Why Evolution should be taught in Christian Schools

This is a guest-post by Professional Engineer Gordon Glover, and is the ninth installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” series. Gordon is the author of the book Beyond the Firmament. His three children attend a private Classical Christian school. He is currently publishing a series of blog posts on the topic of “Science Education in Private Christian Schools”.

Private Christian schools exist to give parents a distinctively Christian alternative to secular education. From my experience, however, the way that the Christian worldview is compared and contrasted to secular philosophies often results in academic subjects being treated as individual battle-fronts in an all-out war against secularism. While the intent is to prepare Christian students to effectively argue the case for Christ and promote biblical thinking wherever they find themselves, good science often becomes a casualty of friendly-fire.

Methodological Naturalism: Friend or Foe?
Somewhere along the way, as the shifting lines of battle were being hastily redrawn, methodological naturalism (MN) ― the methodology traditionally used to approach questions about the physical world ― found itself pinned down in the same foxhole as materialism ― a worldview philosophy that says the physical world is all that exists. Even though MN raises no weapon against Christianity, it unfortunately wears the same uniform as materialism and the two are easily confused in the fog of battle. Once this happens, the natural sciences cease to be effective tools of learning and discovery, and are instead taken by force and conscripted into the service of Christian apologetics.

This unfortunate case of mistaken identity is most evident in the life sciences, where comparing and contrasting our material frame to that of other creatures for the sake of scientific inquiry is summarily rejected as a dangerous philosophy that treats mankind as a meaningless cosmic accident. As a result, science teachers in Christian schools have little choice but to ‘fight the good fight’ by shielding students from any practical utility of evolutionary biology and supplying them with every conceivable reason why this 150 year-old paradigm of natural history is fundamentally flawed. So why would any private Christian school risk losing students, teachers and financial support by teaching evolution ― an issue that has become a key litmus-test of faith for evangelicals?

Why Teach Evolution? #1 - It is Good Science
The most obvious reason to teach evolution is that it is good science. There is simply no other natural cause-and-effect approach that unifies the life sciences under a single coherent paradigm. And unlike the supernatural intervention paradigms typically taught in the place of physical science (such as special creation and intelligent design), evolution actually allows practicing scientists to draw non-trivial conclusions about God’s creation ― an important point entirely underappreciated by Christian parents and teachers who are not called to sort through the challenging data of natural history and make sense of it.

It is important that students understand how scientific ideas, even when incomplete, fundamentally flawed, or theologically offensive can still add to our material understanding of the created order. However, all too often Christian schools use biology class to highlight the perimeters of our scientific ignorance and focus on only those areas where the theory of evolution breaks down. They mercilessly criticize the paradigm for failing to answer questions that don't even fall under its jurisdiction. If we took this same paralyzing approach with us into the physics classroom, Newton’s laws of motion, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would all be mocked as ‘godless’ paradigms of matter and motion that fail to address spiritual realities, and are hopelessly flawed at the fundamental level. After all, none of these ideas even pretend to offer a complete picture of reality; and each are based on necessary assumptions that fall apart on some level. While such an approach might have the temporary effect of making science look silly and incompetent in the face of biblical truth, it doesn’t prepare our graduates for success in the real world where seeing through a glass darkly doesn’t require us to close our eyes completely.

Why Teach Evolution? #2 - It Enhances Critical Thinking
Teaching evolution in a private Christian school can also provide many fruitful opportunities for students to exercise critical thinking skills. Whether we like it or not, the undeniable patterns found in comparative anatomy, the fossil record, biogeography and molecular genetics all converge on a single universal scenario of common ancestry. If Christian students face this overwhelming reality for the first time in the workplace or at a secular university, a crisis of faith can follow. It is much better for students to learn about evolution in a Christian school setting where they have access to Christian faculty, staff, and parents that can provide faith-building support.

The questions that are bound to arise can indeed be challenging. Do these obvious patterns reveal an authentic natural process of creation, or could they have been purposefully built into the created order (by fiat) to enable man to make sense of the world around him? What are the theological consequences Christians face if this scenario is authentic? What are the theological consequences we face if this scenario is only apparent? And if the traditional Christian doctrine of special creation is indeed non-negotiable, does “enabling scientific progress” excuse God for creating a biosphere that conspires at every level against a superficial reading of the biblical creation account? These are the real challenges of evolution ― not blood clotting or the bacterial flagellum!

Why Teach Evolution? #3 - It Offers an Opportunity to Discuss Biblical Inspiration
Teaching evolution also provides ample opportunities to discuss the nature of special revelation and the scope of biblical authority in a very relevant context. Rather than cause us to question the inspiration of Scripture, teaching evolution should force us to examine the very nature of biblical inspiration itself. On what level does God speak to us? Does God emphasize the technical details of cosmic structure, making the Scriptures relevant only to those generations who shared the cosmology of the biblical authors? Or does God emphasize the teleological details of cosmic function, making the Scriptures relevant to every generation regardless of their “contemporary” scientific paradigms?

Not Easy, but Essential
The questions raised above are difficult and there are no easy answers. But Christian educators must be willing to tolerate a certain amount of unresolved tension in the science classroom. Not every question will have a satisfying answer, but our children are better served by teaching them to think through the issues and deal with the theological consequences that are inevitable once we start poking around the cosmos. If we fail to teach our students the proper use of contemporary scientific paradigms in their current form, no matter how theologically unsettling they might be, we are effectively denying them a seat at the table of discovery and isolating an entire community (professional scientists) from the light of the Gospel.

We all want our children to have the best education possible, to succeed in their various life pursuits, to learn how to think critically about the world around them, and to develop a theologically robust God-centered worldview. Teaching evolution as a valid paradigm for understanding the life sciences, at the appropriate age level, is entirely consistent with these goals.