Despite the rank heresy that false teachers like Andy Stanley continue to peddle, Christianity actually does hinge on the accuracy and authority of Scripture. The Scriptures, which are God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17), are the inspired words of God himself written down by men and are the foundation upon which we are to come to and know Christ. If we can’t believe the Scriptures to be true and accurate, then we have no foundation by which we can know Christ and the entire basis of the Christian faith crumbles.

John made it clear that “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)” How are we to believe without the Scriptures?

This is why all throughout history, even from the time of Genesis, the primary way to attack Christianity has always been to question God’s word. In the Garden, the first attack on God’s relationship with man was when the serpent caused Adam and Eve to question God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the tree (Genesis 3:1). Today, the primary attack on Scripture is to question the account of Creation altogether and, instead, attempt to replace the biblical account with another religion altogether—evolution.

Worse, these attacks are perpetrated from within the Church by men who are supposed to be Christians, defenders of the faith. Men like Tim Keller and Francis Collins—BioLogos and the like—constantly downplaying the importance of the biblical Creation account and, instead, trying to make God’s word fit their own anti-Christian beliefs. Despite these attacks, the gates of Hell have still not prevailed against the Church and never will.

Christianity Today, the publication founded by Billy Graham, wants to join in on the relentless attacks on Christianity by blasting Creationists and essentially saying that we are divisive. In a hit piece against biblical Creation titled Evangelicals Have Four Proposals for Harmonizing Genesis and Evolution, the author, Jay Johnson attempts to rationalize the acceptance of the modern “scientific” movement to embrace evolution and “harmonize” it with the Scriptures. That, of course, cannot be done, and those who try to do so are simply deceiving themselves.

He lists four proposals that have been presented by evolutionists who claim to be Christians:

1. God selected Adam and Eve from an existing population to represent all of humanity. Since they represented everyone, the consequences of their failure immediately affected everyone.
2. God selected Adam and Eve from an existing population to represent humanity, but after being expelled from the Garden, their sinfulness was spread to others by culture or genealogy.
3. Adam and Eve aren’t literal individuals. Rather, Genesis 2–3 is a stylized retelling of many human events compressed into a single archetypal story. Although God occasionally revealed his will to individuals or groups, people persisted in disobedience.
4. Adam and Eve are symbolic figures in an archetypal story. Over a long period of time, humans became morally accountable through general revelation (Rom. 1:18–20), yet they chose sin.

Besides the fact that all of these proposed “solutions” to harmonizing evolution with the Scriptures actually place the Scriptures in subordination to the constantly changing scientific and evolutionary theories of the day, the even bigger issue is theological. If death did not enter the world until after Adam and Eve sinned—as claimed in the Creation account and affirmed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12-19—then if evolution is true, the Scriptures must be false.

There is absolutely no way around this and no amount of Scripture twisting or any other formulation of doctrines of demons can even get around it. It’s simply not possible and those who claim to be Christians but have embraced the doctrines of evolution must account for this.

Yet, Christianity Today attacks the conservatives who actually believe that biblical authority, inspiration, infallibility, and doctrine are important. Johnson writes:

“A 2017 Gallup poll showed that, for the first time, there were as many people who believed in God-guided evolution as people who believed that humanity began with two people named Adam and Eve. Including the minority (19%) who deny God’s involvement in human evolution, most Americans (57%) accept the scientific evidence. If a concern for evangelism is still one of the hallmarks of evangelicalism, pastors and lay leaders especially need to stop drawing needless lines in the sand on evolution and the interpretation of early Genesis. It only pushes people away from Christ.”

Well, I suppose we should follow the Gallup polls and the modern zeitgeist instead of the Scriptures themselves. Being a Christian isn’t about holding the Scriptures up to the standards of the world. It’s about holding the world up to the standard of God’s word. Christians believe in a lot of things that science can’t explain: the virgin birth, the resurrection, for example. If we can reject the Creation account which defies “science,” then what is to stop us from rejecting these other important beliefs?

The important line in the sand is that the Creation account is clearly taught in Scripture, it is not ambiguous on what it actually means. To suggest otherwise is to reject the clear teaching of Scripture and to place God’s word under the authority of men.