A few weeks ago I found myself in a conversation with an atheist about evolution and creation. What I noticed in our interaction was that he was initially hesitant to admit his belief in evolution (and disbelief in God), and not because he was uncertain of his beliefs. Past experience taught him that identifying himself as an atheist drew a hostile response from the Christians he encountered. Their debate tactics left much to be desired, to put it mildly. It was heartbreaking to imagine this kind, intelligent person in front of me being mistreated by anyone, but particularly by those claiming to be Christian.
Unfortunately “tact” in “tactics” is too often omitted when it comes to discussions about science and faith. The new DVD Evolution vs. God, the latest from evangelist Ray Comfort, sadly raised concerns here at RTB for its use of questionable tactics. Evolution vs. God sets out to shake evolutionists’ faith. Yet in its attempt to do so, it inadvertently undermines the mission: to reach people for Christ. Jeff Zweerink points out four key problems with the tactics used in the DVD. Here’s a quick synopsis:
The video:
- Claims to prove evolution has no supporting evidenceIn this goal, it fails miserably, Jeff says. Faculty remain unconvinced and students defer to authority. One student even acknowledged the need to think more deeply about the issue. We, at RTB, often stress the importance of investigating our beliefs. The video in a sense ridicules the very process of investigation we expect anyone (believer and nonbeliever alike) to follow.
- Resorts to an attack mentalityNot only is the scientific community portrayed inaccurately, it’s implied that people believe in evolution (knowing there’s no evidence to support their belief) because they want to lead a hedonistic life. This accusation completely dismisses the fact that there are evolutionists who are strong, committed Christians (see BioLogos, for example).
- Breaks the Golden RuleScripture calls us to treat others as we want to be treated. How many of us would want our thoughtful response reduced to an embarrassing sound bite—worse yet, particularly if the quote were incomplete or taken out of context?
- Does not follow Christ’s exampleJeff points out that Jesus never attacked or ridiculed the truth-seekers He came to reach or made them look foolish. If the goal of Evolution vs. God is to reach people for Christ, it would seem wise to follow Christ’s example.
To share our hope in Jesus with a dash of disregard for others’ palate leaves a bad taste in their mouth, and they’re not likely to swallow what they’re being force-fed. Moreover, to distort others’ experience, their beliefs and reasons for them, effectively shuts down conversation and with it any hope to be a compelling witness.
Biology professor and evolutionist PZ Myers was one of the faculty interviewed for Comfort’s Evolution vs. God. Not surprisingly, he took issue with the way his interview was edited (read: butchered). Myers writes on his blog that “Creationists are welcome to ask me questions in the future, and to record them…but I’ll be recording everything they say, too, and it’ll be easier to expose their dishonesty.” Ouch.
If that’s the impression Christians make on others, perhaps we might rethink the way we engage in conversation and remember to blend some tact with our words.
Coincidentally, a recent episode of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman asked the question Did God Create Evolution? At the end of the program, Freeman offers some insight on the debate between creationists and evolutionists:
“The debate isn’t likely to end any time soon. But there is one thing both sides do agree on—the sheer wonder of creation, no matter how it got here.”
Finding points of agreement sounds like a good starting point to me. What do you think?
–Sandra
Resources
Video – “A Review of Evolution vs. God”
Article – “A Review of Evolution vs. God”
Take Two 
August 9, 2013 at 9:15 am
I think the only reason you have a problem with this video is because you’re an evolutionist and this video exposes the blind faith required to believe evolution. Ray is one of the most respectful, caring and active evangelists out there. To say that he wasn’t trying to reach the lost in this video is an outright lie. All of “Living Waters Ministries” materials and media is geared towards evangelism. The main purpose of this video is to share the gospel, period. The evolution/creation debate thing is just to pull the audience in.
