AiG rarely has the opportunity to engage in live creation/evolution debates nowadays. Yes, we have participated in such forums over the years, even at places like Harvard, but those debates were many years ago. The word in the evolutionist community today is to turn down invitations to debate creationists, the rationale usually going something like this: “Don’t give a creationist the legitimacy of being on the same platform as an evolutionist.”1

This week, however, we have the rare opportunity to debate an evolutionist. While it is not a traditional debate in front of a live audience, we welcome this chance to be featured in a special forum on a very popular website, www.BeliefNet.com. The sad part is that the evolutionist being debated is a Christian professor at Eastern Nazarene College (since 1984) and also Director of the Forum on Faith and Science at Gordon College, both in Massachusetts. Dr. Karl Giberson is the author of Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, and beginning today and over the next few days, he and AiG President Ken Ham will have a running debate on the topic of whether Christianity is compatible with evolution.2

BeliefNet is a web forum of religious topics with no tie to any religious group. In fact, a Jewish columnist (and the site's editor-in-chief) wrote an excellent article on our Creation Museum earlier this month. BeliefNet has the goal of giving its web visitors “access to the best spiritual teachers and clergy in the world, thought-provoking commentary, and a supportive community” from all religious faiths. This year, the site received the Online News Association’s top award for online commentary.

Giberson is known as a science-and-religion scholar who has a particular interest in the creation/evolution controversy. He was the founding editor of Science & Theology News (which went out of business in 2006). One of his other books is Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Science and Religion. He is sadly representative of a growing number of evangelical college professors who teach molecules-to-man evolution as fact in their classrooms (e.g., Calvin College in Michigan and Wheaton College in Illinois).3

Over the next few days, check www.BeliefNet.com for what promises to be a lively online debate on what Christians should believe about Genesis.

 

Footnotes

  1. Just recently, for example, Mr. Dan Phelps was asked by an AiG supporter if he would debate an AiG scientist. He declined, saying that it would give AiG’s views some validity in the public eye. This occurred after Mr. Phelps (head of the Kentucky Paleontology Society) was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that he is “depressed” that anti-evolution beliefs such as those presented at AiG’s Creation Museum in northern Kentucky are undermining science education in the state. Phelps stated in a later email to the AiG supporter that our staff scientists are “morons.”  
  2. Giberson is writing a book for Harvard University Press currently entitled The Anointed: America’s Evangelical Experts and has approached Ken Ham about an interview for his book. At first blush, the title (and a short description of the book we have read) suggests that Ken may be described by Giberson as a “self-anointed” expert, for Ken has no earned Ph.D. and thus lacks real authority to speak as an expert on the topic of origins. Now, maybe he will take a different tack in his book, but Gilberson has been known to be critical of evangelical leaders who represent the Christian church in the media and other places when he feels they lack the necessary academic credentials to do so. We wish to point out that many non-scholars were used by God to write various books of the Bible. Furthermore, being biblically literate does not require years of formal training. Also, when Ken speaks authoritatively on Genesis, he is backed by an AiG faculty that holds earned doctorates in various fields.  
  3. Lest we be misunderstood, we believe Christian colleges should teach evolution—but that its tenets should be shown to students as contradictory to Scripture and observable science.