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Overview: The Conflict Between Religion and Evolution

Updated February 3, 2014

Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection , Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy has grown in both size and intensity. In the last decade, debates over how evolution should be taught in schools have been heard in school boards, town councils and legislatures in more than half the states.

Throughout much of the 20th century, opponents of evolution (many of them theologically conservative Christians) either tried to eliminate the teaching of Darwin’s theory from public school science curricula or urged science instructors also to teach a version of the creation story found in the biblical book of Genesis. The famous 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial, for instance, involved a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the state’s schools. (See The Social and Legal Dimensions of the Evolution Debate in the U.S. )

But beginning in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a number of decisions that imposed severe restrictions on those state governments that opposed the teaching of evolution. As a result of these rulings, school boards, legislatures and government bodies are now barred from prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Teaching creation science, either along with evolutionary theory or in place of it, is also banned.

These debates are just as prevalent in the court of public opinion as they are in the courtroom. A spring 2013 Pew Research Center survey finds that six-in-ten Americans say humans and other living things evolved over time, including 32% who say that life evolved through natural processes like natural selection and 24% who say a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today. A third of Americans (33%) say that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

Most of the nation’s scientists contend that evolution is a well-established scientific theory that convincingly explains the origins and development of life on earth. Moreover, they say, a scientific theory is not a hunch or a guess but is instead an established explanation for a natural phenomenon, like gravity, that has repeatedly been tested through observation and experimentation. Indeed, most scientists argue that, for all practical purposes, evolution through natural selection is a fact. (See Darwin and His Theory of Evolution .) These scientists and others dismiss creation science as religion, not science, and describe intelligent design as little more than creationism dressed up in scientific jargon.

So if evolution is as established as the theory of gravity, why are people still arguing about it a century and a half after it was first proposed? (See Evolution: A Timeline .) The answer lies, in part, in the possible theological implications of evolutionary thinking. For many, the Darwinian view of life – a panorama of brutal struggle and constant change – goes beyond contradicting the biblical creation story and conflicts with the Judeo-Christian concept of an active and loving God who cares for his creation. (See Religious Groups’ Views on Evolution .) In addition, some evolution opponents argue that Darwin’s ideas have proven socially and politically dangerous. In particular, they say, the notion that more resilient animals survive and thrive (“survival of the fittest”) has been used by social thinkers, dictators and others to justify heinous crimes, from forced sterilization to mass genocide.

But while theologians, historians and others argue over evolution’s broader social impact, the larger and more intense debate still centers on what children in public schools learn about life’s origins and development. Indeed, the teaching of evolution has become a part of the nation’s culture wars and has been taken up by legislatures and boards of education in more than a dozen states in the last year alone. For example, the Texas Board of Education recently debated what kinds of biology textbooks students should and should not read. (See Fighting Over Darwin: State by State .) And while evolution may not attain the same importance as such culture war issues as abortion or same-sex marriage, the topic is likely to have a place in national debates on values for many years to come.

Evolution: A Glossary of Terms

Creationism – The belief that the creation story in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible book of Genesis is literally true and is akin to a scientific explanation for the creation of the Earth and the development of life.

Creation science – A movement that has attempted to uncover scientific evidence to show that the biblical creation story is true. Some in the creation science movement, known as “young Earth creationists,” reject not only evolution but also the idea that the universe and the Earth are billions of years old.

Darwinian evolution – The theory, first articulated by Charles Darwin, that life on Earth has evolved through natural selection, a process through which plants and animals change over time by adapting to their environments.

Intelligent design – The belief that life is too complex to have evolved entirely through natural processes and that an outside, possibly divine force must have played a role in the origin and development of life.

Social Darwinism – A belief that Darwin’s evolutionary theory can be applied to human society and that groups of people, just like life in the wild, are subject to “survival of the fittest.” The now discredited idea influenced many social theories and movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from laissez-faire capitalism to various eugenics movements.

Scientific theory – A statement or principle, honed through scientific observation, reasoning and experimentation, that explains a natural phenomenon.

Theistic evolution – A belief held by some religious groups, including the Catholic Church, that God is the guiding force behind the process of evolution.

This report was written by David Masci, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project.

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• Published: 18 March 2010

Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates

Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds): Reading Genesis after Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. xiv + 254. S/b $24.95

• Kim Paffenroth 1  

Evolution: Education and Outreach volume  3 ,  pages 297–299 ( 2010 ) Cite this article

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This anthology consists of 13 essays written by professors trained in biblical studies or theology, writing on the interpretation of Genesis (by which they almost exclusively mean the first chapter of Genesis) since Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). After a brief Introduction by the editors, the book is then divided into three parts: “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” “Understanding the History,” and “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance.” It includes an index of modern authors and a subject index. References of works cited are included in the notes for each chapter, though a bibliography at the end would’ve been a welcome addition.

Section 1, “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” includes four essays. In “How Should One Read the Early Chapters of Genesis?” Walter Moberly discusses the implications of taking Genesis as “a literary phenomenon.” His conclusion is probably unremarkable to anyone trained in modern, liberal biblical criticism, and it will recur in similar terms in several of the other essays: Moberly challenges us to see in Genesis biblical ideas such as “wonder and delight of the world, creaturely contingency, creaturely responsibility, the gift of relationship between creature and Creator, and the difficulty that humans have in genuinely trusting God as a wise Creator and living accordingly”. I think he is quite correct that this view maintains the text’s meaning and relevance, without insisting on a literal reading of it.

Francis Watson takes the history of controversy much further back, in his essay, “Genesis before Darwin: Why Scripture Needed Liberating from Science.” He traces what he calls the “annexation” of the Bible by astronomy and geology in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries: harmonization of the biblical account with scientific findings (e.g. the “days as eons” solution) was done to the detriment or obfuscation of both. Darwin put forth his theory with no reference to Genesis, and according to Watson, this shows a more fruitful and beneficial relationship between Genesis and science—separation or liberation from one another.

In “The Six Days of Creation according to the Greek Fathers,” Andrew Louth discusses the interpretation of Genesis by Theophilos of Antioch and Basil. Louth’s conclusions echo Moberly’s, in that he counsels some of the same attitudes toward creation, showing how ancient theologians regarded the created world with “wonder” and “humility” and were convinced of its “interconnectedness”.

In “The Hermeneutics of Reading Genesis after Darwin,” Richard S. Briggs examines the comparison of Genesis with other ancient Near Eastern texts (a method of biblical study that was coming into vogue contemporaneously with Darwin), concluding that the process and implications of such “triangulating” are similar, whether one is comparing Genesis to the Enuma Elish or to Darwin.

Section 2, “Understanding the History,” includes three essays. It starts with John Rogerson’s “What Difference Did Darwin Make?: The Interpretation of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century,” which examines some biblical commentaries published shortly before and shortly after Darwin’s work, to see what effect (if any) it had on their interpretation of the Genesis text. The examination does a good job of showing there was no unanimity among interpreters as to the meaning of Genesis, and a range of interpretations were advocated, both before and after Darwin. Perhaps even more interestingly, even within the group that rejected his theory, interpretations of Genesis often differed.

John Headley Brooke, in “Genesis and the Scientists: Dissonance among the Harmonizers,” returns to some of the scientific controversies already examined in Watson’s essay, concluding similarly that Darwin’s theory may be more amenable to Christianity than attempts at harmonizing Genesis with current scientific theories, since Darwin “purged it [Christianity] of a semi-deistic position”. This is an important distinction for those who would “defend” the Bible, who too often seem to be defending a deistic position that God created the universe and let it go on its own subsequently, rather than defending the idea of a God who wishes to be in communion with humans (the more narrowly biblical concept of God, in either Jewish or Christian interpretation). He also speaks in terms similar to Moberly and Louth, counseling a “nonliteral reading of the text”, and focusing on the text’s primary relevance to “our human existential condition”. David Brown concludes the section with a discussion of some paintings in his essay, “Science and Religion in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Landscape Art.” The most familiar of these to readers is probably Dali’s “The Sacrament of the Last Supper.”

Section 3, “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance,” includes six essays. David Wilkinson’s “Reading Genesis 1-3 in the Light of Modern Science” gives perhaps the fullest summary of the interpretive issues, compared to the other essays in this collection. He puts Darwin in the context of other, sometimes more fundamental and intractable controversies with the Bible; he briefly describes the creationist alternative (pp. 132-135); he traces the various attempts at harmonization, with their pros and cons; and he lays out possible points where Genesis may still speak to the human condition and understanding. Echoing previous essays in the volume, his conclusion is that a primarily literary approach is needed to understand or appreciate the text, and this will yield an interpretation that does not address cosmogonic or biological data, but rather our “unique conscious intimacy with God”.

In “All God’s Creatures: Reading Genesis on Human and Nonhuman Animals,” David Clough argues that in light of evolution (and other observations of animal consciousness and rationality), Christians should abandon anthropocentric readings of Genesis (what he calls “human-separatist” readings throughout). Jeff Astley argues in “Evolution and Evil: The Difference Darwinism Makes in Theology and Spirituality” that evolution exacerbates the problems of theodicy by making suffering (and large amounts of it) intrinsic to creation.

In “’Male and Female He Created Them’ (Genesis 1:27): Interpreting Gender after Darwin,” Stephen C. Barton examines constructions of gender in the classical world, in the Bible, and in subsequent biblical interpretation, contrasting these with modern and postmodern analyses. Ellen F. Davis looks at how organisms fit into their environment in her essay, “Propriety and Trespass: The Drama of Eating,” drawing some conclusions for our current environmental situation and its (un)sustainability. Finally, Mathew Guest’s essay, “The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment,” examines the current popularity of creationism in the USA (and to a much lesser degree in the UK), suggesting some sociological forces that may contribute to its acceptance, despite its logical or factual shortcomings.

Although I was excited when I first began reading this volume, this wore off in the course of study. I would single out three essays for praise. Moberly’s is a very helpful look at how believers could still maintain the importance and sacredness of the biblical text, without interpreting it literally. Rogerson’s is a wonderful and suggestive illustration of how Christian belief and interpretation are never monolithic, and never a matter of “good guys” versus “bad guys.” Wilkinson’s is a thorough and accessible discussion of the issues at stake. But overall, I was struck by how little the book deals with Darwin: it could be entitled “Reading Genesis in the Modern World” with little loss of focus. Several of the essays make only the barest nod toward Darwin before moving on to some topic only tangential to his work. The suggestions for the future interpretation of Genesis (literary criticism, a reading that encourages a sense of wonder and humility, the acknowledgment of human incompleteness and contingency, etc.), while sober and encouraging, are repeated by several contributors without much expansion or specificity (Moberly, Louth, Brooke, Wilkinson); such heuristic suggestions are also commonplace in biblical studies, so I found little new here that couldn’t be found in many introductory classes or texts on Genesis.

