Do moderate Christians tacitly condone their fundamentalists brethren?
The greater majority of Christians do accept the scientific evidence of a 13.7 billion year old universe, a 4.5 billion year old Earth and the evolution of humans, along with other primates, over millions of years.
But almost 1 in 4 Christians reject that.
How many times have we heard the news headlines — where Islamic fundamentalists have bombed another target and killed dozens — either their own people, another religious group, or western army personnel.
A shrill call goes out, mainly via talk-back radio, “why don’t the so-called moderate Muslins come on air and denounce their fanatical brothers?”, and, “where is their outrage that these extremists just denigrate the faith is Islam?”
Catholics, protestants, et al. face the same dilemma. For too long they have stayed silent, turned away, and refused to address their own hypocrisy by allowing fundamentalist Christians to trash the overwhelming evidence of science.
Evangelicals and creationists cling to the myth of a 6000 year old Earth, based on an abstract genealogy from the bible. They refuse even to view global data on the radiometric dating of geological strata, or the human fossil record. They cling to the fallacy of Noah’s ark, and ridicule all science with the fanatical zeal of the Adelaide Street Preachers.
So, the question for “silent” Christians it this. Where is your voice on talk-back radio and in letters to the editor repudiating the outrageous claims of your fundamentalist brethren? Why do you not condemn the teaching of such myths and pseudo- science to children? Does is not occur to you that this is nothing short of intellectual child abuse?