Billy and Evolutionary Hoaxes

Little Billy cannot remember sitting through his cradle roll class—but make no mistake, he was there. In fact, Billy has been in Bible class every Sunday morning and Wednesday night since before he could even walk.

He can recite many of the accounts in the Bible—especially his two favorites: Noah and the ark, and Daniel in the lion’s den. Having grown up in the church, Billy obeyed the Gospel and was baptized when he was twelve. Even now, at age fourteen he never misses a worship service.

But Billy is having some nagging feelings about his faith.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe in God, because he does. The problem is that he has never seen God—or Jesus for that matter. And to compound problems, he’s taking physical science this year at school. His science teacher spent an entire month on the topic of evolution, and showed the students pictures of how scientists allegedly know evolution is true.

In fact, Billy’s science textbook contains many pictures that certainly look like they prove evolution. Billy desperately wants to have a faith as strong as his parents’, but those pictures are making it harder and harder to believe that this world was created as it is described in Genesis chapter 1.

Billy could show the pictures to his parents, but he’s not sure how they would react. Would they get mad at his lack of faith? Would they simply dismiss the images? Would he cause them to lose some of their own faith? For several weeks, Billy struggles internally as he “goes through the motions” at his local church. After giving it a great deal of thought, he just decides to do nothing.

To me, the scenario above is one of the scariest for parents. A child is struggling with questions pertaining to his or her faith, and instead of seeking answers from parents, the child simply remains silent—and all the while, his or her faith slowly begins to crumble.

Those pictures with which Billy is struggling are real. The bookshelves in my office are full of biology textbooks that contain many such pictures. The problem is that many of those pictures are dishonest. In some cases, they are of outright frauds. Without an honest explanation, young people are tricked into thinking that the case for evolution is much stronger than it really is.

Let me encourage parents to be proactive.

Talk to your children. Show them the evolutionary icons that we know are false. It is my hope that a proactive approach to some of these hoaxes will prevent your children’s faith from crumbling years from now.