Several essays were much more deficient, in my estimation. Briggs’s idea that comparing Genesis to other, contemporaneous myths, and comparing it to a scientific treatise written 2,500 years later, are somehow similar comparisons, and the two interpretive acts can shed light on one another, struck me as odd, if not misleading. It overlooks the more fundamental difference in genre: comparing Genesis to other myths (contemporary with it or not) is probably more helpful to understanding it, than comparing it to scientific writings (from whatever time period, though especially a work that eschews teleological questions, and therefore has a completely different outlook than Genesis). Brown’s essay has little to do with the topic of this collection and barely mentions Darwin or Genesis: its observations would make a fine beginning to a chat about “art and spirituality,” but it has no place here. Clough’s essay doesn’t deal with “stewardship,” which many interpreters today would see as the crucial way to understand the biblical teaching on how humans differ from, and yet are immersed in, the created order. Neither Clough’s nor Barton’s essay deals with the differences between Genesis 1 and 2, again a crucial interpretive issue for understanding the text’s ambiguities (and discrepancies) on anthropocentrism and gender.

I say all this from the perspective of a biblical scholar of a decidedly liberal Protestant bent, for whom these issues are well-worn. Perhaps if I try to step outside of this context (and many of the essays in this collection properly remind us of how much context determines meaning), I might better see where some of these essays could fit into a useful discussion. I’d say that for someone who thinks (as many of my atheist and agnostic friends do) that all Christians are creationists, that all Christians immediately opposed Darwin’s ideas and continue to do so today, or that there is only one way to interpret Genesis—for a reader with such impressions, the better written, more thorough of these essays would prove enlightening, and might promote a dialogue that goes beyond secularists versus Biblicists, those who would discard the text versus those who cling to a literal interpretation of it. Such a dialogue might even become a mutual search for truth, conducted with real exchange, understanding, and respect.

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Paffenroth, K. Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates. Evo Edu Outreach 3 , 297–299 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-010-0215-3

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Ever since Charles Darwin claimed in 1871 that humans and other primates share a common ancestor, people have turned to apes in search of an answer to the age-old question: What makes us human?

A new collaboration between Stanford historians  Jessica Riskin  and  Caroline Winterer  takes up this question, and their efforts have culminated in an exhibition in Green Library’s Hohbach Hall,  The Apes & Us: A Century of Representations of Our Closest Relatives , an accompanying  color catalog , a conference, and most recently, a winter quarter  Introductory Seminar  (IntroSem),  HIST 41Q:  The Ape Museum: Exploring the Idea of the Ape in Global History, Science, Art and Film , where students study with original source material to learn how people have viewed and exploited apes in science and across society through the ages.

“Students can see what people around the world in the 19th century were seeing – it was like the moon landing of the 20th century to suggest that all life on Earth is not only connected, but connected over an enormous span of time in which we all changed and evolved,” said Winterer, the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies in the School of Humanities & Sciences (H&S) and the author of a forthcoming book,  How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America . “As Darwin himself put it, there’s ‘grandeur in this view of life.’ ”

But as her collaboration with Riskin shows, that revelation has been controversial from the beginning. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, evolution and primatology have been entangled with race, ideology, and politics.

“When you think historically about the relationship of humans to nonhuman primates, you can connect current ideas and attitudes in science and culture with their now hidden roots in the past,” said Riskin, the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History in H&S.

Gabriel von Max (1840-1915) Abelard und Héloïse , c. 1900-1915, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Grappling with a paradigm shift in science

The course and exhibition on the primates and people began after Riskin visited an exhibition in 2021 at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Origins of the World: The Invention of Nature in the Nineteenth Century .

Riskin described some of the items  in an essay for  the New York Review of Books , including the small selection of paintings by the eccentric Czech-Austrian artist Gabriel von Max (1840-1915) showing his pet monkeys assuming human-like positions and roles. Riskin described how von Max – who was an avid Darwinian as well as a painter – anthropomorphized non-human primates to emphasize Darwin’s theories that apes were closely connected to humans.

Riskin’s essay caught the attention of lawyer turned art collector Jack Daulton, who had loaned some von Max paintings to the Musée d’Orsay from his private collection. He contacted Riskin to say he lived near the Stanford campus and asked if Riskin and her students would be interested in seeing other von Max works he owns, to which Riskin enthusiastically responded, yes.

Gabriel von Max, Schlechte Zeiten / Bad Times , 1915, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Gabriel von Max (1840-1915), Geburtstagblumen / Birthday Flowers , c. 1890, oil on wood panel. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Now, some 13 paintings by von Max from Daulton’s collection are on view in Hohbach Hall, including the iconic image of two capuchin monkeys holding one another tenderly, even mournfully. The painting is named after the tragic star-crossed lovers from the 12th century, Abelard and Héloïse.

In addition, there are six glass cases with items from Stanford’s own collections that show the many ways artists and scholars – at Stanford and elsewhere – have examined the differences and similarities between people and primates throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

For example, there is a case on posture that includes an 1863 copy of Thomas Henry Huxley’s notorious diagram comparing a human skeleton to that of a gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan, and gibbon as a way to show how our place in nature is in step with apes.

An original copy of Huxley’s diagram is on view at the Apes & Us exhibition. (Image credit: Courtesy Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries Collections)

Another case looks at tools and the hands that made them. Some have argued – such as Friederich Engels, a collaborator and close friend of Karl Marx – that the main differentiator between humans and apes is tool use. In the case is a first edition of the book from the Stanford University Archives in which Engels makes his argument.

The exhibit also shows some of the dangerous ways that differences drawn between human and non-human primates have been used to create imaginary racial and class hierarchies.

Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, invoked his own interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution to found eugenics, a field devoted to “improving” the human population through selective breeding and controlled reproduction.

One case in  The Apes & Us exhibit looks at the role that the evolutionary biologist, ichthyologist, and first president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan, played in the eugenics movement in the United States.

Throughout the cases are various materials from the personal papers of Stephen J. Gould, the influential paleontologist, historian, and evolutionary biologist who spent much of his career rebutting scientific racism and biological deterministic theories. The exhibition calls attention to his 1981 book,  The Mismeasure of Man , in which Gould confronts some of the pervasive tropes about race and intelligence that were prevalent throughout the Victorian era and early 20th century.

There is also a case on primate research at Stanford, including images from the Stanford Outdoor Primate Facility (SOPF) that British primatologist Jane Goodall established in 1974 with David Hamburg, Stanford professor of human biology. Their research became mired in controversy and SOPF closed in 1979.

Learning the history of science and ideas

Studying how humans have interacted with primates in a post-Darwin age is what Winterer calls a “boundary case” where different historical, political, and social perspectives can be brought to bear.

“Whenever you explore a boundary case, you’re also exploring connections,” Winterer said. “When do we erect boundaries between things? When do we create connections across boundaries? We can apply those questions to almost every domain of human thought. The ape and the human boundary or connection is really just one of many such inquiries we can make.”

Crossing in and out of these boundaries was a goal of Riskin’s and Winterer’s IntroSem.

Appropriately titled  The Ape Museum , their course was held in Hohbach Hall, where each week, students interacted with items in the  Apes & U s exhibit.

Students also looked at objects held elsewhere on campus, including at the Stanford University Archaeology Collections, where curator Danielle Raad presented tools and other artifacts made by human ancestors, including some estimated to be between 300,000 to 1.75 million years old.

Francesca Pinney (left) and Megan Liu (right) hold ancient artifacts on a class visit to the Stanford University Archaeology Collections. (Image credit: Danielle Raad)

For freshman Francesca Pinney, holding something so distant in time and space from her was stirring. “History never felt closer,” she said.

The class also visited the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, where  Jean M. Cannon , a research fellow and curator for North American Collections, pulled out propaganda  from their world-renowned poster collection  that showed how apes were used in World War I and II by both Allied and Axis powers to dehumanize the enemy.

Pinney said she was particularly struck by how apes were used in racist ways and the far-reaching consequences that imagery had in society.

“It was disturbing to see some of this propaganda that was so influential in dehumanizing various populations,” Pinney said. “The most haunting part of seeing those pieces of propaganda was [realizing] the prevalence of such disturbing racial components and how successful it was.”

Megan Liu, a sophomore in the course, had a similar reaction when viewing the propaganda posters – some of which were up to 4 feet wide.

“Just seeing them in their original state really showcased how effective it can be because it’s very in your face. It’s very loud. And it’s very bold,” Liu said. “It was a completely different experience seeing them at the Hoover Archive than seeing them [reprinted] on a regular piece of paper.”

The course also featured guest speakers, including course assistant Noah Sveiven, a Stanford senior who talked about his honors thesis research investigating the history of primate science at Stanford and SOPF.

SOPF facility, c. 1974. (Image credit: Stanford University; Archives Peninsula-Times Tribune, Stanford University photographs)

The class also took an optional visit to the San Francisco Zoo, which included a poignant moment for the group with Oscar Jonesy, a 43-year-old silverback western lowland gorilla. When he saw the group entering his enclosure, he approached them and watched them – calmly and intensely – until they disappeared from view.

“It was a stare full of meaning and import somehow,” Riskin recalled of the visit. “That encounter with Oscar gave me a pang to think that he’s lived his whole life in captivity.”

Indeed, an unsettling discomfort can emerge when thinking about the treatment and ethical implications of our closest evolutionary counterparts.

It is that proximity that makes primate science controversial, said Riskin.

“All of our uncertainties, anxieties, convictions, and our whole psyche with regard to humans and humaneness comes out in primate research,” Riskin said.

Apes & Us is on view at Hohbach Hall, located on the first floor of the East Wing of the Green Library, until June 2024.

Stanford Global Studies, which is part of H&S, helped fund the course through  a Course Innovation Award  which supports the development of new courses focused on global topics.

Creationism vs. Evolution Essay

A clear-cut explanation of how life and everything on earth originated has remained a puzzle to humanity for a long time. Scholars have given their own versions of this origin. However, all the attempts have been marked by a weakness of some sort. The real origin hence remains a question that runs in the minds of many people.