August 9, 2013 at 9:31 am
Thanks for your comment, Michael. To be clear, I am not an evolutionist. If you check our archives you’ll see where we discuss the various types of evolution and our perspective on them. I don’t question that Ray Comfort and Living Waters’ intent is to reach people for Christ. The point I hoped to make (and perhaps I missed the mark) was to show how the tactics used (selective editing of the interviews, for example) could dissuade viewers from considering the Gospel message.
August 10, 2013 at 7:46 am
Hi Sandra.
I am a creationist. And of course I am a Christian. I am not a scientist, but I have listened, studied and followed this topic with great interest and intently to the origins issues for some time.
I don’t think that the Evolution Vs God video is a direct vehicle to win people for Christ, the editing was done on purpose to point out a very important fact; to point out that those supposed experts don’t have concrete proof for their theories and can give no concrete proof, though they speak as though it is true. When in truth they know just about as much as the rest of us when it comes to true origins,so to point out that Evolution, as it is perceived by the layman, is a type of religious belief and is really not science, is not unChristian.
It is entirely Christian to oppose falsehood and lies and the Darwinist community is filled with fraud, rife with Academic intimidation and certainly have no love for the faith community or any other scientific view that opposes darwinism.
Evolution is no more “observable” than Creation, since non of us were there in the beginning to observe either process. I don’t think the direct purpose of this movie is to win people to Christ, what an undertaking! I think Ray Comfort and the staff at living waters love people and want them to question whether what they believe, is based on truth. So far no one has proved that evolution,, the type that Darwin theorized about, is even true and adaptation over time is not evolution in the classical sense, there has never been a recorded change of Kinds, that Darwin said that we would find. Where is this evidence? It seems to be crumbling, as all falsehoods and bad science eventually do.
I think the creators of Evolution VS God have accomplished what they set out to do, get people really thinking about what they are being spoon fed by the universities and learn Veritas for themselves.
Not to be disrespectful to you in anyway, but I don’t think the early church or the apostles or the church fathers minced words about truth, eternity, death or hell. So, I disagree with you in the manner in which we are to oppose those enemies of the truth and share the gospel.
Atheists don’t love God, that’s why they love evolution. I think it’s perfectly okay to shake someones worldview. Maybe then more people would check out the facts. And maybe some precious souls will actually be saved once they have a chance to contemplate truth.
Sincerely,
Denise L Choate
August 10, 2013 at 1:18 am
Blind faith is the portion of every believer in Christ. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Heb. 11:1. Blind faith is also the situation of every evolutionist as their foundations are theories upon theories.
August 10, 2013 at 6:40 am
“Blind faith” is garbage, and Jesus never asked us to have blind faith. ALL faith comes by evidence. Jesus said we have the testimony of the Father, Jesus himself, his miracles and his resurrection to help lead us to faith. We have the testimony of the disciples and all the others who actually saw and met Jesus, walked with him, and told their stories so that we can have them to read. We have the testimony of the church, down through the ages, and how God has worked through history to bring about this wonderful plan of redemption. We have the testimony of the Holy Spirit which convinces us that the Gospel is true, and that out faith is well grounded. “Blind faith” is garbage. “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”, but we hope because there is evidence that our hope is founded, even if we do not see clearly. We DO see it, Paul says, like through a glass darkly. It’s there, but not real clear. No one has hope in “nothing”. We should all daily examine out faith to be sure of what it is we have faith in.
The faith of the evolutionist is indeed faith, but it is also not based on blind belief. There is evidence, like it or not, that leads to certain conclusions that people see as evolution. That point of this article is to be Christlike as we dialog with smart, thinking, intelligent people who see the world differently, in hopes that they will see Jesus’ love through the love and faith of his followers, not judgement and ridicule.
August 11, 2013 at 1:32 am
Michael,
Ive seen Ray Comfort in person while he was doing street evangelism and I was a christian at the time and my youth group was there watching his interaction with a group of nonbelievers and none of us felt like he was being kind. To say the only reason Sandra would not like what Ray has done is because she must feel exposed of some fault is incredibly rude and simply shows the spirit that she is saying is poor ie the effort to dismiss evolutionists as nothing but blind and contemptuos, this wins no love with the lost and she is saying that love is most important.
