The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia published in 1915 is very popular among conservative Evangelicals and, being in the public domain, it can be accessed online in quite a number of places.
I wonder how many of its users have read the article on “Evolution.”
It really illustrates how the modern young-earth creationist stance is not ‘the classic conservative viewpoint’ as it claims to be, and that the view that evolution and Christian faith are incompatible has a long history of being rejected among educated Christians. I recommend reading it, and sharing it with those whom you know that are conservative Christians and who assume that antievolutionism and Christianity go hand in hand and always have.
Here’s the conclusion, to whet your appetite:
If the above considerations are valid, the evolutionary and the Christian views of the world cannot logically be placed against each other as mutually exclusive and contradictory. They must be conceived as supplementing one another, and fulfilling each the promise and possibility of the other. Evolution is a scientific generalization which, kept within the limits of science, commends itself as a satisfactory explanation of the great law controlling all the movements of matter, life and mind. Christianity, so far as it enters into the intellectual life, is interested in the idea of God and of man’s relation to God. It may confidently leave the facts in the lower world of processes of transformation to be schematized under the scientific generalization of evolution.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In