Danish Church Persecutes Darwin Doubters
Even within some churches, Darwin skeptics can face censure and calls for re-education in the religion of evolution.
That Darwin doubters can expect persecution within secular academia is old news. But in the church? Karsten Pultz, an intelligent design supporter in Denmark, reported a story he found in a “Christian newspaper” in his home country. He tells about the difficulties a Darwin doubting theologian encountered within the Danish church. His remarks, titled “Something rotten in the state of Denmark”* were reproduced at Uncommon Descent:
Recently, Mads Jakobsen, a priest and theologian in the Danish state church, was reprimanded by his bishop, Marianne Christiansen because he had written critically about Darwin’s theory in his parish magazine. The theologian had mainly identified the moral problems which arise when trying to combine survival of the fittest with Christian beliefs, but he seems also to have admitted his doubt of the science behind the theory.
The bishop was outraged that the priest would doubt a “scientifically proven” theory and she publicly demanded that he commit himself to be re-educated in the theory of evolution. The bishop recommended that , Niels Henrik Gregersen, professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen, should provide this criminally ignorant theologian with the proper literature, so that his delusions could be corrected.
The bishop was supported by Svend Andersen, theology professor at the University of Århus, who insisted that “There ought not to be room for such views within the church.” Professor Andersen also expressed the view that a certain intellectual standard must be required of ministers, implying that only a moron would doubt evolution.
The entire essay can be read at the link above. Pultz says that 85% in his country believe in evolution. He goes on to describe how his attempts to show scientific flaws in Darwinian evolution result in him being immediately labeled a “creationist” even though he stated no theological arguments, just scientific ones. When he tried to correct errors in the publication, he was ignored. He describes the response to his piece defending Jakobsen:
My piece was, naturally, written in defense of pastor Mads Jakobsen but I also made the excuse for the bishop that she, hardly a villain, is just acting in accordance with what we all have learned in school, namely that evolution is a fact. She should not be blamed for the extremely biased way evolution is taught all the way from primary school to university. I got no answer from the journalist, no reaction, and no explanation, – I’m being met with complete silence. So what we have is a Christian newspaper which willingly airs unsubstantiated allegations against my work but at the same time refuses to bring my side of the story.
Pultz concludes that “a Christian newspaper gangs up with the theological elite to heckle Darwin doubters and prevent an open debate about the validity of Darwin’s theory.”
*Reference to a line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Something is rotten not only in the state of Denmark, but in all churches that prefer Darwin to Christ. Misinformed theologians and ministers, who have abandoned confidence in the word of God, love the approval of the world more than the approval of God. Having been taught that ‘evolution is a fact’ and a ‘scientifically proven theory’ that only a ‘moron’ would doubt, they fear being thought of morons themselves by the culture around them. To prove to the culture they are not one of ‘them,’ these liberal theologians and ministers often become even more intolerant of Darwin doubters than the secular Darwinists themselves.
The situation is analogous to the Israelites in the Old Testament who repeatedly fell for the Baals. They tried to keep some semblance of their monotheistic religion but they didn’t want to be looked down on by all the surrounding nations that had many gods—idols that nodded at debauchery. Darwin is the golden calf of our era, with worship centers in the Bethel of liberal seminaries and the Dan of liberal churches. Their leaders try to prevent them from going to the Jerusalem temple of science by ignoring Jerusalem and luring them into the temples of the popular gods of the day. As with all leftists, they are totalitarians at heart. Nobody is allowed to question the state dogma: not even the church. Churches even become pawns of the regime, carrying out the persecution.
Sadly, they never hear the critiques of Darwin which we report daily at CEH. When one studies the evidence, one finds Darwinism to be a vacuous pseudo-theory in a house of cards. It is vacuous, illogical, and contrary to the monumental evidence for design: vacuous, because Darwin’s ‘natural selection’ equates to the Stuff Happens Law; illogical, because it is self-refuting; contrary to the evidence, because examples of irreducible complexity and fine tuning are legion from the atom to the universe as a whole. Why would anyone taking the name of ‘Christian’ want to be associated with such an idea?
Theistic evolution is a growing problem in American Christendom as well. Help your pastor or religious leader learn the evidence against evolution and for design, so that he can be bold in opposing the Baal of our time.
Recommended Resources: The recent anthology Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique has good chapters on the scientific problems with Darwinian evolution. We do not endorse some of its Biblical interpretations, but the book pulls the rug out from under the assumed scientific evidence on which Darwinists build their house of cards. Just the chapter by Dr James Tour is enough to topple the Darwin idol, but there is much more. Other good books are Undeniable by molecular biologist Doug Axe, Heretic by organic chemist Matti Leisola, and Darwin’s House of Cards by journalist Tom Bethell.