I am writing in response to Jason Williams and Dane Stickney’s opinion articles of Aug. 24. I do not write out of anger but out of frustration – that ideas like these are being perpetuated in our culture today. In his column, Jason Williams expounds that he is sick of Christians infringing on the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Citing the Kansas school board’s de-emphasis on evolution in science curricula, Williams stated that “to fear evolution because it challenges the foundations of one’s faith does not justify handicapping an entire generation of children.” Though I am not an expert in the creation/evolution debate, I know enough that I can say there is astounding, concrete evidence that supports the creation theory. I might add that the shift away from teaching evolution in the classroom is based not on irrational Christian beliefs but on truth. There is a distinct difference between the separation of church and state and truth. Macroevolution is not truth and should not be taught as such in the classroom. To better convey this point, allow me to take you back in time to the late 19th century. J.J. Thomson had just finished doing his electron experiments and as a result devised the “plum-pudding” model of the atom. What appeared as a breakthrough in the scientific world turned out to be quite ridiculous. At one time taught in the class, Thomson’s model is a far cry from today’s knowledge about atomic structure. This seems to be the case with evolution as well. Though evolution dominates in the classroom today, slowly, macroevolutionary models are fading. It is time that we all broke free from our dogmatic, fideistic, relative states of mind and began to objectively pursue truth. Dane Stuckney’s article on “people find[ing] light in different faiths” will serve as a way for me to illustrate my point. Stuckney takes us through a story of five people who use a different faith to make it through their day and concludes her article with “as their eyes close, they are all glad that they’ve found the salvation.” Though I do not have space to expand on this idea, I can say that out of these five religions, Christianity is the only true religion. Many tell me that to say so is closed-minded and intolerant, but that is not the case. Truth is truth regardless of your belief system. If it’s truth, there is proof and the whole discipline of Christian Apologetics deals with reasons to believe the faith (1 Peter 3:15). Orthodox Christianity states that there is one God, and it is not by works alone we get to Heaven but it is by faith in Christ that we gain salvation (John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9). Buddhism and many other religions claim God gives salvation by doing works. Relativism would have us believe that both religions are true. However, either one and only one of these religions is correct or they are both false -they cannot both be true at the same time because they contradict each other. Perhaps other belief systems help people to live out their lives, but Christ helps us to live this life and the next one. Christianity is objective and true. Williams and Stuckney both exhibit a disturbing trend in modern thought that evolution and relativism are ideas that are here to stay. They are not. Scientifically, macroevolution (molecules to man) is being disproved. Philosophically, relativism is both self-defeating and impossible to consistently live out. Why do we humans always look to an answer other than the Christian God? It is time that we humans stop suppressing the truth of God (Romans 1:18) and press on in finding out who this God is that is so awesome he can create the universe. Who is this God who is so awesome he can resurrect men from the dead? And who this God is who embodies every essence of truth and love? As a flyer I read the other day put it: “There is a Christian God. You should know.” Many books have been written against evolution, and they are only a trip to the library away. The true God of the universe is the Christian God. He is Creator of life and absolute possessor of truth. And us Christians thought you should know. Andy Merrick

Junior

Management Information Systems