August 12, 2013 at 4:51 pm
I just saw an evangelical wordpress blog that got a DMCA complaint from his ministry requiring them to take down their copy of his video or face a civil suit. See kind, respectful, caring, honest and well-paid ray cares more about making ad revenue by his copy being the only one on youtube than he does about getting it out to as many people as he can.
August 9, 2013 at 9:24 am
And interestingly, being an evolutionist gives me grounds to object to how I’m being treated AS an evolutionist. I’m also a Christian. I’m not “lost”.
You’re entitled to your own beliefs. But you’re not entitled to your own facts.
August 9, 2013 at 11:26 am
True, in all our interactions with people, we need to represent Christ well!
August 9, 2013 at 12:36 pm
I am an experienced evangelist and you can’t tell people how to witness to some one else. You need to be lead of the HOLY SPIRIT when you are doing HIS work. I do not agree with deception because it is a work of the enemy. doug
August 9, 2013 at 5:32 pm
I liked the article. I think things will get better when we stop objectifying people entirely by their belief on this. Evolutionists must be converted and christians must have their faithdestroyed. A persons belief in god is often the only thing of importance to another. I think this only shows how stupid people are. I saw Ray Comfort once in L.A. he was badgering a group of people arguing that they were not ” good ” because they admitted they had done something wrong in their life. People were trying to defend their self from him.
August 9, 2013 at 5:49 pm
I am not a christian and I have no intention of being one. I wake up and go to the gym, then I go to work and I try to take care of my family and friends and do what seems right.
I think its foolishness to let something that requires this debate to rule my life. Why would I set my life after something that requires me to have to begin believing in it? A person who has no purpose in my life but to convert me to christianity is incredibly obsessed and blind. Just give me the right to disagree and still be a good person. Why is disagreement a moral action? Fight over things that matter… how selfish must we be if we have to make even a persons beliefs the same as our own? And if youve never been an atheist you likely don’t understand what a god free life is like.
I think we must begin with us all having the right to disagree. If I don’t have that then the love and welcome is a lie. Christians have no way to foster ” good ” conversations when they insist the other person isn’t good because they disagree. This demands hostility. I’m not going to allow anyone to call me evil much less because I think something.
August 10, 2013 at 8:12 am
Hello Lee.
Beliefs do matter. They matter a lot. What I believe directs my actions. It’s a foundational part of who I am. Christ came so that people would believe and have everlasting life. I believed Christ’s offer in the bible. I knew the things He revealed about me in the bible were true. My love for Jesus and my relationship with Him, entitle me to a truthful, faithful, spiritually rich truth for this life and future reunion with Him when I pass from this world. Jesus taught truth and life and the way to salvation. That’s a way better offer than athiesms or darwin’s utter darkness and nothingness. Men like darkness, Jesus came to show the light, and was crucified for it. You could say these were His beliefs. I hope that is not disrespectful to God or Christ for me to use this comparison.
And what I want to share this, though it is a clique.’ as the old saying goes, a cliques’ is called that because they are usually true, so with that in mind:
Hitler believed the Aryan world would be better off with all the Jews, Gypsies, non Germans, and he followed through on his Darwinian theories and beliefs, taking them to their ultimate conclusion, survival of the fittest, Hitler was a great admirer of Darwin’s work and he put it to practical use and look what happened with that. The German people thought Hitler was a good person too. And though Hitler never publicly recanted his “christian” upbringing, I think it is safe to say, he certainly didn’t act very good, or moral. He believed what he was doing was better for humanity.
People are evil. Even Christians, they are just redeemed, from their total depravity. There are no “good” people. True christians don’t think they are good, they know they are wretches, and want you to know the same about yourself, so that you can come to Christ. Christian’s don’t make up the Ten Commandments, but we are directed to teach and preach them. What reveals that you are evil,are God’s laws and the Holy Spirit.
