Good Message Derails

The sermon at my evangelical megachurch today regarded the worth of people. The pastor made the point, in a number of ways, that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. No matter your color, gender, physical condition, age - we are all equally valuable. He dwelled at length on abortion - his position being that humans in a womb are as worthy as a human out of the womb. I agree with him on that 100%. Where he lost me was when he made the ludicrous statement that evolutionism is the cause of the devaluation of human life and thus the legalization of abortion.

"If the world was created by accident as the evolutionists claim, then we are just a mass of flesh with no worth," he went on. "Stalin used evolution theory to justify the elimination of millions of people." Ok, now he is in outer space. It's hard to see how he gets from point A to point B and then on to point C. I'm no expert on Stalin but even if he did embrace social darwinism to justify his pogroms that in no way disproves the validity of the theory of evolution. If humans misuse a scientific reality to justify a looney and self-serving action that misappropriation of the reality does not make it less real. Nor does it make the theory evil. Ironically, both the pastor and Stalin may be guilty of knowingly twisting science to suit their needs.

Many religious fundamentalist leaders are telling their believers that evolution is false because their holy books, written thousands of years ago, don't jive with what we've learned since. Now at least one is telling them evolutionists are responsible for abortion and the devaluing of human life. This is truly ironic when you think about all the wars and horrors that have been loosed on the world by people who believe they are doing God's work. I'll take my chances with the scientists thank you.