Nick Spencer on Christianity, Simplicity and Learning

Nick Spencer writes an interesting piece in the Guardian Comment is Free section. "Christianity: a faith for the simple" . He believes that "Christianity's founding ideals are anti-elitist" and asks whether we "should...be surprised if its followers are less educated than average?"

There are some interesting points in this piece. But I would raise a couple of points.

Firstly, the question of whether Christians suffer discrimination in educational establishments because of their beliefs is an important one. Those who do not hold to the beliefs of the Enlightenment often find their faith marginalised; perhaps it is just subtle, for instance by receiving lower marks for work than someone who holds to the prevailing orthodoxy of secular humanism. But sometimes it is overt.

Secondly, Christians should not reject or despise good education. Many of the early Christian missionaries and saints founded schools of learning and we are instructed in Scripture to study and work hard. What is I think important is to have a humble approach to learning.

Discrimination of Christians in the Classroom ?

There is an interesting piece on Education and Christian belief in the Times Higher Education Supplement.
Stop Turning the Other Cheek - Times Higher Education Supplement

Christian Darwinism and Christian unity

It would seem that the Christian Darwinists are engaged in an organised and concerted attempt to undermine and isolate Christian creationists and Christian intelligent design supporters. Denis Alexander in his new book infers that such Christians are 'dangerous,' 'disgraceful' and states that they are 'embarrassing.' He has articles in Third Way magazine and Christianity magazine that makes similar points.

Part of the Christianity magazine article is online here

Denis Alexander is working with Christian Think Tank 'Theos' in order to 'Rescue Darwin' from ideology. Libby Purves comments that "...the Theos think-tank about faith has set up a project with the Faraday Institute and a grant from the Templeton Foundation, to conduct a project aimed at the Darwin anniversary."

Libby Purves - The Times blog

Purves comments "Its director [Paul Woolley] writes to me:

"Basically the idea is to 'Rescue Darwin' from the crossfire of a battle (between the creationists and public atheists) that he had little personal interest in. There's more to it than that, but the main objective will be a kind of 'plague on both your houses', arguing that both the creationists/IDers and the militant atheists are wrong, that Darwinian evolution is compatible with Christianity, and that we need to treat Darwin as a supremely gifted scientist and not the mascot (or demon) for one anti/religious cause or another"."

Are we to infer from this that establishing the 'truth' of Darwinism is more important than developing Christian unity? Many of us have long called for respectful dialogue in this area to increase understanding, but some Christians seek to exclude and divide their fellow believers. So much for John 17:23, or the 'ministry of reconciliation' that Paul asserts Christians have in 2 Corn. 5:18.

If these Christian Darwinists wish a 'plague' on their fellow believers and plan to isolate them from public dialogue, then I wonder where Christ is in their endeavours? The idea that it is possible to divide Christians in order to promote the gospel is ever so slightly misguided. Secondly the idea that Darwinism is an ideology free theory and that Darwin was purely a scientist is rather naive. I would challenge Theos and Alexander to research the history and beliefs of those who inspired Darwin; people like Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Hume, Erasmus Darwin, Auguste Comte, Charles Lyell, Geoffrey Grant etc. they may be surprised by what they find in terms of economic and social theory that run along atheistic, deistic and sometimes pagan lines of thought.

Andrew S.