Don’t shoot the messenger, most christians are sharing the truth with you, out of love. Whether you like the message or not.
August 10, 2013 at 11:03 pm
Denise,
I’m not going to just list all the bad things about christianity in order to silence you or attack what you believe. Im not going to try to prove you wrong but here is what I think. Your beliefs are the most inanimate untangeable part of who you are, they are mere feelings. You may have a right to say a person can’t DO something but to try to controla person on the level of their beliefs is to take ownership of them. There is no greater degree of capturing a person than to say they are not allowed to even THINK differently than you do. End hunger, end war, end child molestation, end priests molesting their followers and end pastors stealing money but don’t wage a war on my ability to simply disagree with you. You say free will is the gift and the burden from god but you forbid me to disagree with you and retain my honor? You say christianity is based on FAITH yet I’m not allowed to disagree? If christianity is rooted in belief then you of all peoples should understand and appreciate that I do not believe you andthat I should never have to answer for that.
As for your evidences and sentiments I do respect them and I won’t harrass you for them. I have no right to forbid you from even thinking differently than me. That being said you are just reciting the book to me. Let me tell you what it is I believe and why your reasons don’t work for me. Jesus is no god and the bible is the most frightening book ever written. it fortells the doom of my people and my lovely world and it is the worst guilt trip a human could ever find. I am not evil and neither are you and we do not deserve to be burned alive forever by a god who made that hell and those rules and foresaw it all before the world and did not and could not avoid destroying and torturing his own family and creations. You witness to people so that your god will not destroy them. You use your love to help people not betortured by your own god. and when your god comes back the world and most humans will burn and their screams will rise forever. You say we chose hell but we will not jump in jesus will put us in. Irefuse to believe in a godwho weeps as he puts his loved ones in ovens and boils them alive. He simply isn’t real and you do not deserve to guilt trip you’ve accepted. You are a good person most likely. We are not evil.
August 10, 2013 at 11:13 pm
I’m not shooting anyone, that sort of thinking is what I was saying must end. We can disagree and maintain our friendship and honor. You would most likely do anything you could to help me if I needed help and I would do the same for you. We are not evil we are good. Firemen and soldiers and policemen ride off to help others and they die trying, we are good! But when you accept that you are inherently evil and need christianity to redeem you and save you from its torture and destruction the thinking stops… because you’re evil and you are not ALLOWED TO DISAGREE. Do you see? It is a revolving circle of guilt, you accept the guilt to receive grace and you live with that guilt to get the grace to keep your god from killing you. Its a circle my friend, its hard to get out of.
August 12, 2013 at 4:57 pm
The lists of banned (and therefore burned) books in nazi germany included not just darwin’s writings, but any that agreed with his conclusions. The notion that hitler was following darwin is simply a vindictive lie. I don’t know if you saw the movie “expelled” that repeated that claim, but the quote they used to claim darwin was pro-eugenics was heavily modified, the original quote said that forced eugenics would be an “overwhelming present evil” that would cause “deterioration in the noblest part of our nature”.
Creationists lie. A lot.
August 10, 2013 at 10:13 am
If you show an apple and an orange to a child they will easily be able to point out the differences but not the similarities. It takes a higher intellect and maturity to see the similarities in things than it does the differences. I think you are completely right on the point you make here.
August 10, 2013 at 10:15 am
meant to say apple and banana…
August 10, 2013 at 10:57 am
You have given us a lot to think about. We must be willing to stand for the truth, but we cannot lose our love and tact. Paul wraps it all up in 1 Corinthians 13. Great article!!!
