TEXAS TEXTBOOKS AND EVOLUTION
Robert R. Meyers

Many who read this journal will know already of the textbook furor now in full swing in Texas and of the involvement of the Churches of Christ in the fray. Major newswire services have identified the Church of Christ by name as the major opposition to the books, even though some other religious groups have objected to them.

The texts are biology studies and are published by three of the most prominent companies in the textbook business. The Commissioner of Education approved them for use in different grades throughout the state. The passages objected to are those which teach evolution and do not acknowledge the dissenting opinions of many Christians.

According to the October 2 issue of the Christian Chronicle, a newspaper of the Churches of Christ, many members of that body wrote letters to the State Commissioner, but their letters “were in effect discounted because many of the objectors had not actually read the books.”

Recognizing that the pressure would have to be more concerted and official, the elders of the Abilene Christian College congregation named three of their number to read the passages and make a recommendation. As a result, the entire eldership wrote to the Commissioner, objecting to the books and asking that they be changed or withdrawn. The letter listed three reasons why the books should not be used in their present form.

The elders say that the books violate the student’s right to be provided with all the facts on the subject of evolution. They argue that the books give only statements made by proponents of the theory. They lament that no mention is given to the Biblical account of the creation of the world and all its plants and animals.

I would agree this far with the elders: the books ought to present evolution as a theory for explaining the development of living things. It is certainly misleading if the books state flatly that evolution is a proved fact. Unlike some theories, evolution can hardly be verified by demonstration in a laboratory. If the editors of the texts believe that evolution is the most plausible theory known to them, and accords best with the evidence available, they have a right to say so. If they were disposed, in addition, to be eminently fair, they should add that many Christians accept the Genesis account of creation as a literal story, and that for these persons the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible.

Bur as for the elders’ claim that students should get all the facts, I am puzzled. How would it be possible to put all relevant data on this matter into a survey text on biology? I do not know whether the elders know what a mass of data is available; in any event, their request seems unreasonable to me. The editors of the texts surely know that they cannot print every piece of evidence ever found which seems to support evolution. So they print what they believe to be the majority opinions of scientific experts who have studied the data.

This is common custom. I can pick up any textbook in my college and show that it is filled with such conclusions. The test of such a book is not that it has assumptions and generalizations, but whether those authorities it quotes carry enough weight to make the assumptions worthy of acceptance, or at least of serious study.

The second reason given by the elders is astonishing. They say that the books “fail to provide a challenge to the development of critical thinking since they use many non-positive statements.” Please re-read this observation. The argument is that students learn to think critically only when all the statements they hear are positive. This is incredible, and I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. Even now I wonder why faculty members at Abilene Christian were not asked to help the elders with their statement; surely they would never have allowed such a remark to pass into print.

For the very opposite is true. Students must be exposed to non-positive statements in order to learn critical thinking. If all statements are positive, absolute and final, students have no reason to suppose that there is any need for critical thinking. The thing to do in that case is to listen carefully to what the teacher says, and memorize every word. One can make an “A” that way, perhaps, but it is not the road to critical thinking.

The truth is that the texts in question are doing on this matter exactly what we want them to do. The elders quote some of the non-positive statements: “So far as we know . . . All the evidence at our disposal confirms . . . The one thing we can be relatively sure about . . . “ This indicates that the editors make at least some attempt to avoid absolute statements and to show the tentative nature of some of their conclusions. They are encouraging students to realize that they muse think for themselves.

Since we are getting credit for opposing the textbooks in Texas, 1 think it may be time for us to face up to diversity of opinion among ourselves on this issue. 1 know from personal experience that many men in high places in the Churches of Christ are much less hostile to the theory of evolution than the Texas warfare suggests. 1 have had friends on Christian college faculties who felt that it was possible to accept the evolutionary theory as probable and still believe firmly in God. 1 have friends now, in colleges and in Church of Christ pulpits, who do not feel that one abolishes God as creator the moment he accepts the possibility that life may have evolved from lower forms to higher. It would be healthy for the Church of Christ if such men could explain why they feel this way, so that our religious journals could share their views with readers. Even in Abilene Christian College itself there are learned Christian gentlemen who believe that evolution and faith in God are reconcilable. Why do they not speak out right now? We need not believe them, but we ought to know that we are not united on this issue even in our own religious body.

This is probably a good place to say that anyone who reads the Genesis account literally will have to fight to the death against the evolutionary hypothesis. But many in the Church of Christ do not read the first chapters of the Bible literally, and they therefore find no insoluble contradiction between the theory of evolution and faith in God as creator of life. All such people should speak out, even at the risk of loss of prestige. It is becoming more and more imperative that we stop trying to impose upon the world a monolithic image of ourselves. Our differences of opinion, which really do exist, will not harm us by being aired. Instead, they will suggest that we are a body of free truth-seekers, not always in agreement but always honoring one another’s enquiries and convictions.

The Firm Foundation, edited by Reuel Lemmons in Austin, Texas, is leading the textbook battle. Those readers who have written letters to the editor have been overwhelmingly in favor of banning the books or getting them changed. There is, moreover, the faintest premonition of a new witch-hunt. One writer points out that although “the Lord’s people” may nor know it, “one of the scientists who originally reviewed” one of the books “is an elder in a congregation of the church of Christ in a midwestern city.”

Another writer says: “I am very disappointed in your stand on Biology textbooks, and I wanted you to know that all the members of the church of Christ are not with you. Evolution is the very basis of biology.” The writer signs his name as a member of the University Church of Christ in Austin. Underneath his letter, the editor has printed in boldface type: Wake up, sleeping brethren, it is later than you think.

There is a touch of the ominous here. If how one feels about the evolution theory is to become a test of orthodoxy, we may be in for rough days in the next decade. I repeat these personal feelings: evolution should be presented only as a theory, not as a proved fact; members of the Church of Christ should acquaint themselves with the nature and amount of the evidence which causes many to hold the theory as highly plausible; and members of the Church of Christ should know that there are many shades of opinion on this matter among their numbers.

— 867 Spaulding, Wichita, Kan.

“The unexamined life is not worth living — Socrates.