The Associated Press voted that the Kansas controversy was the top story of 1999. And what a controversy it was. A straight-A sophomore put up her hand in biology class and asks, “Mr. Roth, when are we going to learn about creationism?” Then the teacher explodes with, “When are you going to stop believing that crap your parents teach you?” The subsequent forced early-retirement of the teacher and vote of the Kansas Board of Education to “de-emphasize” the speculative aspects of evolution became the coal bed for a hot national debate.

This article takes a look at the origins debate by looking at what the secular scientists and media are saying and the response from the broad Intelligent Design movement (IDM). If you want to know the latest happenings in this debate, or need an introduction to the whole question of origins, this article will give you a succinct overview. Pearcey represents the IDM well, showing how many Christian scientists and “creationists” have moved away from infighting over the details (such as: is the earth young? Could God use an evolutionary process?) to confront the real issue: Does science demonstrate that Someone made this? The IDM has realized that the stakes are people’s lives and that wrangling over those details only ruins the Christian’s witness to the secular humanist scientific community. Those details are important, but not at the cost of presenting the inescapable necessity of a Designer.

Pearcey says that, “While ID does not require any theological presuppositions, it has theological implications: it is resolutely opposed to the atheistic, purposeless, chance view of evolution taught in the power centers of science” (p. 48). But is Darwinian naturalistic evolution opposed outright to religion? Pearcey argues that this is the very thing that this Kansas controversy and the IDM are bringing to the forefront, “for every scientist who soothingly intones that evolution can coexist peacefully with religion, there is another who openly proclaims its antitheistic implications” (p. 48).

“This suggests a final theme emerging from the Kansas controversy—the refusal by so many to acknowledge that religion is genuinely at stake in this issue. Pervasive throughout the editorials and columns was the argument that the folks in Kansas were mistaken to see mainstream evolutionism as posing any contradiction to religion. The underlying assumption is that science is a matter of facts and reason, while religion is a matter of faith—and never the twain shall meet” (p. 48). However, it is becoming apparent that the reality of this opposition is the case. “The Gallup Poll has consistently shown (most recently in August 1999) that only about 10 percent of Americans believe life evolved strictly by chance and natural forces. Roughly 90 percent of Americans believe that God created life either directly or by guiding a gradual process. This large majority is beginning to suspect that Darwinism is less about objective science than about maintaining cultural power” (p. 49).

In this same issue of CT you will find an interview with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Edward J. Larson. Larson says that Christians should be taught evolution and that if the IDM is going to be successful it must get scientists to begin to “do” intelligent design. Larson’s book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (1997) definitely made some waves in the already troubled waters of the origins debate. Larson’s survey, conducted with Larry Witham, found this interesting statistic about scientists and religious belief: Just as James Leuba found in 1914 and 1933, about 40 percent of the rank-and-file scientists believe in a theistic God (as understood by traditional Christians, Jews and Muslims) and there is a much lower belief percentage among the scientific elite.

Books and Culture is a periodical published by the Christianity Today Inc. group that keeps watch on what is taking place in American secular and religious culture by commentating on what is being published in books. The September/October issue’s “Science Pages” focuses on the debate regarding evolution and the new creationism. The editors say, “One of the purposes of ‘The Science Pages’ is to correct the notion that to talk about ‘science’ is to talk about Darwinian evolution, pro or con. At the same time, one can hardly give sustained attention to science without addressing, on occasion, the various Darwinian claims that provide the interpretive framework for work in so many fields today (including much of the work being done by scientists who are also Christians)” (p. 30).

This issue’s “Science Pages” allows two opponents in this debate the opportunity to critique each other’s recent work and respond in their defense. The book Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism (MIT Press, 1999) by Robert Pennock is a polemic against the Intelligent Design movement. Phillip Johnson was given the opportunity to respond to Pennock’s book in Books and Culture, with a rejoinder from Pennock.

Phillip Johnson is a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and has written a number of books presenting and defending the Intelligent Design movement. Johnson says this about Pennock’s book, “Here is where the debate stands, as I see it. The IDM [Intelligent Design Movement] aims to transform the evolution/creation debate by focusing on the main issue and pushing the details to the background. The main issue is the scientific naturalist claim that the origin and development of life can be explained employing only unintelligent natural causes like chance, chemical laws, and natural selection. This claim is as important for philosophy and theology as it is for science. The neo-Darwinian theory was discovered by a science that was committed a priori to methodological naturalism, the principle that research should always be guided by a commitment to discover strictly natural causes for all phenomena. Most educated people today have been taught to regard the theory as unassailably confirmed by objective scientific testing. Many think that it follows that the success of the theory provides a powerful justification for basing research in all fields, including even biblical studies, on methodological naturalism. Darwinism (i.e., naturalistic evolution) is thus not just a scientific theory but a creation story so culturally dominant that it is even protected by judge-made law from criticism in the public schools” (p. 30).

Pennock fires back, “Readers should thus beware when Johnson says IDCs [Intelligent Design Creationists] want to resolve issues by ‘unbiased scientific testing,’ for theirs is not science as ordinarily understood, but rather something that would be taught in a special ‘department of theological science.’ The revolutionary ‘theory of knowledge’ that this yet-to-be-developed theistic science will follow rests on what Johnson describes in Reason in the Balance as ‘the essential, bedrock position of Christian theism about creation,’ namely, the opening lines of the Gospel of John (1:1–3). According to Johnson, when the Bible says that in the beginning was ‘the Word,’ it speaks of ‘information,’ and ‘plainly says that creation was by a force that was (and is) intelligent and personal.’ However, knowledgeable readers will recognize that IDCs’ references to complexity and information theory are no more than designer window dressing on a basic God-of-the-gaps argument” (p. 32).