Ancient Skeleton Pits Christians Against Scientists
A prehistoric skeleton found in Kenya has sparked a new round of creation versus evolution debate between Christians and Scientists.
Kenyan evangelical leaders are demanding that Turkana boy – the most complete prehistoric human ever found – be place in a backroom with a sign cautioning that evolution is a theory during the upcoming exhibit at the famed National Museum of Kenya.
“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who is heading a campaign against evolution, according to The Associated Press. “These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”
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Adoyo, who chairs the nine million-membered Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, is calling on his followers to boycott the exhibit.
Turkana Boy’s well-known founder, Richard Leakey, is disturbed by efforts to hide the exhibit’s fossils.
“The church is being ridiculous,” said Leakey according to Guardian Unlimited. “Its leaders are out of step. Evolution theory is accepted across the world. This is scientific history and Kenya has the best of this evolutional history.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, Christians are taking another approach to the evolution debate. Though still defending creation, many Christians are now using scientific evidence and language to defend biblical view of the beginning of mankind and the universe.
Answers in Genesis, the world’s largest Christian apologetics ministry, is set to open its $27-million new museum designed to defend creation by examining fossils, animals, stars and natural science on Memorial Day weekend.
“The Bible, where it touches on science or any subject including same-sex marriage, race or abortion, is totally trustworthy,” said Ken Ham, co-founder and president of Answers in Genesis, in a statement. “As a revelation of history from the beginning to the end of time, the Bible is the foundation that enables us to construct the big picture and have the right approach in geology, biology, physics and astronomy.”
Visitors are escorted through exhibits of life-sized, realistic animatronic dinosaurs and humans, planetarium, a cave with real stalactites and stalagmites growing, archaeological digs, a Time Tunnel, and other features - all with the focus to prove that the Bible can withstand scientific scrutiny.
“Today, science is pointing more powerfully to a creator than any other time,” said award-winning Christian author Lee Strobel, in his documentary “The Case for a Creator.” “The most logical and rational step is to put my faith in the Creator that science tells me exists.”
Many Christian scientists have joined the intelligent design movement in the United States, challenging Darwin’s evolution theory, arguing that science discoveries prove the existence of a higher power and creation.