August 10, 2013 at 8:34 pm
I don’t often comment on debates involving faith/nonfaith, creationism/evolution because I find it leads to circular logic. Quite frankly it gets exhausting. I must add my 2 cents however. To those who commented about “im still good” or “im a good person,” Jesus said in Luke, “there is none good but God.” THAT is the essence of the scriptures. Isaiah, “your works are as filthy rags.” As John says of Christ, “…He came not to do away with the Law (ten commandments), but to fulfill it.” Now please don’t berate me for quoting the scriptures, but I must to prove my point, which is this; no one is “good.” Does the murderer believe he is bad? Does the thief? Does the married man, who looks at another woman with lust, still think he’s a “good” person? I realize these are varying degrees of sin, yes sin, but again, there is none good but God. The commandments are no longer a set of rules to live by, in the sense that if we don’t, we go to hell. They, since Christ, are a mirror. To look at and say, I cant and haven’t lived up to these, thus I need someone who has to fill in for me. We are all in debt to God. All sin is looked at the same. “If you are guilty of one part of the law, you are guilty of it all.”
Now I realize that was off topic to what this article was about. Again, I was commenting on those who believe they are good people. Remember, that without a standard, “good” is a VERY relative term. Sharia law anyone?
To this article tho, you can not be a Christian and an evolutionist. I’m sorry but they just can’t coexist in the same belief system. Why? Because when you begin to take and believe SOME parts of the scriptures and not others, you run a very serious risk of creating God in OUR image instead of the way it should be.
Thanks for reading
August 10, 2013 at 11:45 pm
Nick,
If you were addressing my own comments then let me say I’m well aware that the bible says no one is good but god. That is the effective tool to obligate you to accept the need for its redemption.
That being said if you were not good, if you were evil you wouldn’t care and you’d never accept jesus because evil does not care and evil does not love, the fact that it bothers you that you have done something evil means you are not evil. If the world was evil and without goodness then no one would accept jesus and his goodness, the only reason people accepted him and then died for him was because they were already good and goodness mattered. Jesus used a lost samaritan to display goodness and jesus said he was good.
If it is impossible to believe in evolution and be a child of god then christianity is nothing but a system, a certain structure of beliefs alined properly. If it is a relationship and a union with a god then your belief in how god made things won’t matter. Paul made salvation very simple in Romans and as far as we know Paul and Jesus never onced preached on the proper way the universe began. If you think people like george washington and thomas jefferson are burning in hell because they had different ideas then that’s really scary. Christianity becomes infinitely complicated if having perfect beliefs are how you achieve it.
August 11, 2013 at 12:34 am
Sandra,
I like your sentiments. I think we have to appreciate a person before we expect them to give us an inroad to their life. To deny the sincerety, complexity, difficulty that describes everyones belief regardless of what the belief is … is to be clumsy and possibly cruel.
When a person feels like they have to stick up for theirself or their friends then that means the message they are hearing has stumbled from the loving path.
August 11, 2013 at 3:50 am
Also I think one must understand the nature of belief itself before you can rightly concern yourself with someone elses belief. I do not believe that we choose our beliefs. I believe that we discover them. You can choose what you read, you can choose who you listen to, you can choose where you will go and what you will feel but you cannot choose to be convinced or not convinced or happy or sad.
I did not choose to be convinced by deism and you did not choose to be convinced by christianity. I could not choose to find christianity believable and you could not choose to find atheism believable. Beliefes are not things we pick and choose so pushing on people won’t help, they don’t have the power to stop believing what they do. They only have the power to submerge their self in a new environment that may or may not change their belief and then this new belief will be realized, not chosen.
That being said, we should be kind to one another and appreciate what a person believes, there is nothing they can do to force what they feel is true or are convinced by to change on a whim.
August 12, 2013 at 4:58 pm
Atheism isn’t a belief, it’s the state of being unconvinced of other beliefs.
August 14, 2013 at 2:03 am
Yes I am aware of that Agno. Creationism is a belief though and one who does not believe in it cannot simply choose to start believing it. My point was that it is not wise to try to combat a persons belief or blame a person for not choosing a different one when NO ONE chooses their beliefs.
