FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO this month, the Reformation was initiated by a German priest and professor named Martin Luther, and continued by others such as Calvin and Zwingli. Luther’s letter to his ecclesiastical superiors denouncing the sale of indulgences included his 95 Theses. Luther opened with theses 1 and 2, which stated, ¹”When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. ² This word cannot be understood as referring to the Sacrament of Penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.” Luther added, “Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.” (Thesis No. 21)
In any event, Luther began the Reformation in October 1517. It was a movement that called the church back to the authority of God and away from the fallible opinions of man as vicar, which had led to severe compromise of the clear teaching of the Word of God. The Bible-upholding movement was so powerful that today we are still experiencing the effects of this historical shaking of the very foundation of doctrine that spread from Germany to the entire world.
Throughout history, whenever we witness a great work of God, our adversary the devil, “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (See Ephesians 2:2) aggressively tries to undo the truth. I believe one of the major tactics Satan uses to counter the good effects of the Reformation relates back to the Book of Genesis. It began with a claim that the earth was very old, based on supposed geologic evidences (that grew out of a belief in naturalism and spread widely in the early 1800s) of slow, natural processes, with nothing supernatural involved. An old age for the earth was necessary to justify the ideas behind naturalism, and the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species soon followed in 1859.
Darwin’s book was an attempt to explain how animals and plants arose by natural processes, not supernatural means (intelligent design) revealed and documented for us by the Creator Himself in Genesis. Ultimately, armed with this cache of scientific “evidence” that the earth was supposedly millions of years old, and the supposition that molecules eventually gave rise to man, this led to the idea that man evolved from ape-like creatures, compromising the biblical teachings of theologians. Man decided that Genesis should be regarded as mythology. From both inside and outside the church, the Darwinian revolution changed the hearts and minds of generations concerning biblical authority. To this day, most church leaders and Christian academic institutions are infected by the religion of naturalism.
The result has been devastation in our churches. Today about two-thirds of our young adults are leaving the church in America, and very few are returning. There is a lack of trust in biblical authority and Scriptural knowledge in America today. See my blog post on biblical illiteracy by clicking here: https://theaccidentalpoet.net/2017/09/01/gods-point-of-view/ Today, church attendance in America is down 22 percent compared to a study taken in 2014. (See Pew Research Center Study here: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/ ) America’s once very Christianized culture is now divided between an aggressive secularist philosophy and a dwindling number of those with a Christian worldview.
Sadly, compromise in Genesis has undone much of what the Reformation had accomplished. It’s why at Answers in Genesis (https://answersingenesis.org/) their theme for this year has been “Igniting a New Reformation.” We need to see a new reformation in the hearts and minds of God’s people in our churches before a much-needed spiritual revival can occur in this nation – a country that’s becoming increasingly hostile towards Scripture, and, unfortunately, Christianity.
This month, to honor the Bible and the Great Reformation, Answers in Genesis scientist Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson – PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard – has launched what is considered a ground-breaking new book entitled Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species. You can order a copy by clicking here: Replacing Darwin. Richard Dawkins, militant atheist extraordinaire, and author of The God Delusion, said of Darwin’s theory of evolution, “Big enough to undermine the idea of creation but simple enough to be stated in a sentence, the theory of natural selection is a masterpiece.” Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. He was University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 to 2008. I have watched his debates with Giles Fraser, John Lennox, and Denis Noble.
Jeanson’s book is the first major project to carefully research and then offer a direct frontal attack on the very essence of the arguments Darwin used to promote evolution, and which have become popularized in our culture (including also a large part of the church). If you enjoy studying apologetics, this book is a must for your personal library. Even if you don’t understand some of the technical material, you will grasp the basic arguments against evolution that people need to learn today. I’m reminded of the observation of Hosea the prophet: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Debates between the likes of Richard Dawkins and Dinesh D’Souza are often portrayed in the popular media as “science versus faith,” but in reality these disputations are more accurately “an atheistic worldview versus a biblical worldview.” Despite what we’re lead to believe, evolution is not mainstream science, but rather a philosophical view of earth history based on speculation. Many Christians in the field of science have noted that there is no conflict between true science and the Bible. Denying evolution does not, as many atheist celebrities claim, hinder the development of new science and technology. Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, inventor of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine – the precursor to the MRI machine we use today – said, “Regarding evolution, the scientific evidence needed to sustain it does not exist.”
All that the paleoanthropologists have to show for more than 100 years of digging are remains of fewer than 2000 of our ancestors. They have used this assortment of jawbones, teeth, and fossilized scraps, together with molecular evidence from living species, to piece together a supposed line of human decent going back 5 to 8 million years to the time when humans and chimpanzees allegedly diverged from a common ancestor. Anthropologists supplemented their extremely fragmented fossil evidence with DNA and other types of molecular evidence from living animals to try to work out an evolutionary scenario that will fit. But this genetic evidence really doesn’t help much either, because it contradicts fossil evidence. N.A. Takahata, author of “Genetic Perspective on the Origin and History of Humans,” (1995) said, “Even with the DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination.”
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness.” – 1 Corinthians 3:19
The Accidental Apologist 