A piece of art showcases the aptitude of an artist, so does the earth and the universe that imply the reality and the potentiality of its stylist. This paper seeks to gain insight into the creation theory and evolution theory thereby finding out which of the two tends to carry more logic.

Creation theory everything within this earth is a product of creative power of the gods. In Genesis, it says that God created the world, man and woman in seven days. This is called creationism. It is mostly associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all from Abrahamic religion.

In the first two chapters of Genesis, the book looks at creation in depth. The first one describes all substantial proceedings of creation. In the second chapter, it touches on creation of human beings more strongly. The first chapter of Genesis opens with a sentence purporting pointing out God creating the globe and heaven. But then the earth was without form and it was filled with darkness. He goes on to separate darkness from light thus day and night coming into existence. This was done on the first day. On the second day, he divides firmament to bring about heaven and he collects the waters in one place leaving a dry area which is called earth, the waters were called seas (Slusher 35).

The third day was spent on creation of vegetation. On the fourth day, the heavenly bodies were created. He goes on to create water creatures and bird of the air and also makes living creature like cattle, the beasts to be on dry land. This was on the fifth day.

On the sixth day, man and woman came into existence and were placed to have dominion over the earth. Interestingly, this creation from genesis, concurs with that one of Hugh Ross an astronomer. His argument is based on the big bang evolutionary theory which will be talked about later.

It is worth noting that creation theory has other theories to it. These include young earth creationism. These theorists purport that the earth was created by God about sixty to 100 centuries ago. They offer this argument based on family lineages as explained in the bible.

This theory argues out that the earths age is relatively young, a point disapproved by Christians and scientists who say that the earth is billions of years old. This group argues that dinosaurs are mentioned in the bible and they are still in existence in Central America. Different races did settle in the current locations after the destruction of the tower of Babel, a second argument they have used to support their theory.

Omphalos hypothesis argues that the earth was created in its mature form. These theorists tend to refute the scientific evidence of growth rings. They argue that these rings were placed on earth during the process of creation and that they cannot be used to determine the age of earth (Vardiman 67).

Other inclusions in the creationism theory are old earth creation theory. It accepts the fact that God created the universe but refused to accept the genesis creation. It is further categorized into three groups namely the gap, day age and progressive creationism.

Gap creation argues that there is a large gap between genesis 1:1and genesis 1: 2-31. Day-Age Creationism asserts that the days in the Biblical creation story are symbolic. It goes on to say that these days might have taken millions or billions of years. Progressive creationism, states that God created the Earth and life gradually. It is through Gods intervention by Progressive that a new species comes by.

There is theistic theory that uses the natural selection and Darwin’s theory to explain itself. It believes that the creation of species is due to survival for the fittest and that species get adapted and changes over a period of time.

Neo creationism is another form of creation theory although it distances itself from use of scriptures. It therefore means that it debates the origin of life in a non religious way. In their perspective, it is argued that science does negate some things that point towards supernatural powers. They have rejected naturalism and Darwinism.

Intelligent design has come to be placed as one of creationism theory. This is because it replaces the scientific method with Christian and theistic that leads towards paranormal explanations.

Hinduism and Islam have their own creationism that is based on their holy books.

Creation theory has been discussed in terms of biblical creation theory but in other religions, it is discussed in their own ideas and views. Creationists believe that creature were distinct and separate organs when God created them. Although they have the potential to adapt to an environment, creationists say that creatures cannot change completely into a different form through evolution (Thompson 34).

The creationists differ completely with evolutionist because they don’t see how a species can become completely different because of evolution. This is something that is not recorded in history at any time. Furthermore, the creationists say that there is no evidence of gradual change in the fossils collected. Methods used like carbon dating might have had some errors hence not completely perfect. And lastly, the genetic material tests sometimes are contradictory.

Before the comparison comes up, it is of importance to look at what evolution theory talks about. To start it off, Darwin’s theory of evolution will elaborate it more. To begin, Darwin’s theory believes that all life is related having one common descendant. There is development of life from non life. He uses the theory of natural selection to elaborate. In natural selection, animals change overtime while preserving the much needed behavior while discarding the less required behavior. Hence species evolved due to the environment in which they were based in. this evolution was to help them survive. Random genetic mutations occur and the one needed are preserved to be passed on to the generation that follows. With time, there is accumulation of this genetics that result in a completely new being.

When an organism develops a handy benefit it is preserved and passed on to the offspring’s who inherit it more so passing it on to their offspring’s. Those disadvantaged species don’t survive and hence fade away. It therefore means that natural selection eliminates substandard species over time. This theory is a slow process over time.

With this in mind, it is good to note that creationism is based on belief and evolution is purely based on science. The theories of evolution and creation will continue to cause a heated debate culminating it down to religion versus science. The evolution theory talks of evolution being caused by solely ordinary forces, and is not controlled by any contribution from a supernatural power, force or being. However creationism talks otherwise with its stand being that God created the world and is in charge of any evolution process that takes place.

Creationism says that God is the creator and has been since the beginning of time. However, the evolution theory has come to question this. Science has come to contradict the creationism theory and so one needs to believe what they like. Creation theory however can’t be proved wrong because it is religious in nature. The evolution theory needs to go a step further and try to prove to the world that it has a benefit of doubt.

Darwin’s thoughts of natural distinction and selection and Mendel’s model of hereditary inheritance the basis of naturalistic evolution. They could however not come and say how it occurs. Observing human evolution according to scientists is almost an impractical undertaking. This is because one cannot rely on fossils for reasons of having many interpretations.

In the evolution theory, there are two parts called macro evolution which is just about living things coming into existence from non living matter. The other part is micro evolution that is all about living things adapting to the environment they leave in. However, when you talk of evolution, you need to base on macro evolution and not micro evolution.

If one believes in evolution theory then it needs to be understood that it is all about coming from non living matter that came from the big bang. The big bang theory is based on assertions that the universe came into existence without presence of any form before it.

This universe came into existence in something called a singularity. It was initially small and hot. As time passed by, it gradually cooled and expanded. This is going round in a galaxy with so many stars. This big bang is sometime thought to have exploded but in reality there was only expansions and cooling (Slusher 46).

The big bang theory can be given substantive evidence because there must have been a beginning to the universe. Secondly, the estimated speed at which galaxies move from us can perfectly fit in the grid of current distances. Third, if the heat was there, then we can get the evidence by use of cosmic microwave background radiation that ascertains the truth. And last but not least. Hydrogen and helium in the cosmos are purported to sustain the big bang starting point.

Basing on the big bang and creation, it can still be said that they meet at one point. This is because there must have been a beginning in this universe. Therefore as creation theory insists on supernatural force and powers behind the formation of the universe, the evolution theory bases it upon the big bang theory. Evolutionist use time in a mush slow way so that everything might happen as stated. In the creation theory time given for God to clearly make the world is considerably small. Imagine a billion years that most of the evolutionists try to use to make it seen to be true (Johnson35).

As one can comes to think of, it can easily be thought that both the creation and evolution theories have been combined with the gap theory. Since God created the heavens and the earth in the creation theory, it has to be said that it goes on again to say that he said let there be light. That gap is what the evolutionist begin from and so might just happen to concur. However it must be understood that the two are said that they can never be combined to fit the purpose of a few majority.

Geologist can never accept the gap theory because it contradicts with their belief that the past can not be smooth all through with the current. This also shows something out of it that the evolutionists are by themselves not in agreement with their theories. It therefore requires a very well laid out evidence to support the theory of evolution.

Many at times, people have said that evolution is based on faith and the evolutionists view Darwin as a prophet. The creationists have come to distance themselves from the religious perspective. They have engaged themselves in being diverse but continually cannot accept the evolutionists work.

Evolutionary biology is a major conflict zone between the creationists and the scientists. It is perceived by the creationist that it can’t be true that living things are from one common ancestor, and that the macro evolution is in effect. It also argued that it’s not possible for human beings to have come from apes. With the evidence offered by the existence of fossils, this would not be real.

The theory of universal common descent has been accepted in several biologists’ circles. Darwin is the author of that theory. The biologists argue that the last descent of common ancestor was over 3.9 million years ago. But creationists diminish this point and say that the general design is attributed to one familiar man and that is God, the supernatural being. However the evolutionists counter this by their evidence on fossils, geographical distribution of species and facts like genetics.

Evolutionists believe that the evolution of man is dated from the fossils that suggest that man came from primates. Creationists have disputed this fact with reason that there is no substantive evidence to give a clear indication that human beings came from the primates. They have stood by the genesis creation that point at the first man being Adam. Further more, creationists have denied the fact that there is any macroevolution. This is because they have leaned more to the fact that for macroevolution to have occurred there had to be new body parts formed.

Creationists have gone ahead to dispute the fact that radiometric dating can be reliable in ascertaining the earths age. It is obvious that the use, family lineage found in the old testament to compile how long the earth must have been in existence. However, evolutionist use scientific ways to come up with approximate dates that they use in knowing when the earth came into existence.

Creationists have come out to say that Christianity and the belief in the bible are to be attributed to the scientific progress and discoveries. Many scientists have taken this to be false and argue out that they have evidence and are continually gaining more evidence on their work as time goes by.

As earlier stated, evolution of the universe came from nothing. How did it happen that the earth just came with the bang? That is a question many will ask.

It requires that these evolutionists come up with a more defined evidence to support their work and argument. However, the scientists have taken the data collected and are working to fill up the missing puzzles. The question remains if they will find out what is missing.

The question of complexity is also a centre of debate among the evolutionist and the creationists. The creationists say that the world was planned to be intricate by a stylist who is a supernatural being. On the other hand, evolutionists argue out that complexity was developed slowly with time. This is yet to be ascertained.

The evidence given by the evolutionists in a way or another doesn’t amount to enough evidence. As we can see at the fossil records they give, if evolution was a slow process over time, then so many fossils seen should not look exactly like the species that do exist now. Creationists say that these fossils are in agreement with their theory than with the evolution theory (Thompson 67).

The evolutionary group can’t say how parts on human beings or other complex organisms were formed. They have no idea apart from the fact that it is gradual change over time. On the other hand, the creationists have faith in what their religion tells them. It is just by the mere fact that on the sixth day God created man in his own image and likeness.

Creationists stand by the fact that some evolutionists collide in their thinking and so use this as a base to say evolution theory is in crisis. Much time is spent on them picking minor details from evolutionary and never gets their time to support their theory with evidence.

