The cost of Evolution, and other things.


As I'm sure you're all aware, this past Saturday and Sunday gunmen took the opportunity to kill persons attending Christian church facilities in Denver and Colorado Springs Co, in the USA.

One of the gunmen killed in theses attacks had maintained a web blog wherein he made statements along the lines of "These Christians are responsible for all the problems in the world" along with "Ted Haggard (the previous pastor of one of the churches) was my mother's favorite pastor".

One might take a closer look at his statement ('These Christians are responsible for all the problems in the world'), because there may be some truth to it. Not that Christians of any sort could possibly be responsible for all the world's ills, because all sorts of people do contribute to issues. But I'd like to just focus briefly on this one incident.

Ted Haggard was accused last year of buying drugs from and having a relationship with an openly admitted homosexual prostitute. Mr Haggard did actually admit to some of the allegations. His church leadership and his own congregation subsequently asked him to relinquish his pastoral duties. They did not approve of his exposed conduct, this church and it's membership stand opposed to things such as homosexuality, and teach a more literal view of the bible. That God created the world, that he created man, and that homosexuality is sinful.

Yet, the gunman who left the weblog and obviously felt slighted by Mr Haggard's behavior, felt it was necessary to kill members of Mr Haggard's church, who in reality, did not support their previous pastor's actions. The gunman seemed to have been equating people like Mr Haggard (and we can only assume his alleged behavior takes top rank here) with Christians causing all the world's ills.

In reality, which so-called Christians, and others, do support the type of behavior that caused this young man so much distress? Christians who support homosexuality? Who are they? Other people support this behavior as well, a good portion of them are not Christians at all. Is it unjust to say that a good portion of 'Christians', and others, who support homosexuality also support non-biblical teachings such as evolution? As one of our friendly online comrades has pointed out to us, these two do seem to be inexplicably tied. As evidence, she gave us this link ( http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/religion_science_collaboration.htm
) to an online petition of so-called Christian churches (though many Christians would argue a good portion of those named within are not Christian churches) desiring to support the teaching of evolution as scientific fact in favor of the biblical view that God spoke this world into existence and formed it's creatures, the biblical view of creation. Most of the churches named in the petition also favor same sex marriage or relations in some form or another.

What is it that drove this young man to kill? Confusion? Hurt? A sense of injustice, disillusion or hypocrisy? Perhaps. But it is clear from his statements also, that although Ted Haggard may have for a moment for him, encapsulated or symbolised all of the wrong doings that Christians could possibly commit and all of the world's ills, it's also clear the young gunman, in his distress and confusion, probably targeted the wrong audience. There is no doubt that the members of the church that he chose to attack, have all been equally as hurt as he appeared to have been by Mr Haggard's actions, and that they did not support their pastor.