Teaching Evolution to the Next Generation

As a science teacher in Christian schools,
I’ve noticed a predictable progression
when students begin studying evolution.
They start with a mocking attitude
that “evolution is stupid.” But
when I present the details accurately, a bewildered hush falls over the class.
Quizzical looks are followed by raised hands and vociferous objections. They
sound betrayed.

Finally, as they discover biblical answers from the creation perspective, light
bulbs turn on, and their perplexity is replaced with relief. They then are able
to communicate their thoughts about origins more coherently and confidently.

We fall short if we tell Christian youth that the study of origins doesn’t
matter or that it’s a side issue. We underestimate evolution’s threat to their
faith. I’ve spoken to many adults who left the faith, asking, “Why didn’t they
tell me this?”

God’s Word exhorts us to be prepared to defend our faith (1 Peter 3:15). The
“just believe” mentality does not prepare us for life in a hostile, secular world.
Evolutionists have their story straight, and we must not underestimate its
power to entice vulnerable young people. At the very least, ignorance makes
us less effective in engaging the lost with the gospel.

We get frustrated when evolutionists misrepresent the creationist position,
but they feel the same way about us. Why should they listen if we can’t even
accurately describe their position? Rather than teach young Christians platitudes
and dismissive mockery, we need to teach them how to defend origins
from a biblical standpoint. That includes introducing them to unbiblical ideas
and how nonbelievers arrive at those ideas.

Here are the four most helpful principles I’ve learned for effectively teaching
evolution. They are useful in any educational environment—home,
church, or school.

But Won’t They Get Hurt?

Before we examine the “how to” of
teaching evolution to young people,
we need to address one common concern.
Some people object to treating
our precious, vulnerable young ones
like soldiers going to war.

But that is exactly where they’re
headed when they leave home, and
the skirmishes will begin even while
they are at home. Our world has
become extremely secular, but we
must remember that, in many senses,
things have always been this way. We
know from 1 Peter 5:8 that the devil
prowls about, and he wants to devour
our kids, the most vulnerable sheep in
the flock.

God instituted two safe havens—the home and the church (and by
extension, Christian schools)—where
inexperienced recruits can test and
refine their skills under close supervision
by people who love them and
God’s Word. One day, children from
Christian homes will face a real
enemy who wants to destroy them,
whether by blunt force or by deceit.
Proper training requires lots of time
and hands-on experience.

Questioning the faith that
others have taught us is often
necessary for making faith
our own. If a believer never
asks questions, this might be
a sign that the person’s faith is
borrowed and has no depth.

But what if in the process of being
exposed to evolutionary ideas they
start questioning their faith? Actually,
facing challenges to our faith is
a healthy thing (1 Peter 1:6–7). Questioning
the faith that others have
taught us is often necessary for making
faith our own. If a believer never
asks questions, this may be a sign that
the person’s faith is borrowed and has no depth, which is
reason for concern.

The idea that we shouldn’t question our faith stems from
misconceptions of biblical faith. Biblical faith is not blind
belief. Faith rests on fact and works together with reason.
(See Luke 7:18–23; 1 Corinthians 15:1–20; Hebrews 11:19.)
Christian faith is thoroughly and actively intellectual.

We have the privilege and responsibility of teaching and
shepherding the young ones under our care (Deuteronomy
6:7; Luke 12:42). It is a tough job, but we must prepare them
well for the arduous trials of mature Christian life.

And there’s plenty of good news to encourage us. Christians
have more detailed answers to tough questions than
ever before. Not only that, but the Bible has always provided
the best answers to the major questions that believers and
unbelievers of every generation have asked. We also have
every advantage in the world: We know that attacks are
coming, we know which attacks are coming, and we have
a chance to anticipate the attacks and to prepare defensive
and offensive strategies. Most importantly, we have the
infinite power of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.

Training Principle 1: Know What the Other Side Says

Now we can turn to the four lessons I’ve
learned about teaching evolution to young
people. First, they need to know what the
enemy is saying.

I’ve met some Christians who don’t see
the value in understanding non-Christian perspectives. They
often repeat the saying that the best way to spot counterfeit
money is to know the real thing. If they know the Bible well,
they will know what is wrong with unbiblical beliefs like evolution.
While that philosophy is helpful, it has its limits.
It’s important that Christians understand evolution well.
That begins with us, as teachers and parents. In fact, we
adults should strive to understand evolution better than
evolutionists.

Knowing the specifics allows us to talk more intelligently
and effectively with unbelievers. We can adapt our discussion
to the audience’s beliefs and vocabulary. Consider the
challenge of sharing the gospel with a Mormon. We can’t
just say to “believe in Jesus” because they have so many
wrong ideas about Jesus and faith. But we won’t know that
unless we first study Mormonism.

