Consequences of Expulsion

Our church family recently got together to watch the movie, Expelled. This very well done documentary by Ben Stein explores the censorship and virulent hatred of academia towards the concept of Intelligent Design. Even on campuses which tout their policy of vigorous academic debate, there is an Orwellian view that some debate topics are more equal than others and Intelligent Design inquiries need not apply.

What is particularly alarming about the stifling of genuine academic pursuit in the realm of origins are the parallels between the mindset of evolutionists and the mindset of the Third Reich. If you haven’t seen the movie, that parallel may seem to be an exercise in hyperbole, but, unfortunately, it is not.

In his sermon last Sunday, my husband cited the work of anthropologic philosopher René Girard and his scapegoat hypothesis. To summarize (in a far too brief manner), tension in society creates unrest to the point that a person (or group) is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the society. This person (group) is the scapegoat. An obvious application is that of the Jews in Nazi Germany, but we see it in business settings, in social settings and even in church settings. People who otherwise may have little in common bind themselves together against a perceived enemy/problem.

There is a concern among some Christian thinkers, that Christianity could become a scapegoat. Already in Canada, tenets of the Christian doctrine (opposing homosexuality, etc) are deemed as “hate speech.” The hate speech legislation proposed in our own Congress has had these troubling elements. New hate speech legislation is already being proposed for the 2009 Congress.

Beliefs have consequences. Evolutionists have told generations of students man is simply a more evolved animal. Yet, society is still aghast when people act like animals as happened in a New York Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

If you have not seen Expelled, do so. Immediately. The words of English philosopher Edmund Burke are a call to action, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”