortion Law Reform Group in Wellington has been mobilising pro-abortion supporters to protest about Investigate magazine’s article.
They’re even threatening to take the magazine to the Press Council, and they would prefer that nobody buys the magazine so that we make a financial loss for running the story.
One organiser for the pro-abortion lobby emailed to say it was only to be expected from a magazine with such quaint beliefs.
Quaint, we asked?
Yeah, came the reply, you hang around with Creationists…and then they wrote “snicker” in brackets alongside.
You can probably appreciate the irony by now…we get criticised by Creationists for supporting Intelligent Design Theory, and we get criticised by Abortionists for hanging out with Creationists.
Go figure.
And above it all, watching all this unfold, is our Lord. The bottom line, as I’ve said to others when explaining why Investigate magazine publishes stories that the liberal media refuse to…is that we would rather be fools for God, than wise men among the pagans.
We’ll take the risk that nobody reads the story about Abortion causing breast cancer…but at least we’ll know we struck a blow for what is right.
After all this…maybe a stint in Bagdhad as Investigate’s war correspondent would be a welcome relief.