The same is true of evolution. We shouldn’t just tell people
who believe in evolution that animals “aren’t evolving”
because evolutionists use the term evolution in many different
ways. It can mean minor genetic mutations, which creationists
also acknowledge. So we need to be able to define
terms in ways both sides can understand.

Example: Avoid Straw Man Arguments Such as “Apes
Aren’t Evolving”

There are many other benefits to knowing
evolution well. Christians who explore evolution in the
words of its followers are less likely to make foolish claims.
For example, have you ever heard (or perhaps said yourself),
“Why are there still monkeys if humans evolved from them?”

That’s a straw man argument, but you might not know it
unless you had worked directly with evolutionary materials.
I like to help students navigate websites that offer an interactive
evolutionary tree of life. As students learn to interpret
the diagrams on these websites, they also learn how evolutionists
think about the world.

Training Principle 2: Put Them in the Hot Seat

If it’s true that this is a war, then it
makes sense to give young people a taste
of what they’ll face. Preparing people for
war is not nice business. You can’t coddle
them; you have to simulate the real thing.

So we should challenge them with some of evolution’s best
“evidences,” both in favor of evolution and against creation.
Confronting people with discrepancies (ideas that don’t
fit their worldview) rocks them off their positions of self confidence
and makes clear their need for humility and
dependence on the Lord. They have work to do. The traditional
evidences that textbooks push, such as homology,
fossil series, and embryology, are a good place to start.

A good strategy is to use questions you have wrestled
with. If the answers are burned into your heart, you’ll be
better prepared to guide young people through the question.

We want them to ask questions. If they aren’t asking, we
need to raise questions for them. Using tough questions to
create dissonance in their thinking is a powerful way to
ignite questions and a desire for answers. After all, people
don’t seek answers to questions they aren’t asking.

When parents hear my suggestion, they sometimes
express fear that the young Christian might begin to believe
the evolutionary ideas. However, going through this process
in advance, under the care of a more mature Christian, is far
better than to being exposed to it for the first time in a hostile
environment. Which will be better to prepare soldiers: pamper
them until their first battle, or toughen them by rigorous
training and battle simulations?

Example: Look for What’s Missing in the “Best Evidences
for Evolution”

I have a list of 10 convincing evidences for
evolution that capture students’ attention. These are things
evolutionists often bring up, in order of increasing difficulty.
Yet creationists have very good answers for them, so young
people will grow in confidence as they try to find answers.

1. Vertebrates have similar (homologous) bone structure.
2. The appendix is a vestigial organ.
3. Human and ape DNA are very similar.
4. The similarity of reptile scales and bird feathers is
   evidence that dinosaurs turned into birds.
5. Living things can be arranged into nested hierarchies
   (degrees of similarity).
6. Placental mammals have a yolk sac.
7. The human eye is a bad design.
8. Bacteria has adapted to a new food source: citrate.
9. Two ape chromosomes allegedly fused to produce
   human chromosome 2.
10. The ability to produce vitamin C in primates is an
    example of pseudogenes, or shared mistakes, as
    evidence for common ancestry.

In each case, I start by presenting the problem and then
letting it sink in that this does not line up with Scripture. Students
do not immediately see a problem, and I do not give
them the answers right away. Instead, I have them evaluate
an article or video by an evolutionist on this topic. Then I ask
them to compare the evolutionist’s claims with a creationist’s
take on it. A simple internet search at answersingenesis.org
will bring up plenty of solid answers on all 10 of these evidences.
The goal is for them to be able to find answers on
their own later in life.

Take the argument that the human eye is a bad design,
for example. Any quick internet search of “human eye” and
“bad design” will bring up arguments mocking the fact that
the blood vessels are in the front and get in the way of eyesight.
Evolutionists claim the Creator got it backwards.

I let them wrestle with this question, and then I hand
them a creationist explanation. All the cells in the eye need
regular blood flow. So the eye has ways to maintain the
clarity of the image, including cells that act as fiber optic
cables that carry the signals through the retina to the back
of the eye. What starts as an intimidating challenge to creation
ends up making God’s handiwork look more impressive.
This exercise reinforces that, whenever we encounter
an evolutionary argument, students should assume there is
more to the story (as there always is).

Training Principle 3: Develop the Skill of Discernment; Don’t Just Memorize Facts

It’s not enough to read evolutionists’
“best evidences” and merely memorize
answers. Young people need to develop
the skill of discernment that they can
apply to any new situation.

Developing discernment is incredibly difficult. The enemy
is good at cleverly intertwining truth and falsehood, so it is
hard to tell the difference. Hebrews 5:14 tells us that mature
Christians need to be trained, through practice, to discern
between good and evil. Being able to untangle these knots
is crucial.

