Turning Europe into Florida?

By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 9, 12:15 PM ET

LONDON - After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers
were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir
Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles
Darwin's theory of evolution.

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"Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's
leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the
chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization
that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain
and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals
embracing that message - that the true history of the Earth is told in the
Bible, not Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and
creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped
the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably,
Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin's defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of
Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism
into Europe's schools. Bible-based theories and "religious dogma" threaten
to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

Schools are increasingly a focal point in this battle for hearts and minds.
A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a Web site with its
American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view
into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said
Monty White, the group's chief executive.

"We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the
students to question what they're being taught about evolution," said White,
who founded the British branch seven years ago. "And we leave them a box of
books for the library."

Creationism is still a marginal issue here compared with its impact on
cultural and political debate in the United States. But the budding fervor
is part of a growing embrace of evangelical worship throughout much of
Europe. Evangelicals say their ranks are swelling as attendance at
traditional churches declines because of revulsion with the hedonism and
materialism of modern society.

"People are looking for spirituality," White said in an interview at his
office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. "I think they are fed up with
not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn't make them
happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take
drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is
lasting."

Other British organizations have joined the crusade. A group called Truth in
Science has sent thousands of unsolicited DVDs to every high school in
Britain arguing that mankind is the result of "intelligent design," not
Darwinian evolution.

In addition, the AH Trust, a charity, has announced plans to raise money for
construction of a Christian theme park in northwest England with a
5,000-seat television studio that would be used for the production of
Christian-oriented films. And several TV stations are devoted full-time to
Christian themes.

All this activity has lifted spirits at the Westminster Chapel, a
165-year-old evangelical church that is not affiliated with nearby
Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried.

In the chapel, Rev. Greg Haslam tells the 150 believers that they are in a
conflict with secularism that can only be won if they heed Churchill's
exhortation and never, ever give up.

"The first thing you have to do is realize we are in a war, and identify the
enemy, and learn how to defeat the enemy," he said.

There is a sense inside the chapel that Christian evangelicals are
successfully resisting a trend toward a completely secular Britain.

"People have walked away from God; it's not fashionable," said congregant
Chris Mullins, a civil servant. "But the evangelical church does seem to be
growing and I'm very encouraged by that. In what is a very secular society,
there are people returning to God."

School curricula generally hold that Darwin's theory has been backed up by
so many scientific discoveries that it can now be regarded as fact. But
Mullins believes creationism also deserves a hearing in the classroom.

"Looking at the evidence, creationism at the least seems a theory worthy of
examination," he said. "Personally I think it is true and I think the truth
will win out eventually. It's a question of how long it takes."

Terry Sanderson, president of Britain's National Secular Society, a
prominent group founded in 1866 to limit the influence of religious leaders,
fears the groups advocating a literal interpretation of the Bible are making
headway.

"Creationism is creeping into the schools," he said. "There is a constant
pressure to get these ideas into the schools."

The trend goes beyond evangelical Christianity. Sanderson said the British
government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though
they teach the Quranic version of creationism. He said the government fear
imposing evolution theory on the curriculum lest it be branded as
anti-Islamic.

The Council of Europe spoke up last fall after Harun Yahya, a prominent
Muslim creationist in Turkey, tried to place his lavishly produced 600-page
book, "The Atlas of Creation," in public schools in France, Switzerland,
Belgium and Spain.

"These trends are very dangerous," said Anne Brasseur, author of the Council
of Europe report, in an interview.

Brasseur said recent skirmishes in Italy and Germany illustrate the
creationists' tactics. She said Italian schools were ordered to stop
teaching evolution when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister, although the
edict seems to have had little impact in practice. In Germany, she said, a
state education minister briefly allowed creationism to be taught in biology
class.

The rupture between theology and evolution in Europe is relatively recent.
For many years people who held evangelical views also endorsed mainstream
scientific theory, said Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, a
British-based, Christian-oriented research group. He said the split was
imported from the United States in the last decade.

"There is a lot of American influence, and there are a lot of moral and
political and financial resources flowing from the United States to here,"
he said. "Now you have more extreme religious groups trying to get a
foothold."

In some cases, the schools have become the battlegrounds. Richard Dawkins,
the Oxford university biologist and author of last year's international
best-seller "The God Delusion, "frequently lectures students about the
marvels of evolution only to find that the students' views have already been
shaped by the creationist lobby.

"I think it's so sad that children should be fobbed off with these
second-rate myths," he said.

"The theory of evolution is one of the most powerful pieces of scientific
thinking ever produced and the evidence for it is overwhelming. I think
creationism is pernicious because if you don't know much it sounds kind of
plausible and it's easy to come into schools and subvert children."

White, the director of the British Answers in Genesis, is well aware that
the group's school program is contentious. The group has removed information
about it from its Web site to avoid antagonizing people.

The group operates a warehouse with $150,000 worth of DVDs, books and comics
promoting creationism, but he says he only sends speakers and materials into
schools that invite Answers in Genesis to make a presentation.

White, 63, said he was raised as an atheist, and after earning a doctorate
in chemistry, embraced evangelical Christianity in 1964.

He says that when he is asked to speak to science classes, he challenges the
accuracy of radioactive dating which shows the world to be thousands of
millions of years old and says that the Bible is a more accurate description
of how mankind began. He personally believes the Earth is between 6,000 and
12,000 years old.

"Usually I find the discussion goes on science, science, and science and
then when the lesson is finished one or two students say, 'Can we talk about
other things?' and I sit down with them and usually they want to talk about
Christianity," he said. "They want to know, why do you believe in God? Why
do you believe in the Bible? How can you be sure it's the word of God?"

Dawkins feels the effect. He said he is discouraged when he visits schools
and gets questions from students who have obviously been influenced by
material from Answers in Genesis. "I continually get the same rather stupid
points straight from their pamphlets," he said.

White is getting ready for a visit by Ken Ham, who will preach at
Westminster Chapel this spring. Meanwhile he is pleased that small groups of
creation science advocates now meet regularly in Oxford, Edinburgh,
Northampton and other British cities.

"The creation movement is certainly growing," he said. "There are more
groups than there were five years ago. There are more people like me going
out speaking about it, and there's more interest. You have these little
groups forming all over the place."

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Evolution is Unconstitutional
    ... they have no right to talk about it in government schools. ... Because the thought of teaching creationism in schools usually causes ... If this were even remotely a possibility that biological evolution was ... He alleges this requirement violates his rights under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment; Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ...
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