ven more perverse. Isn’t this essentially using a method of thought reform to indoctrinate a young child’s mind with a specific belief system against his or her will? Would it not be better to teach children how to objectively test competing explanations against factual data?
From a Christian perspective, the trust of a little child is supremely precious. If someone were to ill-treat that tender faith, the Lord Jesus said that it would be “better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”5 Our Lord’s heart for children is profound. He “called them to Him and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.”6
When future generations have a hard time inferring the presence of a Designer from His design, we may be able to point back to a particular children’s storybook and see it for what it is.
- Oumanski, P. See Jane Evolve: Picture Books Explain Darwin. Wall Street Journal: Life and Culture. Posted on online.wsj.com April 18, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014.
- Kelemen, D. et al. 2014. Young Children Can Be Taught Basic Natural Selection Using a Picture-Storybook Intervention. Psychological Science. 25(4): 893–902.
- Gilbert, S. F. and D. Epel. 2008 Ecological Developmental Biology: Integrating Epigenetics, Medicine, and Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, p. 292.
- Lewontin, R. C. 1978. Adaptation. Scientific American. 293 (3): 212-229. Lewontin’s insightful observation concerns how death was the new and necessary step Darwin added to account for progressive adaptive changes. “Adaptation was introduced by Darwin into evolutionary theory by…variations that favor an individual’s survival in competition with other organisms…tend to be preserved (the principle of the struggle for existence). Darwin made it clear that the struggle for existence [is the vital “pressure”], which he derived from Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population,…” (p. 220.) In this way, death is transformed into something good, contrary to Scripture, which accurately shows that death is an enemy. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:26 says, “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
- Luke 17:2
- Luke 18:16
* Dr. Guluizza is the National Representative for the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on June 9, 2014.