It is hard for the creationists to prove the great deal and part that the evolutionary have played in finding some evidence. Though not substantial, they have played a major role in giving insight of what might have taken place (Gish 56).

It has been also argued that scientific creationism is not a science but rather a religious belief. The evolutionists refute this and completely say that the things they talk about are talked of in the bible. Hence it is based more on faith. Evolutionists argue in most cases that teaching religion as proved facts is not acceptable. Creationists have not been left behind since they have come out in the open and said that evolutionism is just but a mere story.

In conclusion, it is now up to an individual to decide whether to follow the evolutionists or be with the creationists. If one is unscientific, then believe in the creation theory will make the day.

This is a decision one has to make for himself. If one is science oriented, then the evolution theory is his route to take. All there has to be said is that substantial evidence is vital in order to convince a person to believe in a certain theory. All in all there must have been a form of creation that caused human existence.

Works Cited

Gish, T. Duane. Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1993. Print

Johnson, E. Phillip. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds . Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1997. Print.

Slusher, S. Harold. Origin of the Universe . San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1980. Print.

Thompson, Bert, Creation Compromises . Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1995. Print.

Vardiman, Larry. Ice Cores and the Age of the Earth . El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1993. Print.

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Teaching Evolution In Public Schools Argumentative Essay

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Students , Evolution , World , Theory , Science , Religion , Teaching , Education

Words: 1600

Published: 12/18/2019

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Over recent years, there has been much debate as to whether evolution rather than, or in addition to, creationism should be taught in public schools. There are many groups and individuals on both side of the argument. Interestingly, some scientists are in favour of the teaching of creationism, though the vast majority are not. Although it is generally agreed that there is no scientific fact to support the notion of creationism, many believe that it should be taught to students as an alternative viewpoint. However, evolution is scientifically proven and therefore all children in public schools should be taught about it. Contention between science and religion dates much further back than Charles Darwin’s publication of Origin of the Species. There was an early conflict that has since become famous; this was the 1633 ‘Trial of Galileo’. It was in this year that Dialogue was published. Dialogue was a book that backed up the Copernican theory claiming that the earth revolved around the sun. This was hugely controversial as the Bible suggests the opposite, that the sun revolves around the earth (Evolution). Since their beginning, humans have strived to learn and to understand how life originated. As this subject concerns happenings of the past, there is a high level of speculation involved. Furthermore, the question of how life began is an issue that is deeply emotional as it is directly linked to individual personal beliefs and values. In the late 1800s, evolution started to become accepted among professors of science. However, in spite of this, people still opposed it being taught as part of the curriculum in public schools. Even today, evolution is not taught in all American public schools (Teaching, 1999). It was not until the 1930s that evolution began to properly emerge into the education system. These days, evolutionary naturalism is the most common perspective of origins taught in the West, and over the course of the last fifty years, evolutionists have been adamantly opposed to the teaching of different theories in public schools (Teaching, 1999). There are various important arguments for teaching evolution rather than creationism in public schools. British scientists claim that pupils must be taught unequivocally that science support the theory of evolution (Creationism, 2006). Five years ago, the Royal Society further support this view. The society’s 2006 statement said that pupils may want to "explore the compatibility, or otherwise, of science with various beliefs, and they should be encouraged to do so” (Creationism, 2006). Creationism upholds the theory that the whole world, and everything in it, was created in seven days. Referring to this notion, the Royal Society added: “A belief that all species on Earth have always existed in their present form is not consistent with the wealth of evidence for evolution, such as the fossil record. Similarly, a belief that the Earth was formed in 4004BC is not consistent with the evidence from geology, astronomy and physics that the solar system, including Earth, formed about 4,600 million years ago” (Creationism, 1999). However, in 2008, The Royal Society released a statement in which they were emerging as upholders of the opposite view. In this statement, they claimed that creationism should, in fact, be taught as a legitimate perspective (Smith & Frean, 2008). The Reverend Michael Reiss who was the Royal Society’s director of education, claimed that it was “self-defeating to dismiss as wrong or misguided the 10 per cent of pupils who believed in the literal account of God creating the Universe and all living things as related in the Bible or Koran” (Smith & Frean, 2008). The Reverend went on to say that creationism should be treated as a world view when being taught to students in science lessons. Professor Reiss’ remarks caused disputes between him and fellow scientists and also with the British Government. It is worth noting Charles Darwin was a former fellow of the Royal Society; this highlights the turnaround that the Society has undergone. The British national curriculum guidelines affirm that creationism is totally irrelevant to school science lessons. If creationism is raised for discussion by a student, the guidelines stipulate that the teacher should comment on how the view differs from evolution, tell the student that creationism is not a scientific theory and therefore religious class is a more appropriate place for the conversation (Smith & Frean, 2008). Some claim that teaching creationism is one example of inclusive learning, and that this is a valuable reason for including it in science lessons. For example, a Spokesman for the Royal Society said “Teachers need to be in a position to be able to discuss science theories and explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism isn’t” (Smith & Frean, 2008). The idea seems to be that teachers should try to be sensitive to students who believe in creationism, and while teachers should explain that creationism is not accepted by scientists, they should avoid demeaning the children’s creationist beliefs. However, it is arguable that the Government’s guidelines cover this eventuality by asking the teachers to teach science in science lessons, leaving matters of religion and faith to Religious Studies lessons. A significant problem with creationism and the ideas that it represents is that it contradicts many scientifically proven facts in different academic fields. Creationists criticise evolution, but they additionally condemn all scientific concepts that propose a universe dating back further than 6,000 to 10,000 years. Examples of this are cosmology, geology, astronomy and relativity (Welcome). Creationism appears to uphold the view that evolution isn’t scientifically satisfactory. However, despite the term ‘theory of evolution,’ the notion that the world evolved over a long period of time is a proven scientific fact. The theory part of evolution refers to how the transformation actually occurred, which is still largely unproven and is still debated among scientists. There is a vast amount of fossil evidence that adequately validates the fact of evolution. However, there is evidence even more convincing today and that stems from species DNA testing. An example of this is the fact that humans and chimpanzees have over ninety-eight per cent identical genes. This proves how closely related the two species are. It is generally agreed that in the future, most of our new learning of the process of evolution will be provided by DNA information (Evolution). Importantly, evolution is not deemed as conflicting with religious views of most Christians or Jews. The majority of mainstream Protestant values, the Catholic Church, and numerous other religious doctrines accept evolution as a fact. There are disagreements concerning evolution, just as there are concerning most theories. For example, most biologists hold the opinion that evolution has had periods of unevenness throughout the course of history. However, some biologists disagree, believing that the rate of evolution has been, and still is, constant (Evolution). After more than two hundred years, the Catholic Church finally recognised the scientific proof that the earth revolved around the sun. In the same way, it is probable that most Fundamentalists will also eventually accept the theory of evolution. It is difficult to say whether this will happen in the next fifty years or in the next five hundred years, but it will happen. The debate over whether or not evolution should be taught in public schools is a fascinating one with many depths within it. The ideas of inclusive learning and of introducing more cultural diversity into schools are both forward thinking and positive. However, these ideas refer to matters such as allowing students the time and setting to follow their religious and cultural beliefs, and introducing into classes literary texts by authors of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds; these are, of course, just two examples within a much wider scope. Nevertheless, these movements do not suggest that children should not be taught the truth about the world and the scientific discoveries that have been made. Evolution should be taught in public schools as it is based on scientific fact. Creationism should continue to be acknowledged and discussed within the context of a Religious Studies class, but certainly not within the Sciences.

Creationism (2006). ‘No Place in Schools.’ BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4896652.stm Evolution Controversy. Exploring Constitutional Conflicts. Retrieved from

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/evolution.htm Garner, R. (2007). Creationism Should be Tacked in Science Lessons, Schools Told. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/creationism-should- be-tackled-in-science-lessons-schools-told-396111.html Judge Rules Against ‘Intelligent Design.’ MSNBC. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10545387/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/judge- rules-against-intelligent-design/ Randerson, J. (2006). Revealed: Rise of Creationism in UK Schools. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/27/controversiesinscience.religion Smith, L & Frean, A. (2008). Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools. The Times. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article4734767.ece?token=null&offset =0&page=1 Teaching Creation and Evolution in Schools. (1999). Technical Journal. Retrieved from http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/teaching.asp Welcome to Creationism. Creationism. Retrieved from http://www.creationism.co.uk/

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Four Christian Views of Evolution: An Essay

An Article by John Oakes, PhD describing four Christian views of evolution, along with strengths and weaknesses of the four views.  This essay is intended as a guide for the upcoming forum at the 2010 ICEC in Irvine, CA.

• Four Christian Views of Evolution

We at ARS will be sponsoring a four-way forum titled "Four Christian Views of Evolution" on Saturday evening, June 12, 2010 in Irvine, California as part of our annual International Christian Evidences Conference at Concordia University.   In preparation for this event I thought it would be useful to provide for people a general description of the four views which will be defended and explained in the event.   The four views are as follows:

Young Earth Creationism

Intelligent Design

Progressive Creation

Evolutionary Creationism

            One of the biggest problems we had in putting together this event is that, although one can make useful distinctions and characterizations, there is no clean, clear-cut division between these and other Christian views of evolution.   Our speakers, including myself, resisted being cast into the mold of a particular view.   Even the names for the categories generated some disagreement.   If you have the pleasure to attend the forum at our conference, do not count on the four speakers precisely lining themselves up with the four views I am outlining below!

Before entering into a tentative description of the four categories of thought on evolution represented by our forum, let me begin with the qualifier in the title.   This forum is about four Christian views of evolution.   We are assuming that a Bible-believing follower of Jesus who accepts as an historical fact the resurrection of Jesus can fall into any of these four categories as far as their view of evolution goes.   Without question, all four of our speakers accept theism-that God takes an active role in his creation.   The speakers all believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice which, for those who put their faith in Him, can bring about forgiveness of sins.  

We considered including a deist in the forum.   The deist believes in God.   He or she sees design in nature and acknowledges that there is a Creator, but believes that God does not actively intervene in his creation.   Deists generally reject belief in supernatural intervention in the world.    This being so, deists do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and have a very limited view of biblical inspiration.   By biblical definition, then, they are not Christians.    Because we wanted to ask believers to consider uniquely Christian views of evolution, we decided to exclude deistic evolution from the discussion.

