Nathanial Blake, editor of the conservative campus publication at Oregon State University, has a good piece addressing the issue of evolution and evangelicals over at the Town Hall website. He points out that even C.S. Lewis, that exemplar of modern Protestant Christian orthodoxy, accepted evolutionary theory. The coupling of anti-evolutionary feeling and a segment of conservative Protestant movement goes to show that culture can tack in bizarre directions not under control from on high, the fact is that evolution was generally a marginal issue in early 20th century Christian circles, and not even William Jennings Bryan was a Young Earth Creationist. Today elite conservatives like George Will amd Charles Krauthammer still resist the conservative populist zeitgeist on this issue.
There has been a lot of discussion on Science Blogs about convincing the public about evolutionary theory. Well, people like Nathaniel Blake have credibility because they attend pro-life protests. What does that have to do with evolution? Fundamentally nothing. Cognitively and socially, a lot. Only Nixon could go to China….
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