Shades of Darwinism (repeated by request)

[HKHaugan]

There is a distinct difference between a theologian and a seculogian. The first attempts to study the nature of God and apply that study to life. The second views human nature from a personal perspective and uses it as the authority to determine how human society should function. The first assumes a God outside and above human nature and the second assumes that human nature is self-defining. Here’s the scary part, in the present president we have a seculogian attempting to become a theologian whose authority for his conclusions rests in his personal observations, impressions and emotions. It seems then he concludes that his random selection of quotations from the Bible and personal assumptions about Jesus make him a combination of the secular and the sacred thus becoming ‘Secutheologian-in-Chief.’ Check out his words, “My feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this. At this point, what I’ve said is, is that my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have,” Obama said in response to a question from ABC’s Jake Tapper at a White House press conference. (DECEMBER 2010)

Even more frightening is his use of the word ‘evolving.’ One of the major studies in sociology in the early to middle 20th century was called ‘Social Darwinism’, that is, the effect of the theory of evolution on society as seen, for instance, in the idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’ in social interaction. The word ‘evolution’ has become a common word with its underlying deceptive premise that human nature is evolving from its primitive state to a more perfect form.

Consider this, as we assume we can speak authoritatively from personal opinion, emotion and experience, it implies we are operating from a more perfect nature than our ancestors who simply had not progressed to the level we have obtained in modern society. We are superior to those in the past and that is the basis for how we make decisions. After all we know more now than anyone ever has. We have developed medicine, architecture, economics, education, technology, transportation and governments to levels never imagined in earlier history.

Man has made enormous strides over the centuries from the cave to the skyscraper. We have evolved. That is what the theory of evolution has given us. But the illusion (and I say ‘illusion’) is this. What we have achieved in the visible dimension means we have done the same in the invisible dimension. Just like John Cameron when he won the Oscar for his movie Titanic. He raised the Oscar above his head and said, “I am king of the world.’ The president has stood on this humanistic assumption in his proclamation that he supports homosexual marriage. He has evolved because “my feelings about this are constantly evolving.” He is ‘king of the world.’

This is not a hostile political diatribe but a sad commentary on the spiritual, moral and political state of the leadership of our nation. Just read the next quote to see what he says and make your own conclusion, "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," he said. (President Obama in a recent ABC interview.) Feelings, feelings, feelings.

He goes on to say, “It’s interesting, some of this is also generational,” the president said. “You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same sex equality or, you know, believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.” Poor kids. What are they being taught at home?
Rather than Shades of Darwinism we should say shadows, dark shadows, uneven shadows coming from that shadowy pest of the past who initiated the moral devastation of Sodom. Working relentlessly behind the scenes to keep Sodom’s fires burning, he has found his way into the office of the world’s number one political power ensuring that this president will be marked in American history as the White House’s most polarizingly divisive resident. The curtain of our nation’s temple will be torn from top to bottom if there is not a massive call for repentance on every citizen’s part. One can almost see satan’s smiling pride in having reached the pinnacle of deception in luring the most politically powerful man in our time to deny the authority of God’s Word by substituting emotion for truth. This is spiritual sabotage achieved on a grand level.

Ever since Charles Darwin came up with his evolutionary theory its ripple effect has been seen in so many areas of thought in our culture affecting how we think in common everyday conversation. What is most telling about the impact of Darwinism is its seeping effect on human interaction in the last 150 years. After Darwin’s publication of The Origin of the Species in 1859, its primary thesis that all life forms have evolved from a single cell into progressively complicated forms one of which eventually ‘evolved’ into humans, has generated an ongoing debate as to its validity as a natural law and a scientific truth.

Evolution has been the unquestioned bedrock of secular intellectuals who seek to remove the credibility of human uniqueness created by a unique God and bury it in the slime of ego enhanced reasoning. For philosophers it is the ammunition for viewing human life as an ongoing progression of society from primitive gatherings to modern cities, from apelike creatures in caves to the sophisticated societies we have today with utopia just a few generations away. Ultimately human beings can perfect themselves. It has become a religion of sorts with its faith in a future of scientific absolutism. It is as though Darwin had been made its pope-in-memorium. It is the Tower of Babel reincarnated. It is scientism replacing science, humanism replacing humanity, pride replacing humility as wishful thinking makes emotion ‘king for a day.’ It’s time to pray for that all of us will reverse our sense of individual impotence, our timid resignation to the way things are, our reluctance to speak up in the open forums of our daily experience where we interact with others. It is not the political arguments that count but the spiritual stand we take when it comes to being a witness for the Lord. As we consciously place Him in the front of our daily encounters let Him be spoken of, demonstrated in love and the center of our attention in the presence of others. Pray for opportunities to bring Him into conversations. It is the hearts of people that need changing, not their structures. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2Chron.7:14).”