I will begin with a very brief but general description of the four Christian views of evolution as I see them.   After this, I will list some of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four views.   Let me acknowledge that, as one of the four presenters in the evolution forum, I have a definite view about which of the four views is preferable.   I do not pretend to be unbiased and am sure my inclination will show up one way or another in this essay, but it is my intention here to give a relatively unbiased description of the four Christian views of evolution.   Please bear in mind, as I have already said, that the four views described below are guidelines to help us think about different ideas of evolution and probably no one fits exactly any view I can describe.

The young earth creationist (YEC) view begins with the assumption that the days of creation in Genesis chapter one are literally twenty-four hour periods over which God did his work of creation.   The proponent of this view in our forum is Dr. Kevin Anderson.   Young earth believers accept the "traditional" interpretation of Genesis, with all its implications-be they in the area of cosmology, creation of organic life, creation of species and theology.   The young earth view generally (though not always!) has been associated with a Calvinist view of the fall of humanity.   They tend to believe that before Adam and Eve fell, there was no animal death.   The fall of Adam and Eve brought in physical death for humans and caused corruption of the physical world.   Their fall was an "Original Sin" of which all human beings afterward are held guilty.

If we accept YEC, then evolution-at least as conceived by Charles Darwin in his seminal work Origin of Species -quite literally has not happened.   So-called microevolution of course is possible, but even this is strictly limited.   Different dogs may represent descendents from an original dog created by God several thousands of years ago, but even a fairly modest macroevolution is completely eliminated from consideration.   Several thousands of years is simply not enough time for random mutation, genetic drift and natural selection to produce new species from the originally created species.

Bottom line, YEC believes in fixed species and completely rejects the theory of organic evolution commonly known as Darwinism or neo-Darwinism.   Those who take this view believe quite literally that on the third through sixth twenty-four hours of God’s creative work, all species which have ever lived were created ex-nihilo (ie. out of nothing) in a form virtually the same as can be seen today.   This being true, the YEC view has trilobytes, dinosaurs and other now-extinct species which can be observed in the fossil record as having lived just a few thousand years ago.   Indeed, they lived right alongside modern human beings.   Perhaps these species went extinct as a result of the flood or perhaps for other reasons.   Either way, YEC does not reject the idea of species extinction, but it does reject the creation of new species being created over great periods of geologic time.

To summarize, the YEC position is that the entire content of the first several chapters of Genesis are literal accounts of what actually happened, both in the order of what happened and even in the amount of time the writer or writers of Genesis seem to imply.

The title for our second view of evolution is really quite unfortunate.   The fact is that all four of our presenters at the forum as well as all four views of evolution described here agree with the idea of intelligent design.   All Christians together accept that the universe was created with overwhelming evidence for an inconceivably intelligent designer.   The YEC and the evolutionary creationist (EC) together agree with the psalmist that "Heaven and earth declare the glory of God," even if their view of general revelation is significantly different.

Having said this, one of the views of biblical cosmology, geology and evolution has in the public media been given the label "Intelligent Design."   In fact, the one who is taking this view at our forum, John Clayton, is not particularly enamored with this label, but we are more or less stuck with it.   So, how can we characterize the view of what has become known as the intelligent design movement?   Advocates from within the Intelligent Design movement have accepted the scientifically supported claim that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.   They also generally accept the scientific consensus that the universe is about 13.5 billion years old.   Advocates of this view do not believe that the "days" of creation are literal twenty-four hour periods.   Some take the literary view of Genesis, rejecting the chronology of the events in Genesis chapter one, but more ID’ers take the day/age view and accept that the chronology of the creation account of Genesis, although representing vast ages, is more or less correct.

It seems that the thing which unites those in the ID camp is that they are quite skeptical of organic evolution in the broadest sense and reject a strict interpretation of common descent.    They are "interventionists."   In other words, as a rule, the intelligent design view is that God intervened miraculously to create organic life in the first place and that he also intervened at various times in the distant and even the more recent past to create the various "kinds" of life.   This supernatural intervention includes the special creation ex nihilo of human beings.   There will not be a strict agreement amongst intelligent design advocates as to how broad or narrow these created kinds are.   Generally, they reject macroevolution but accept microevolution, but how great an amount of change might have occurred by natural, undirected processes will vary greatly in this school.   

At the risk of over-simplifying, the intelligent design view is strongly associated with the concept of "irreducible complexity."   They have attempted to prove that one can scientifically demonstrate that some changes which are required by random Darwinist evolution simply could not have happened by any believable series of fully random events.   Such irreducible complexity as a scientific and mathematical theory proves that naturalistic evolution is an incorrect view.   There are "gaps" which natural processes simply cannot fill.   The ID movement does not reject evolution entirely.   In fact, they generally support the teaching of evolutionary theory in classrooms, but advocate the inclusion of evidence for supernatural intervention in origin of species as well.

To summarize, the intelligent design position accepts the geological and cosmological implication of an ancient earth and universe, and therefore reject the literal interpretation of the days of Genesis one, but they reject using the evidence for common descent as proof that God did not create various "kinds" of life and instead claim that science requires accepting that there are gaps which require supernatural intervention.

In the interest of "truth in advertising," let me say that the view we are labeling Progressive Creation is the one I am taking in our upcoming forum.   Let me also say that I really do not like this label.   One reason for this is that the ID view can be described as progressive creation.   I prefer the label theistic evolution for the third of our views of evolution, but my colleagues in the forum do not necessarily agree with my taking that label for the simple reason that all of us are theists and all of us are describing a view of evolution which can be seen as theistic (although I will argue below that EC has some deistic aspects in its view of evolution).

Putting aside for now concern over the label, let me describe our third view of evolution.   I, and those who happen to agree with me [1] and are willing to be called progressive creationists, accept that the earth is quite old (approximately 4.5 billion years, as claimed by scientists) and that the universe is also very old (about 13.5 billion years).   Like those in the Intelligent Design camp, PC’ers (whether they are politically correct or not) believe the "days" of Genesis chapter one are not literal.   Those in this camp may lean toward a more literary view of the Genesis creation account [2] , or may take the view of scientific concordism, that there is at least a general scientific truth in the chronology, if not the time span, in Genesis.

The main distinction between this view and Intelligent Design (at least as defined above), is that it accepts the main implications of evolution.   It sees common descent as a scientifically verified hypothesis.   The Progressive Creationist is skeptical of scientific "gap arguments," claiming that such arguments are weak and that historically they have not held up well to scrutiny.   What distinguishes this view from Evolutionary Creationism, is that it rejects for theological reasons the conclusion that evolution is a fully random process-completely devoid of the interventionary influence of God.   The PC argument is that God is not distant, but that he is involved in his creation.   There is a kind of free will in history, in our personal lives and in the way nature works, but God does, at various times and for reasons of his own intervene in our personal lives-to answer prayers, for example.   God does not jerk us around and constantly interfere with our freedom by working miracles, but he definitely is involved.   The same is true in history.   God allows for a general free will in history, but God has intervened in subtle ways and even in dramatic ways.   For example he influences the hearts of world leaders such as Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar and he also intervened to bring Israel out of Egypt and to send his Son into the world.  

If it is established that for us as individuals and for nations as well that God gives a general free will, but that he does influence and even dramatically intervene for reasons of his sovereign will, then the PC perspective is that almost certainly this is what God has done with nature.   Nature, by it fully random self, would NOT have produced intelligent, soul-containing creatures able to know God.   The Progressive Creationist does not have a problem with the scientific evidence for common descent.   He or she is even prepared to accept the possibility that all life has a single progenitor, although the possibility of multiple creations is not completely ruled out.   The main point to be understood here is that the "evidence" for theistic interference is not scientific.   Rather it is a theological argument.   This position rejects the God-of-no-Gaps position of Evolutionary Creationism, but accept as more or less established the common descent of all or of nearly all life.

The fourth Christian view of evolution which will be defended in our forum is known by some as Evolutionary Creationism. In our forum, this view is represented ably by Denis Lamoureux.   Perhaps the most well-known advocate of this view is Francis Collins, former head of the Genome Project and now head of the National Institutes of Health.   The evolutionary creationist accepts the common scientific view of the age of the earth and of the universe.   He or she goes still farther and accepts the rather strong evidence for common descent as sufficient to conclude that the natural processes of random mutation, genetic drift, natural selection and so forth, as described in neo-Darwinian theory, is sufficient to explain the evolution of all species, including human beings from the simplest early life form or forms.   God is sufficiently wise to have created physical circumstances which inevitably led, through thoroughly random, natural processes, to the final result, which is the existence of intelligent, sentient beings, capable of having a relationship with God.  

The Evolutionary Creationist typically is prepared to accept that even our consciousness and our ability to have a relationship with God has "evolved."   He or she believes that if God had to intervene in the process he had established, this would somehow lessen God, as he would have to have multiple "fixes" to the process he created.   This position, as I described above, is a God-of-no-gaps theology.   All EC supporters I know of believe that life itself was created by God only indirectly.   In other words, he created a universe and a world in which life was spontaneously created.   This ties in to the tendency of EC supporters to reject supernatural intervention by God into nature in general.   It is essentially a deistic view, not of theology, but of the workings of nature.

As for Genesis chapter one, those who accept EC will be nearly unanimous in rejecting scientific concordism (the idea that there is real scientific information in the Genesis story, even if in metaphorical form).   Instead, they will take the literary interpretation of the Genesis creation account.   In other words, they accept the theology of the first several chapters of Genesis, but not the history of this material.   God was accommodating the knowledge base of ancient Hebrews and giving them theological information about Him as creator, as one who wants a relationship with us and so forth.

It will probably be fair to generalize the EC position to say that it rejects the idea of a "fall" of man occurring in the Garden of Eden.   In fact, as a group most evolutionary creationists say that there was no Garden of Eden at all, but that this story represents the fall of all of us from the innocence with which we were created, and our separation from God due to our own, individual sin.   Therefore, this view, in accepting that God’s "finger" is not moving the process of change over time, also rejects the Calvinistic idea of the fall of man and original sin.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Four Christian Views of Evolution.

The YEC position is strong in that it gives great honor to the Bible and places the idea of verbal inspiration on a high pedestal.   The other three perspectives will of course reject this conclusion, but the young earth position clearly represents the most natural interpretation of the literal sense of Genesis chapter one.    As a rule, the young earth Christian believes that biblical authority trumps general revelation.   If science seems to point one way, but the Bible another, the Bible wins; period.   Of course, one can see this as either a strength or a weakness.   One could use as support for this line of thinking the fact that all Christians believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead and clearly this cannot be reconciled with a purely scientific mode of explanation.

