Natural Selection? Darwin's Subversive Subtitle

I am writing this piece on the 41st Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. As you all know, this is the act which made abortion on demand accessible by law, simply stated. This has to be one of the most distressing actions of government in the last century.  Do you know where it began?

Story begins with Charles Darwin. He was a supposed scientist and as such propounded the theory of evolution. This is the theory that has infected many areas of responsible thought – the origin of mankind and the natural selection of the species. Can you recall the title of his major work? … “On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

I understand that most of us are familiar with “The Origin of the Species” but most of us overlook the second part, the dangerous part of the title. What it suggests is that there are favored species of mankind … superior and inferior people. With that idea is the logical conclusion that the inferior are to be utilized by the superior. The abuse of the inferior, or even their elimination, is not inconsistent with Darwin. On the contrary, his philosophy led him to speculate that upon entering a territory in which there were “inferior” people, a colonial power had a perfect right to utilize, abuse, or eliminate them as he might choose.

It is no surprise that the Christian faith and the Church in particular was an irritation to Darwin and even now to his protractors, for Christians cherish all of life, count all people as equal, and precious in the sight of God. The idea of “favored races” is repugnant to us. This is the situation that lies beneath the thinking of those who view the life of an unborn child as irrelevant. The unborn fit the category of “inferior” and are conveniently described variously as “blobs of tissue” or in more sophisticated terms “not a person until birth.” Whatever the descriptor may be, it is less of a trouble for conscience if an infant in the womb is known as a “fetus” and not a “baby”. Babies are people.

What Darwin never understood, and what his protractors refuse to entertain, is the truth of the Word of God that insists that God Himself is the Lord, the Giver of Life. This means that He purposes life. He is the only one who can call it into being, and it is therefore an offense to the Lord of the Universe when man interferes with and destroys what God intends. This is not “Natural Selection”, it is a deliberate and intentional violation of “thou shalt do no murder.”

Before we engage in the defense of the unborn, which we must, let us remember that in doing so, we are engaging in the defense of the honor of our Creator… “in Him we live and move and have our being!”

 

-Wilfred Bellamy, PH.D is an ordained pastor in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) as well as a former long-serving missionary to Nigeria.