Freeing Up a Choked Debate

Spirituality Column #77
April 29, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Freeing Up a Choked Debate
By Bob Walters

I saw the movie Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed and thought it was pretty good.

What has surprised me is that the reviews and comment I’ve seen are predictably, iconoclastically “Conservative – Intelligent Design” or “Liberal – Darwinism” and have consistently missed Stein’s central point of the movie – Freedom.

Evolutionists, Atheists and anti-Creationists certainly saw – to their way of thinking, I’m sure – an unfair attack on their beloved and holy Darwinism. Believers like me were likely struck by Stein’s images, boldness and surely snickered at some of his forensic mischief and filmmaker’s license.

And I must say that the sound track was fabulous. To Yoko and her “Imagine” complaint, all I can say is “Let It Be.”

But whether I think the movie’s message is right on or someone else thinks the message is right off the loony farm, Stein began and ended the movie talking about Freedom.

Freedom. Galatians 5:1. As a Christian believer, and an American, I want to stop right there and drink in the elegance of focusing on Freedom in a debate about science. And religion.

Religion is a quest for Truth. Science is a quest for Truth. Both require freedom of honest inquiry to establish Truth, or you wind up with idolatry and demagoguery, not religion and science. You have Political Correctness, not Truth.

What is Truth? That’s easy. It’s in the Bible. John 14:6. Jesus Christ is the Truth.

And how Darwin got to be more politically correct than Christ I do not know.

Stein addressed science, but mainly he was talking about Freedom; Freedom which I interpret as being of ultimate importance to our relationship with God and its utter necessity in our search for Him.

Trotting out the Bible as the ultimate science book is not satisfying, because our God-given thirst for discovery requires us to investigate beyond the relationship Truths of Genesis-to-Revelation. Yet the church cannot define science without stifling human creativity (look at the Dark Ages). When science stifles the church, you have, well … today.

Our creativity is an absolutely essential part of our humanity Christ came to redeem. How else can we discover Him?

We all want Freedom for our own point of view. If we battle to preserve Freedom on all fronts, religion and science will take care of themselves.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures our purpose in life is our quest for God, and our pursuit of Truth. We find both in Christ.