The weakness of the young earth position is that it requires rejecting general revelation almost entirely.   General revelation is the idea that God reveals himself, at least to a limited extent, through what he has created.   The reason this creates a problem for the YEC position is that they reject the implications of cosmology, geology and biology.   Despite the evidence from the red shift, cosmic background radiation and so forth, the YEC believer must reject big bang cosmology.   In doing so, they reject the entire science of cosmology.   Similarly, the YEC position requires that we reject the evidence of radioisotopic dating techniques, sedimentary layers, the evidence for plate tectonics and so forth.   Basically, the young earth position must reject the two main paradigms of geology-uniformitarianism and plate tectonics-as an illusion.   So YEC rejects scientific cosmology and geology, but they must reject a great chunk of biological theory as well, as nearly everything we think we know about how living things work is reliant on an evolutionary perspective.   If we reject cosmology, geology and major parts of biology, then how is it that nature declares the glory of God?

It is this author’s contention that the YEC view can only really work if it is taken as a purely theological position.   What I mean is that it is nearly inescapable that the universe and the earth are quite old.   To reject this is to refuse to look at the scientific evidence.   Galileo once told his opponents that if they wanted to reject heliocentrism, they were going to have to stop looking through telescopes.   The same applies to the young earth position, unless one proposes that God created the earth, as is, several thousand years ago, but he created it with an "appearance of age."   The reason the YEC group rejects this is because it puts them in an uncomfortable position of believing that God somehow tricked us when he put those dinosaur fossils in the ground and put the light in transit from distant galaxies, even though the light would not have had sufficient time to reach earth if they have only existed a few thousand years.   My response to this is, who are we to tell God what to do?   When Jesus created fish, it was ready to eat.   Was he deceiving the people?   No, he was doing what God has every right and power to do.

In summary, the theology of the YEC position and the great honor it gives to the sovereignty of God and the inspiration of his words is a strength, but the "science" of the YEC position is extremely weak.   They must reject cosmology, geology and much of biology as an illusion.   It is this author’s opinion that the young earth believers would do themselves a favor if they defended their faith in the young earth only on theological rather than scientific grounds.

Among the strengths of the intelligent design position is that it has a very high view of   the verbal inspiration of the Bible.   Although some ID supporters are prepared to question some of the chronology of the Genesis creation account, they generally accept scientific concordism and agree with Jesus and the other Bible writers that there is historical truth in the first several chapters of Genesis.   The ID believer accepts fully the scientific implications of cosmology and of geology.   They have a strong and defendable position on the physical world as general revelation of God’s divine nature.   The intelligent design supporters as a whole are prepared to accept most of the implications of what we know from fossil and DNA evidence with respect to the relationship between large classes of species.

Of course, one can see it as a strength or as a weakness, but the ID camp in general rejects the full implications of neo-Darwinism.   They see huge chasms or gaps in the evidence which random processes simply could not cross.   Whatever one thinks, we can concede that gap arguments are difficult to prove.   For this reason, even if the ID position is correct (and personally, I am quite prepared to accept that they may be) it is open to legitimate complaint from scientists.   Bottom line, supernatural intervention into what we know already on some level is a natural process is difficult or perhaps even impossible to prove using science.   Miraculous intervention is, by definition, not a "scientific" event and it certainly is not capable of being reproduced in the laboratory.   Of course, this does not prove that the gaps are not there, and it does not prove that God did not create particular species at various points in time or that he did not zap into existence various complex biochemical systems, but it is hard to defend this in a scientific setting.

So the weakness of ID is not in its theology.   Its theology is quite strong.   It allows for theism in our individual lives, in history and in the physical world.   Its weakness, such as it is, is in its science.   It accepts cosmology and geology but it does not fully accept biology.   At least that is how some will view the matter.   Its scientific arguments will quite likely remain weak.   In fact, just in the last ten to fifteen years, a number of ID supporters have had to change some of their claims of certain gaps in the formation of complex enzyme machinery because experimental evidence showed that the supposed "gap" was fully bridgeable by natural events.   Speaking for myself, I happen to agree with the idea of supernatural intervention by God in the process which led to higher forms of life, but I prefer not to rely on gap arguments and to let my theism with respect to evolution remain a theological claim.

Yes, of course I am going to critique this view!   It certainly has weak points.   The strengths of the PC position is that it, like ID and YEC agrees with the verbal inspiration of the Bible.   It is consistent in that it accepts a theistic view of how God interacts with individuals, with history and with nature.   It has a consistent view with regard to how God interacts with people, with peoples and with creation.   Here it agrees with ID and YEC.   It is also consistent in accepting more or less fully the scientific conclusions of cosmology, geology and biology.   The virtually "slam dunk" evidence for common descent is seen, not as an illusion but as a reflection that in fact, life has evolved through largely random processes, except with the "finger" of God determining the path of change.   It does not rely on scientific "gap" arguments.   Instead it replaces a scientific argument against random design with a theological one, so will not have to back down when claimed gaps are filled in by science.

So the strength of PC is its consistent view of theology and science, but its weakness is that it is vague and really hard to tie down scientifically.   It will probably be seen as quite convenient to claim that God has intervened in the natural process by which life changes, but to create a position which does not have to defend this view scientifically.   To quote from a personal comment from my EC friend Dr Denis Lamoureux, "I certainly cannot teach that in my science classroom."   Good point.   This view sounds like an attempt to make everybody happy, but sometimes when we try to make everyone happy, we make no one happy.   This view is a bit complicated.   It has a lot of nuance, allowing for both free will in nature in almost all cases, but holding out for undefined (and therefore hard to disprove) theistic interventions, whereas EC and YEC (and perhaps, but to a lesser extent ID) are simpler and easier to defend logically.

My personal response to the claim that this view is a bit too complicated and that it is a bit fishy because it is hard to tie down is that I believe God is simple yet in some ways he is complicated.   He can at the same time foreknow yet not predetermine.   He can perfectly balance love and justice.   Jesus is with God and he IS God.   That is a tough one to logically explain.   I also believe that God can wonderfully balance his sovereign will and our freedom to choose, and that he does so in the way he interacts with his creation.

The strengths of evolutionary creationism are the consistent way it deals with scripture and with the evidence of science.   EC’s view of God’s omniscience and omnipotence is very strong.   Supporters of this view see God as so powerful that at the moment he created the universe, a series of events was set into place which would inevitably lead to the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, including one with an atmosphere and the conditions for primitive life to form spontaneously, and even eventually would lead to us.   This is not some sort of weak God who has to correct the path of his creation.   What an awesome God this is!   To top it off, the Evolutionary Creationist position can, in principle, bring to an end the incessant arguments and even attacks from those scientists who for philosophical and semi-religious reasons oppose even theological arguments for supernatural interventions in the physical world.   Even if, in the end, it turns out that God does indeed intervene in nature, it sure would be nice to end the fruitless angry debate with atheists and scientific materialists.   Evolutionary Creationism is in full concord with cosmology, geology and biology.    Evolutionary Creationism, despite complaints and even accusations which might come from the YEC supporters, fully accepts the theological implications of the Genesis creation account.   God created us.   We rebelled against God.   Sin brought in separation and Jesus brought redemption.   Of course, all four views agree on this.

The weakness or the EC position is that its theology can be seen as problematic.   It has God relating to us as individuals in a way which includes free will, but also has God interacting with us, answering our prayer and influencing us.   Similarly the EC believer accepts that God has intervened in history.   He allows for freedom of action by peoples, yet acknowledges that God has intervened in history in quite dramatic ways at various times.   So, God intervenes with us as individuals and he directs the course of history, yet, the EC position rules out a priori God intervening in "natural" physical processes-in the path by which humans came to be.   God-of-no-gaps is a theological position, not just a scientific one and in this we see what might be thought of as an inconsistency.   Does this mean that the EC position is wrong?   No.   But it can be seen as a weakness.  

Another weakness of this position, at least as some might see it, is that most EC Christians reject entirely the historical content of the first few chapters of Genesis.   If they are right, then Adam and Eve literally never existed as actual persons.   Our God-likeness evolved and was not imparted miraculously.   Not all EC supporters take this view, but most do.   Probably Noah did not exist either.   Opponents of this view will point out that it certainly seems that Jesus, Peter and Paul believed in the historical reality of the events in Genesis.   Were they wrong?   Or perhaps Jesus and Paul were accommodating themselves to the common view of the day in order to get across theological truths.   The thought of Jesus accommodating to the common view of his day is certainly unfamiliar to most Christians, but that does not mean, by definition that it is an incorrect view.   In any case, some will see this as a weakness of the Evolutionary Creationist perspective.

I have attempted to present this introduction to Four Christian Views of Evolution in a spirit of grace, to present each view fairly and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each view in a relatively unbiased way.    The forum coming up should be an exciting time.   Please plan on coming with an open mind.   It is our hope that this public forum will create understanding and greater unity within Christianity as a whole.   Whether or not your view changes as a result of this event, we sincerely hope that you will go away with a greater appreciation of the broad range of legitimate Christian perspectives in this area of intersection between science and Christian theology.

[1] This would include Darrel Falk, author of Coming to Peace with Science and professor of Biology at Point Loma Nazarene University (personal communication).

[2] The literary view of Genesis chapter one accepts the theological implications of the creation account, but not what some see as the apparent scientific content of the creation story.   In other words, the Genesis creation account is to be seen strictly for its literary content as poetry.   It describes theological themes, but not chronology.   Whether the "events" occurring on the fifth day happened after the "events" on the second day is not germane to what the inspired author is trying to tell his audience.   The days are not ages at all.   They are categories of what God did.

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Jane Coaston

Ted Cruz Has Some Strong Opinions About College Sports

By Jane Coaston

Ms. Coaston is a contributing writer to Opinion.

College sports bring in billions of dollars in revenue every year, but until very recently virtually none of it went to athletes. In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in N.C.A.A. v. Alston that student athletes should be able to profit from their names, images or likenesses, known as NIL. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in a concurring opinion, the N.C.A.A.’s policies against permitting athletes to profit from their labor could be considered a violation of antitrust laws, writing, “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair-market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair-market rate.” Since then, in practice, NIL has included two common types of compensation: endorsement deals for athletes, but also more direct payments, which usually come from college-affiliated collectives supported by donors in exchange for appearances at events, social media posts or other promotion.