August 11, 2013 at 9:06 pm
Lee,
I will try to explain what I had wanted to convey in my comment. I was concerned with being too winded ha, but im sorry for any confusion.
Do I believe there is good in the world? Of course. As I said though, “good” is a very relative term. You sound knowledgeable and if you’ve ever heard a philosophical lecture about moral relativism, you will know what I mean. Every culture, society, religion has it’s own definition of what it believes to be good. This isn’t even debatable. It’s pure fact. So if I think my actions are good in the context of my own belief system (not just being a Christian, but an American), may not be seen as good, and even evil in another’s.
Also, and most importantly, I will NEVER take the credit for speaking to someone about Christ or trying to witness to them. That is all the work of the Holy Spirit. Not my goodness. Now if you know the Bible like it sounds, you may know what I’m about to say next. Before Christ, the Holy Spirit only came to those God deemed righteous i.e. Abraham, Moses, Noah etc. From those people came the truth and the people CHOSE to believe or not.
Today, through the work of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is available to ALL who seek Him. Thus the knowledge and ability to be born anew. Remember, even Jesus’ own disciples didn’t understand what He was speaking about most of the time prior to His death. After, though, when the Spirit had come upon them, they were radically changed with a new understanding.
Anyway, to your comment about not choosing what we believe,… I’m not really sure I understand where you are coming from with that. Do you not believe we have free will? Obviously you believe we can choose between good and bad behavior. So I’m not quite sure how to respond.
Also, please don’t misunderstand me. I have much respect for a person’s belief system. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I didn’t.
One more thing then I’ll shut up lol, as far as the new testament is concerned, there is mention to creation. Exact verses escape me right now, but in 1st Peter, I believe. What I was speaking of though, when I made the comment on evolution and Christianity, was the creation story itself. Call me foolish to believe such a “myth” but that’s what I was referring to when I said taking pieces of scripture as fact and not others.
Regards,
Nick
August 12, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Nick,
Thanks for elaborating.
I am aware that all places have different actions they consider good. Thanks for saying you do believe goodness exists in this world. My point in saying what I did is that if people were evil, simply evil, they would never want Jesus. I do not believe that your idea that the holyspirit shining light or truth an evil heart would change this is a very good thought. But do not consider that a slight against yourself.
What is your point for bringing up moral relativism in the context of saying people are not good if not to imply morality or goodness is illegitimate? If you believe goodness exists moral relativism isn’t relevant. Now probably believe this goodness only came from god and that we need a god to make a standard. I say goodness had to have existed without and before jesus because goodness is required to love him and accept him and repent before salvation takes place. Evil hearts would not want him.
I do believe free will exists, I even said as much. The existence of free will doesn’t mean you choose to be hungry or full or tired or energetic. The same is true for being convinced or unconvinced and considering something as true or false. If you consider it true that the world is round then you cannot will yourself to believe it to be square. If you believe your wife loves you you cannot will yourself to actually believe she hates you. You can will yourself to go research the topic but you cannot just choose to believe something new right now. You can choose to act like she doesn’t love you but that doesn’t indicate a change in belief at all. A humans beliefs are a product of their environment, not their desires.
As for the new testament teaching creationism I think you are being pretentious. You couldn’t properly cite your single point of reference or even summarize the statement. That the NT contains a sufficient elaboration on creationism and that creationism was a core theme of the NT gospel message is silly.I said this because the bible says many things which are not incredibly to us. Paul gave the example of looking into a dark mirror or glass to see the truth. Peter said Pauls teachings were very hard to understand. I am saying the bible does not teach that perfect beliefs are neccesary. The bible isn’t even clear that god did not use an evolutionary process.
August 12, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Nick,
I need to apologise. I said a belief of yours was silly. This has undermineded my own theme and I am sorry.
August 12, 2013 at 7:53 am
Yes, the video made me ticked off enough to counter with a bit of art. 😉