The introduction of Darwinism weakened the strong influence of Christian education in America and Britain. The early 1900s was the first era in which Darwin and his ideas had infiltrated the educational system in the West.
Who was Charles Darwin (1809–1882)? He was a British scientist whose theories about evolution and natural selection became the foundation of our modern biology.
The idea of evolution wasn’t new with Darwin. It was first conceived by Aristotle (384–322 BC). In modern days it was Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ grandfather, who first propounded it in the 1790s. But it was Charles Darwin who presented evolution in a more convincing way through a process he termed “natural selection.”
He wrote a book in 1859 entitled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. In this book, he wrote about the evolution of animals, and later in 1871, he applied his same ideas to humans in his book, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.
He believed that when animals compete in this life and struggle for food, the strongest survive and the weak are eliminated, which has been termed as “survival of the fittest.”
According to his theory, the natural breeding process works by selecting the best and letting others die out, resulting in a slow but steady evolution. Darwin’s ideas had huge consequences for intelligent design.
His theory of evolution assumed that various living creatures developed over millions of years, but the Bible says that “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day” (Genesis 1:31 AMP).
So Darwin’s theory of natural selection disregards God’s creative order according to the Holy Scriptures.
Racial Heritage
All of Darwin’s followers in the early twentieth century believed that the greatest achievement of the evolutionary process was the white race. They believed that intelligence could be measured on a sliding scale or an innate ability rather a set of abilities a child develops under supervision and training.
For example, Lothrop Stoddard believed that millions of years of evolution were at stake and that the work of evolution could be lost if the racial heritage of the intelligent people was lost.
By their understanding of the process, if whites were the best, then it was acceptable to ignore the welfare of non-whites, or even hasten their extinction. By measuring intelligence, it puts everyone on a sliding scale of measurable value and makes it tempting to encourage those with I.Qs while setting aside—and even phasing out—those with lower I.Qs.
Darwin’s theories encouraged racism, and which contributed to slavery. They allowed scientists and biologists to ignore intelligent design and to apply absolutely no value to other human beings they deemed undesirables.
This led to a theory decried by most, but sticking in the back of people’s minds, that black people are inherently inferior, intellectually, with white people. I.Q. tests, so the theory goes, indicates that blacks simply don’t have the necessary brain power with which to compete with other races.
We are all made in God’s image and there is no hint, in the Bible, that God created one race to be inferior to another. We see tens of thousands of very intelligent, very productive black people. Countless number of them have risen from very humble beginnings to tremendous success.
Black people are exactly like white or any other group of people in the area of natural intelligence—some very bright, some of ordinary good intelligence, some slightly or below average. Besides your real intelligence or I.Q, regardless of your race, is not studied; it is discerned.
When man lost his relationship with God, he became a victim of education. He began to look to books and the affirmation of others-what he can see, hear, taste, feel and touch to gain knowledge. When satan destroyed our relationship with God, he capped our real intelligence and life potential, we then looked outside ourselves to find knowledge.
That’s why the Darwinists believe that only the fittest survive. Regardless of whether their philosophy is mainstream or not, the genetic implication of Darwinism is that there must be a master race, and thus inferior ones.
The Famous Scopes Trial
For example, the racism associated with evolution was exposed during the famous 1925 Scopes Trial: The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes. It is perhaps better known by its other name, “the monkey trial.”
It was about a teacher who broke the state’s law against teaching the theory of evolution in a public school. The main debate about the trial was the relationship between faith and science in the United States.
The book that John Scopes was using to teach the theory of evolution was A Civic Biology written by George William Hunter. In that book, he talked about the evolution of man and how there once lived races of men who were much lower in their mental organization than the present inhabitants.
Excerpts from the book give the author’s views about white supremacy, eugenics, contempt for people with disabilities, and impatience with charity.
Improvement of Man. ~If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection…. These are personal hygiene, selection of healthy mates, and the betterment of the environment.
Eugenics. ~When people marry there are certain things that the individual, as well as the race, should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring…. The science of being well born is called eugenics.
Parasitism and its Cost to Society. ~ Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe…. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them, the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.
The Remedy. ~ If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with some success in this country.
In regards to the races of men, the trial spoke of five races: “At present there exist upon the earth five races of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure.
These are the Ethiopian or Negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.”
George William Hunter, therefore, concluded that the Caucasians are the “highest type of all.” Every individual’s thought process was changed and virtually all people believed that we all came from natural selection, this simply means the survival of those most suited to their environment.
Nazi Racial Ideology
Darwin’s theories encouraged racism, slavery, and Nazism which eventually gave us the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. In his book, When A Nation Forgets God, Dr. Erwin Lutzer says,
When we think of Nazi Germany, we immediately think of the Holocaust, the brutal murder of millions of Jews and other “undesirables….But we need to realize that there were circumstances and widely accepted ideas that enabled the population to become part of an evil that was greater than any individual.
Viktor Frankl a Holocaust survivor said:
The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.” I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other of Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.
Similarly, Social Darwinism was used as a justification for American imperialism in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines following the Spanish-American War, as many adherents of imperialism argued that it was the duty of white Americans to bring civilization to “backward” peoples.
It is said that after God dies in the nineteenth century, man died in the twentieth. For when God is dead, man becomes an untamed beast. Indeed as Richard Wurmbrand once said,
If you believe you were created by God, you will try to become Godlike. If you believe you sprang from apes, you are in danger of turning into a beast.
Two Opposing Accounts
Many well-meaning people have unconditionally accepted that the theory of evolution as taught in schools and colleges must be scientifically true. If it is true, then the Bible’s account of creation as recorded in the book of Genesis must be false and nothing more than a myth. These opposing accounts cannot co-exist together. Either creation or the theory of evolution is correct—not both.
Millions of Christians in our generation who believe that evolution has been proven scientifically to be true have tremendously weakened their faith in Christ, whether or not they talk about that logical contradiction or even think about it.
Many Westerners are unaware of the fact that Darwinism can easily be incorporated into the education system and you would not blame the average Christian parent for misunderstanding what is happening today.
Most of us believe in evolution is because we’ve been taught it from our childhood, and we’ve never taken the time to study and discern the real situation, and few pastors or prophets are sounding the alarm.
At some point, Christians place their faith and trust for their salvation and eternity in the truthfulness of the teachings, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament.
But if they have been taught that the Bible’s statements about God’s creation in Genesis are false, then how can they logically and confidently place their faith and trust for salvation and eternity in heaven upon the authority of Christ’s promises of salvation as recorded in the Holy Scriptures?
Few Westerners, when they see news reports of the poverty, suffering in Asia and Africa, take time to stop and ask why the East or Africa is bound into an endless cycle of suffering while the Western nations are (or were) so blessed.
Secular humanists, evolutionists, and Darwinists are quick to reel out many historic and scientific reasons for the disparity, because they are unwilling to face the truth.
But the real reason is simple: The Christian heritage of Europe and America had brought the favor of God, because Christians believe we are all created in God’s image, and therefore we all have value; while false Eastern religions which includes Darwinism believe in the “survival of the fittest” and this is what has been taught in public schools.
We don’t expect that history will repeat itself, but unfortunately, the same values that destroyed Germany are being taught in many of our centers of learning today.
In our time, we have seen the tide shifting for Africa and Asia. The ground is never too hardened. Africa did not yield a harvest for almost two centuries, although the finest of God’s servants sowed the seed of God’s Word on the Continent.
So if the Lord can have mercy on Africa and other nations, then there is hope for Europe because where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:20-21).