But some coaches and observers have raised concerns about players participating in a potential Wild West of big paydays and constant transfers that could put smaller programs at risk. The N.C.A.A. has also agreed to a settlement that likely will eventually result in billions of dollars going to athletes who sued over not receiving compensation for NIL use on television, and in the start of a revenue-sharing model that would, in the future, pay athletes directly. That settlement, which is not yet finalized, will likely change college sports, but many questions about the details of that future remain unclear .

Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, has been trying to help create a solution for college sports. I spoke with him about why he believes preserving competitiveness in college sports is a job for the federal government. “Well, there’s a difference between a conservative and an anarchist,” he told me.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity and is part of an Opinion Q. and A. series exploring modern conservatism today, its influence in society and politics, and how and why it differs (and doesn’t) from the conservative movement that most Americans thought they knew.

Jane Coaston: So let’s start with some of the basics. In 2021, the Supreme Court allowed, in practical terms, college athletes to accept endorsement deals for certain types of income. What’s been good about NIL and what’s been bad?

Senator Ted Cruz: Well, I’m glad the Supreme Court did that. I think it is a much better and more fair system. Athletes spend thousands and thousands of hours developing incredible skills, and in many instances those athletes produce millions and millions of dollars for universities, for conferences. And it is only fair that the men and women who work so hard to develop those skills be able to enjoy the benefits.

On the other hand, where we are now in college athletics is the Wild West. We have wide-open bidding wars. We have athletes moving from school to school to school and not having any loyalty to any institution. Not having the esprit de corps of the fan base and the alumni base. We have a real risk of chaos ensuing and fundamental damage occurring to college athletics, which would be a travesty.

The current path we’re on could very quickly lead to a handful of super schools with virtually unlimited budgets having all the best talent and the other schools left not able to be competitive, which does real damage to the quality of athletics overall. It’s no fun to watch an N.B.A. team play a J.V. team. For sports to be fun, you need some kind of parity where you have a real contest. There is also, I fear, a serious risk of all of the focus being on major conferences, football and basketball, and women’s sports being neglected, nonrevenue sports being neglected. One of the most important things about college sports is that it has provided an avenue for thousands upon thousands of young men and young women to be able to get a college education who would not otherwise have gotten a college education. And I think it is critically important that we preserve and protect that path.

[A vast majority of college sports revenue comes from football and men’s basketball. Many athletes play “nonrevenue” sports, like track or women’s lacrosse . ]

Coaston : Should athletes be fully classified as employees?

Cruz: No, I think that would be a disastrous outcome. That is one of the most important questions. If student athletes are treated as employees, that would ultimately hurt the student athletes. There are all sorts of restrictions that fall upon employees. Employees can be terminated at will in many instances. We should not have student athletes losing their scholarship simply because they dropped too many passes. Employees have all sorts of restrictions in terms of work, in terms of overtime, in terms of the conditions of employment. I’m quite certain the two-a-days that I ran in high school would not comply with OSHA.

[There are many views in Congress about how to classify athletes; for example, Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, has discussed a possible proposal to extend bargaining rights to student athletes, while not classifying them as employees. There are also many proposals about any number of issues raised by the changes in college sports, like a House proposal that would bar employment status for athletes while creating a congressionally appointed panel that oversees national rules for NIL deals. There is also a wide array of colleges that are potentially affected, from the powerhouse schools to more regional schools or historically Black colleges and universities . The N.C.A.A. opposes classifying students as employees.]

Coaston: I’ve been paying attention to this issue for a long time, and it’s been wild to see a lot of conservatives from Justice Kavanaugh on down basically say, “Athletes should receive compensation for the work they do in some form,” versus how people were talking about this issue when, say, S.M.U. got in trouble with the N.C.A.A in the 1980s. What changed? Do you think that there are generational divides? What changed here?

Cruz: It’s a good question and candidly, I don’t know. I will say it is, I think, a very conservative position. The very essence of the free market is that if you develop a skill that is marketable and that there is demand for, you should be compensated for that and be able to make a profit. And the disparity was becoming really stark in a way that I think fundamentally wasn’t fair.

Coaston: So one big thing missing in college sports is transparency. A lot of student athletes don’t know their fair market value, so to speak. I know you envision a public database of information with anonymized NIL deals so that athletes and others can understand their fair market value. How would that work exactly?

Cruz: Well, it’s exactly right that there’s a lack of information and you’ve got, in many instances, young men and young women that are 17, 18, 19 years old with very limited information, and it’s hard to know what’s even remotely a fair market value. It’s hard to know what a defensive lineman at a comparable program would typically be compensated at what level. When you’re dealing with young people, many of whom are teenagers, they often have very limited business experience. We’re seeing the rise of agents including some really unscrupulous players who take advantage of the students.

Being able to look and see what comparable players and comparable positions and comparable teams are being compensated at gives you a sense of at least the range of the market. It’s not all that different than if you’re buying a car and you go look at AutoTrader online to say, “OK, what is the average price if I want to buy a Jeep Cherokee?”

Coaston: So you mentioned some concerns about competitiveness a little earlier. Obviously there’s a growing divide between schools like Texas and Ohio State and a lot of the smaller ones. I know my alma mater has money to burn. So does Texas. And you mentioned how competitiveness is important, but should the government have a role in preserving competitiveness in college sports and if so, why?

Cruz: So, I don’t think the government should directly regulate, but I think the N.C.A.A. should have a role in preserving competitiveness. Schools like Texas would probably do pretty well because they would have essentially unlimited money for athletics. I was at Kyle Field a few years ago when the Aggies beat Alabama (Alabama was the No. 1 team in the country). I’ll tell you, Kyle Field went nuts when A&M won that game. You look a couple of years ago, Baylor won March Madness. Baylor is, relatively speaking, a small school with much more limited resources than a U.T. or a Michigan, and yet Baylor can win it all. That’s part of what really makes March Madness so much fun. It’s part of what makes college football so much fun.

Coaston: What is the ideal outcome for college sports in, let’s say, five years? Let’s say that a deal comes about, your bill gets put through. What does it look like?

Cruz: Well, one piece that is likely to change that is the settlement that is expected to come out in the House v. N.C.A.A. litigation. At this point, we don’t know the details about what’s in the settlement. But there’s widespread speculation that it will include some components of revenue sharing. That may prove to be an impetus for Congress to act and potentially to codify some aspects of that settlement. We’ll have to see the details of the settlement before making an assessment of it, whether that’s a good idea or not. But I think we want to have an outcome where the N.C.A.A. has the authority to set basic rules that protect student athletes, that protect NIL rights, but that also protect what is great about college athletics.

A number of weeks ago, I hosted a round table in the Senate on NIL, and it included a number of stakeholders. One of the people who participated was Nick Saban, who described how the current chaos is a big part of the reason he left coaching in Alabama.

[Since Mr. Cruz and I spoke, the N.C.A.A. and the five power conferences voted to approve a proposed settlement in this class-action suit, which would include back-pay damages for former athletes. The proposal also reportedly includes, going forward, an optional revenue sharing model that would make a portion of annual revenue distributable to athletes. The settlement is not finalized yet, but revenue sharing would be another big change to the college system.]

Coaston: I have to ask, I’m curious as to the landscape before NIL. I keep thinking back. You mentioned that Texas A&M-Alabama game. I think about someone like Johnny Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback who was suspended for allowing his likeness to be used for commercial purposes, or some of the figures who definitely received payments, but perhaps in a less legal manner. When you talk to coaches who are at big programs, they must know what types of activities were taking place at those programs back then. How did NIL change things?

Cruz: The old rules were that athletes were not supposed to be paid. A lot of places cheated, but they did so in darkness and hiding it. Sometimes they got caught and sometimes they didn’t get caught. That on the face of it is not a very good way to run a system. I think it is better doing it openly and transparently, and I think we have moved substantially in that direction. The combination of NIL with the transfer portal I think has exacerbated the problem because look, anyone who likes sports, I watch pro sports, I watch college sports and they’re different.

[For many years, college athletes typically had to sit out a year if they transferred schools. Since 2018, athletes have been able to enter the transfer portal , change schools and play the next season, which they do, from quarterbacks to women’s basketball players.]

I mean, watching the N.B.A. or the N.F.L. is a lot of fun. But I cheered for James Harden when he was with the Rockets. Now he’s not with the Rockets anymore. And that’s part of the N.B.A. He goes to the Nets and then the Clippers., and that’s part of the N.B.A. College has always been different. College, you have your alums and you’re rooting for your school and you have allegiances. It’s fundamentally different than pro sports. And part of it is typically the athletes stay at a school for the four years. If they make a commitment, they’re getting an education.

I think commoditizing it and lessening every athlete’s attachment to their school is not good for college sports. Earl Campbell only makes sense as a Longhorn. I was at the Rose Bowl when Vince Young and Texas beat U.S.C. for the national championship; if we saw Vince Young playing the next year for U.S.C., that would piss me off. I also think it is very important when addressing this issue to remember the vast majority of college athletes are not N.F.L. or N.B.A. superstars — the vast majority of college athletes will never play pro sports. It’s not going to pay their mortgage; it’s not going to feed their kids. But the degree they get, the education they get, hopefully will enable them to get a job that is going to pay their mortgage and that is going to feed their kids.

Coaston: You’re usually very restrained as a limited-government conservative about when and how Congress and the federal government should intervene in private enterprise. Does your involvement with these N.C.A.A. issues represent an evolution in your thinking? Or if not, help us understand the interest here from a limited-government conservative.

Cruz: Well, there’s a difference between a conservative and an anarchist. I believe government exists and has important roles and responsibilities. Under our Constitution, the federal government has the authority to act where it is needed and consistent with constitutional authority.

In this instance, a state-by-state solution doesn’t work because conferences are by design national. The State of Texas can’t regulate what colleges in Oklahoma do, and Oklahoma can’t regulate what they’re doing in Alabama. The only way to have a national set of rules is at the federal level. I’m a big believer in principles of federalism — and Montesquieu and others describe them, that as much government as possible should be local, and everything should be local, except that which has to be at the state level, and as much government as possible should be at the state level, and what should be federal is only that which has to be at a national level. Here, because we’re dealing with interstate competition, interstate commerce and national competition that is each year culminated in a national championship, the only level of government that has the authority to address these issues is the federal government.

Coaston: My final questions are about politics. You’re running for re-election this year, for a third term. In your estimation, are Texas voters overall trending in a more conservative direction, a more progressive direction or a more centrist direction?

