Science test

Church & State, Jul/Aug 2000 by Benen, Steve

Ultimately, however, he intends to shift the discussion from a scientific debate to one over the existence of God. At a February 1999 speech to followers of TV preacher D. James Kennedy, Johnson let his guard down long enough to elucidate a religious agenda. He said that through use of his "wedge," people will be introduced to the truth of the Bible, then "the question of sin" and ultimately "introduced to Jesus." (See "From Genesis To Dominion," page 13.)

Johnson isn't the only prominent leader in the Intelligent Design movement to confess a religious agenda. William A. Dembski, another rising ID star, is a mathematician and senior fellow at the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, an anti-evolution project of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

Like Johnson, Dembski frequently insists that his criticism is not about religion, but rather limited to concerns over quality science. But Dembski hinted to a mostly conservative, religious audience at the Feb. 6 National Religious Broadcasters meeting in Anaheim that his anti-evolution work is driven by a religious bias.

"Since Darwin, we can no longer believe that a benevolent God created us in His image," Dembski said at a "Defeating Darwinism in Our Culture" panel discussion. "Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God."

Dembski also framed the ID movement in the context of Christian apologetics, a theological defense of the authority of Christianity.

"The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there's anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view... It's important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world."

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, expressed disappointment with creationists using deception to further their goals.

"People who have a religious point of view but attempt to conceal it in order to trick their audience make a mockery of both their own faith and the science they purport to embrace," Lynn said.

The debate over this issue has produced rhetorical excess. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), for example,

told his colleagues on the House floor on June 16 that tragedies like the Columbine murders in Littleton, Colo., happen "because our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud."

Similarly, when Ham, of Answers in Genesis, was asked in an interview with CNN if children are being harmed by lessons on evolution, he said, "Oh, absolutely. I remember seeing Jeffrey Dahmer interviewed as to why he killed people, and one of the things he said was because he was told he came from slime. He was taught evolution; he believed he was accountable to no one but himself."