All of this requires practice. They (not you) need to be
doing the mental work. Requiring them to work out the
answers is far better than spoon-feeding them. They should
be the ones primarily asking questions and evaluating their
own beliefs.

This doesn’t mean we’re just throwing them out there to fend
for themselves in a sink-or-swim fashion. Our job is to point
them toward resources, to challenge their weak responses, and
to raise the right questions when they miss them.

Key Concept: Discern Historical vs. Observational
Science

I’ve found that the number one discernment concept
to teach is the difference between observational and historical
science. Even the common use of the word evolution confuses
these two things. There is a huge difference between
the process of living things changing and adapting to their
environments (observational science) and the idea that all
living things are related by common ancestry (historical science).
Yet both of these meanings are often dumped together
under the same category of “evolution” without caveat.

Students need to learn to constantly ask themselves this
question every time they read about evolution: Is the author
referring to observed changes in animals living in the present
or a hypothesis of unobserved vast changes in the past?

It is very important that Christians understand how living
things change over time and keep these facts separate from
origins ideas. God created animals “according to their kind,”
with genetic variability to adjust to changing environments
and fill the earth. Natural selection is a real process, mutations
can be beneficial in certain contexts, and new species
really do arise over several generations. God has lovingly provided
many ways for his creatures to survive and fill a fallen
earth—including built-in mechanisms for adaptation. We can
observe and experiment on these processes in the real world.
But this limited variability happens within the original created
“kinds.” Cats are still cats, and finches are still finches.

These are not concessions but exciting science that confirms
and strengthens the biblical view of biology. In fact,
I’ve found that students really enjoy learning about how living
things adapt and change, and that studying these processes
leads to good questions about the Bible. Rather than
instill denial, we want to cultivate a sense of exploration
and fearless curiosity.

The best way I have found to develop the skill of discernment
is to examine secular educational resources directly.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), for instance,
has many educational resources from an evolutionary point
of view. Their videos and activities on anole lizard evolution,
rock pocket mouse evolution, and human lactose tolerance
evolution can act as great training exercises for how to pick
apart truth from error. Questions to ask during these exercises
include, “Which parts of the video are factual, observational
science? Which parts are interpretations of facts?”

Creation resources should be the meat and potatoes of a
Christian’s science diet. But there are real benefits to sprinkling
lessons with evolutionary resources. Such an approach
has an inoculating effect against the most convincing and
intimidating claims.

Training Principle 4: Turn It Around—Appeal to the Creator and His Word

Ultimately, helping Christians keep
their faith and effectively engage the world
involves showing them that the Bible has
the answers. It furnishes everything they
need (1 Timothy 3:16–17). This confidence helps them face
any idea that may come their way. The more specific ways
they see the Bible’s power to meet their needs, the more
rooted their faith will become.

Martial artists and wrestlers know how to use their opponents’
momentum against them. Likewise, it is not necessary
for us to come up with completely new, detailed evidence to
support creation against every complicated new claim of evolution.
Instead, the goal is to emphasize that biblical creation
can better account for whatever we are looking at.

Often, a perspective we have already learned will apply
to many different cases. One such perspective repeatedly
stands out: a single Designer provides a more satisfying
explanation for similarities in living things.

Example: Common Ancestor or Common Designer?

Consider
how creationists respond to possibly the most famous
evidence for evolution, homology. This is the claim that living
things are so similar that they must have come from a
common ancestor. But these similarities also make sense if
a single Creator made all living things. Young people quickly
grasp the point if you show them multiple buildings designed
by the same architect or play multiple songs written by the
same composer (just listen to film scores by John Williams).

Let’s Do This

More important than
refuting error, however, is
our charge to build young
people’s confidence in God’s
unchanging and undefeated
Word rather than humanity’s
waffling and failed ideas.

Ultimately, it is not up to us to decide
who will embrace a life of faith and obedience
to Christ. But God has called us
to do our part to prepare a generation
that will persevere and brightly share
his light with the world. He wants us
to be intentional in our training. That
includes teaching evolution.

More important than refuting error,
however, is our charge to build young
people’s confidence in God’s unchanging
and undefeated Word rather than
humanity’s waffling and failed ideas.
They also need to put God’s Word to
the test, watching it work in their own
lives as well as in the lives of others.

Whether you’re a parent, grandparent,
schoolteacher, or youth worker
in church, you have a difficult task
ahead. “The days are evil,” Paul warns
us (Ephesians 5:16). Yet God’s truth,
power, and faithfulness are unchanging.
The Holy Spirit will give us the
grace we need so that, as we work to
train the next generation, we can confidently
commit them to Christ’s care.

SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org

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