Cruz: I think some of both. Texas is changing significantly. When I was first elected in 2012, there were 26 million Texans. Today, there are more than 30 million Texans. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the No. 1 reason is Texas is where the jobs are. People are packing up and moving from bright-blue states, from New York and California and Illinois, and they’re moving to red states that have low taxes, that have low regulations, that have an environment that is conducive to small businesses and conducive to job creation. I think Texas needs to protect what we have. We need to keep Texas Texas. But if you look at the in-migration to Texas, I break it into two groups.

No. 1, there are people that are in blue states and they’re fed up. They can’t stand the high taxes, they can’t stand the regulations, they can’t stand the woke policies. They couldn’t stand the Covid lockdowns and shutdowns and schools being closed down. They look across the country and they say, “Where do I want to be?” And they pick Texas. The data show those folks coming to Texas are actually more conservative than the median Texas vote. They show up in Texas and they buy a pickup truck and boots and a hat and a shotgun. I call them Refugees for Freedom. I want every one of them to keep coming to Texas.

There is a second group, which is: A company moves to Texas and it transfers its employees to Texas. And in that circumstance, the individual employees didn’t make a decision “I want to be in Texas.” Many of them just decided to stay with their job and transfer. In my experience, many of those employees vote exactly like they did in the state they came from. We’ve got a whole lot of people in the first category and a whole lot of people in the second category. I think Texas is in flux, and that’s an argument that we’re having right now in real time.

Coaston: You ran for president in 2016 and you did well against Donald Trump. Any interest in running for president in 2028 or further down the line?

Cruz: I can tell you my focus is 100 percent on 2024. I’m running for re-election in Texas. It is a big race. Democrats are expected to spend over a hundred million dollars trying to beat me. And so I’m putting in 18 hours a day to fighting for 30 million Texans and making the case to the people of Texas that we need to continue the policies that are working so well in Texas. As for future years, those questions will be decided sometime in the future.

[In 2018, Mr. Cruz’s opponent spent more than $79 million, while he spent about $46 million.]

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Jane Coaston was the host of Opinion’s podcast “ The Argument .” Previously, she reported on conservative politics, the G.O.P. and the rise of the right. She also co-hosted the podcast “The Weeds.” @ janecoaston

Tajja Isen Is Wary of the ‘Personal Essay Economy’

Here’s what you need to know: Tajja Isen’s lore runs deep. As coworkers at a now defunct digital magazine (RIP Catapult), I found myself constantly awed by her editorial vision and subtle humor, but it was her Wikipedia that really began to reveal the depth of her main character-ness. But even that hardly manages to scratch the surface. In her debut essay collection, Some of My Best Friends , Tajja Isen invites us into the complexities and contradictions of that expansive personal history.

Weaving together cultural criticism with personal narrative, she examines the limitations of progressivism, shifting between registers both humorous and heartbreaking. I spoke with Isen about the evolution of the personal essay economy, the horrors of writing about a politicized body , and rejecting representation as our ultimate end goal.

Leah Johnson: You talk a lot about the evolution and expectations of the personal essay form. I think you use the phrase, “It feels like pressing on a bruise too hard.” How did you decide how much pressing on a bruise you wanted to do and how much you wanted to keep to yourself?

Tajja Isen: Interestingly, I filed my first draft to my editors, and they were like, “Great. This is sharp, this is smart. But where are you in this book?” And I think I had pitched it much more as a personal critical essay collection, and then I sent them a critical essay collection. So a lot of the work of revision was figuring out what I was comfortable with and where I saw myself sitting into this book. And I feel like I was trying to develop a new vocabulary for talking about myself and my experiences. Because I do think a lot of what I see writers push to do in the personal essay economy, especially racialized writers, as I talk about in the book, does feel too bruise-like. And I didn’t want to feel trapped by any of those familiar scripts.

I know that no matter what I do, no matter how much I withhold or how carefully I fashion the version of myself that I want to appear on a page, somebody’s going to read this book and say, “Tajja Isen writes about how hard it is to be Black.” I don’t have to do anything. I just put the book out and somebody’s going to say that. And somebody has indeed already said that.

And so, it’s almost like in crafting the version of myself that would appear on the page, who I do think of very much as a character, as a fashioned self. I was probably running against that. And not wanting to say anything that could possibly be construed as lending weight to that hypothesis. Which sounds like I was way up in my head and not having a good time, which wasn’t the case. I had a great time writing this book. I made myself laugh. Anytime I could do that, I was like, “All right, the writing is going well.”

LJ: In one of your essays, you talk about the horror of writing about a politicized body. Can you walk me through overcoming that or powering through that in your years since becoming a personal essayist?

TI: I knew that the ongoing refusal to allow any personal traces of myself in the work was unsustainable. So, to see the xoJane model of personal writing was like, “Oh, what if I try that? Then it’ll feel authentic and more like me.” And at first it was so beguiling. It felt like, “Okay, I can do this. It’s not that hard for me to do this. Editors like it if I do this.” And then I took it too far. Then I was reading back some of the published pieces, and I was like, “Well, this is just an inverted problem. This does not feel true. This does not feel authentic. This does not feel fair to me either.” Like, I just replaced one set of very expected and acceptable and conventionally agreed upon set of poses with another.

So, I walked it back. And sometimes I feel like it’s an ongoing negotiation. Like I always have to check in with myself to see what I’m comfortable sharing, regardless of the form. I feel like I often have to ask myself: How am I coming across? And is this what I want to be putting out there?

LJ: The book opens with an essay about animation’s sort of messy push in the past few years to hire actors that reflect the race of the characters they’re playing as a way of course correcting. It often feels this way in publishing too, this sort of performative attempt to “get things right” to the exclusion of everything else. How are you navigating both of these fields in terms of your creative practice? Is this handwringing about getting things right all the time changing your approach to writing or to acting?

TI: I think in both cases, my response is to just clock it, roll my eyes, and move on. I can’t let it influence the work. Certainly in voice acting it’s easier to separate myself off from it because the process is so siloed. No matter what, handwringing conversations are going on as part of the media cycle, but at the end of the day, it’s just me and the mic and the booth. So, I can roll my eyes at the character description or whatever, but it’s easier, I guess, to just treat it as a job. I don’t have the same stake in it as I do with my own work and with my own writing.

With writing, it is harder to tune out the noise. Even as I was writing the book, the conversations around a lot of these subjects are changing so rapidly. And I was like, is this even something that people are going to want nuanced longform opinions on? Or has the subject of representation of the personal essay economy just gotten to a point where people just want to hear, “Yes, diversity good.” But at the same time, I can’t let it. I keep abreast of it. It’s important because it’s part of our jobs as editors. And I also don’t want the writers I work with to embarrass themselves. That means asking them, “Do you really want to say that? Have you thought about the way this might be construed, and how that’s contrary to what I’m reading your intentions to be?”

LJ: I think sometimes it comes down to this doesn’t just exist on the page, this also has to live in the world. And so, it’s a matter of, how do I want my work to exist in the world and how do I want to exist alongside it?

TI: That’s why I was so nervous for the Time piece to come out , because I feel like it does present the book in a certain way to have the first piece of it appear under a headline like “America Doesn’t Know How to Read the Work of Black Writers.” It was like, “Okay, here we go.”

LJ: I thought that was really interesting, especially after I read it. I was like, “Well, I don’t even know how well that title characterizes what it is Tajja’s trying to accomplish here.” But it’s good for clicks—at the end of the day, we need the clicks.

Of course, an early, early, early version of that essay appeared in Electric Lit in 2017 as “Tiny White People.” And I wonder how have you seen the conversation around literary representation changed since you wrote the original version of that essay to now that you’re putting this version of it out?

TI: When I published the original version of that piece in 2017, it was in the midst of an explosion of pieces that were making a similar argument. And I think at the time, we hadn’t seen that argument in a lot of places, so it seemed very fresh. It was really thrilling to be a part of that sea change and feel like, “Oh, I’m a part of wave of writers and thinkers happening on the internet.” At its best, that’s what the personal essay economy does. But I don’t think that argument is especially original anymore.

I do think we have collectively moved past the idea that representation as an uncritical good and that it should be the political end goal. And so, one of my big worries was putting the excerpt out as the book’s first foot forward. I didn’t want it to be perceived as stopping exactly where the first one did. Because I think that argument by now is the kind of problem that makes white people very comfortable. It’s like, “Oh, yes, of course representation is important because…” Or “Of course people need to see themselves.” And that’s not enough. My thinking has changed, and I wanted the essay to reflect those shifts, both personal and cultural, and not seem like it’s in any way stuck in five years ago. It’s hard.

Also, in the original version of “Tiny White People,” I think I was very hard on my younger self, more so than I needed to be. And that did paint the issue as more binary than it actually is, which is like white male canon bad, representation good. And that’s the argument I’m referring to when I say that it has turned into something that’s very comfortable for white people. It’s easy to hit retweet on that take without reading the piece piece even, and without considering the ways in which representation can also be a form of lip service, can also point to the progress where real progress has not been made.

LJ: I’ve been thinking a lot about when The Slap happened at the Oscars, there was the initial shock, and then immediately later, the next beat was, “Oh man, we’re going to get think-pieced out this week. They’re going to think-piece us straight to hell.” And I was just like, “Wow. Oh, we are in a rut. We are really stuck somewhere.” I wonder, for you, if it seems like we’re all writing about the same things all the time then is there a such thing as too much?

TI: I think we have reached a saturation point. When I saw that move happening on Twitter, I was like, “This is the darkest timeline. There’s no way out of this.” I think originality of argument and just being able to articulate what’s distinctive about one’s own contribution is a very neglected part of pitching and writing. I think that’s because of the way publishing works. It’s like comp titles. We know what worked before and that’ll work again. And I think to a certain extent, if you’re a writer trying to make your living in that economy, no judgment from me if you want to just get your money and do the thing that worked before, because people want to pay big coins for that. But do I think that has an adverse effect for what writers feel able and free and comfortable to do and express? Absolutely.

Leah Johnson is an eternal midwesterner and author of award-winning books for children and young adults. Her bestselling debut YA novel, You Should See Me in a Crown , was a Stonewall Honor Book, and the inaugural Reese's Book Club YA pick. In 2021, TIME named You Should See Me in a Crown one of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Her essays and cultural criticism can be found in Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar among others. When she’s not writing, you can find her at Loudmouth Books, her Indianapolis-based independent bookstore that specializes in highlighting the work of marginalized authors and uplifting banned or challenged books.

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