John G. West

The Book Evangelical Elites Don’t Want You to Read

_{Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale is powerful, troubling—and necessary.}_{John G. West
August 5, 2024
16
Religion, Liberty, and Civic Life}

If you want to better understand what’s going on inside American evangelicalism’s elite, Shepherds for Sale (2024) by Megan Basham is a great place to start. And if you are a member of the evangelical elite yourself, you should read her book to understand what is going on among rank-and-file evangelicals. A journalist with The Daily Wire, Basham has spent the past several years chronicling the growing chasm between many evangelical leaders and those they are supposed to shepherd. Her reporting has defied the standard narrative. Most journalists who cover evangelicals obsess over pastors and ministry leaders who they think have sold their souls to right-wing populism. That’s a legitimate concern and worth reporting on. However, this way of framing coverage of evangelicals …

Eric Metaxas, Francis Schaeffer, and The Great Evangelical Disaster

_{Two prophets and their critiques of compromised Christianity.}_{John G. West
May 10, 2024
15
Religion, Liberty, and Civic Life}

Forty years ago on May 15, evangelical Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer died after a long battle against cancer. He went out with a bang, not a whimper. A few months before his passing, Schaeffer published his final book, The Great Evangelical Disaster. Many of his last weeks were spent promoting its message. Schaeffer’s book indicted the evangelical leadership class for abandoning historic Christianity in a quest for cultural acceptance—especially in the areas of biblical authority, the value of human life, sex and gender, and politics. “he problem of evangelical accommodation,” Schaeffer observed, “is that … has constantly been in one direction—that is, to accommodate with whatever is in vogue with the form of the world spirit which is dominant today. It is …

Darwinists Devolve

_{John G. West
February 5, 2024
6
Evolution and Intelligent Design}

One sign of a robust scientific theory is the quality of its most prominent proponents. During its long history, Darwinian theory has had no shortage of gifted champions, starting with Charles Darwin himself. Whatever else he was, Darwin was a masterful scientific communicator who collected and interpreted a vast array of observations from the natural world. One can’t read his writings without being duly impressed. Darwin’s civil and measured tone was calculated to persuade. Darwin was especially impressive in taking objections to his theory seriously and seeking to answer them. Throughout the decades, Darwinism has had many other able scientific advocates. In our own lifetimes, there were Harvard biologists such as Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. And, of …

Ronald Reagan’s Deeply Personal Argument for Intelligent Design

_{John G. West
January 29, 2024
13
Evolution and Intelligent Design}

We are approaching President Ronald Reagan’s 113th birthday, falling next week on February 6. Two days before his birthday in 1988, Reagan delivered remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. He told attendees that he had “long been unable to understand the atheist in this world of so much beauty.” With a touch of mischief in his voice, he added: “I’ve had an unholy desire to invite some atheists to a dinner and then serve the most fabulous gourmet dinner that has ever been concocted, and — after dinner — ask them if they believe there was a cook.” The audience responded with extended laughter and applause. It was Reagan’s riff on the age-old argument for intelligent design, the idea that the order and purposefulness of nature point …

Ten Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Christian College

_{John G. West
January 22, 2024
8
Uncategorized}

As a former professor at an evangelical Christian university, I am sometimes asked by concerned parents to recommend a good Christian college for them to consider for their children. Because the spiritual health of specific colleges and universities can change radically over time, and because there can be a wide diversity of views even among different academic departments on the same campus, it is not always possible to provide specific recommendations. What I can provide are questions you can ask if you or your teens are seeking to find a biblically-faithful college or university. Don’t just rely on marketing materials produced by the college or university! Those materials will invariably stress how the institution integrates the Christian faith with learning in everything it does. …

Thus Saith the Science: C.S. Lewis on the Dangers of Scientism

_{John G. West
November 24, 2023
1
Uncategorized}

Progress is an appealing idea, but what happens when we do not all desire the same things? On this ID The Future, we mark the 60th anniversary of the death of British writer C.S. Lewis as host Andrew McDiarmid concludes a conversation with Dr. John West about Lewis’s prophetic warnings to us about science and scientism. In Part 2, Dr. West explains how scientism — the idea that science alone dictates truth — harms scientific progress and leads to moral relativism. “Lewis’s point was this,” says West. “When you fuse some claim for superior absolute knowledge with power, that’s an unholy combination. And you’re actually encouraging corruption.” He also explains what scientific materialism is and how Lewis refutes the idea in his work. …

Maura: The Woman Whose Brain Was Stolen and Stored by the Smithsonian

_{John G. West
August 18, 2023
2
Scientific Racism}

As part of its series exposing how the Smithsonian Institution collected hundreds of brains from indigenous peoples, the Washington Post has highlighted the sad experience of a Filipino woman named Maura. Maura was brought from the Philippines to the United States in 1904 to take part in one of the public displays of indigenous people at the St. Louis World’s Fair. These public displays (now called “human zoos” by scholars) were designed to highlight non-white races thought to be lower on the evolutionary ladder. They were embodiments of Darwinian racism. I exposed what happened at the St. Louis World’s Fair in my award-winning documentary Human Zoos. https://youtu.be/nY6Zrol5QEk As I explain in Human Zoos, the Smithsonian sent its Darwinist curator Aleš …

Smithsonian’s Racist Brain Collection Exposed by Washington Post

_{John G. West
August 17, 2023
3
Scientific Racism}

The Washington Post has been running a series of articles exposing how the Smithsonian Institution collected hundreds of brains from indigenous peoples as part of an early-20th century effort to promote Darwinian racism. The motivation for the brain collection was to document how some people were supposedly lower on the evolutionary ladder than others. Many of these brains are still stored in steel vats at a non-public Smithsonian facility in Maryland. The Smithsonian’s brain collection is finally getting more widespread attention due to the series in the Washington Post series. But the collection — and the man behind it, Aleš Hrdlička — were previously exposed in the 2004 book Ishi’s Brain and by my 2018 award-winning documentary Human …

My Friend Olufemi Oluniyi and Darwin’s Legacy in Nigeria

_{John G. West
February 28, 2023
5
Scientific Racism}

Like most white Americans, I have not spent much of my life thinking about or studying Africa and its rich history. I say this with regret. My insularity was challenged when I met the Rev. Dr. Olufemi Oluniyi, author of the new book Darwin Comes to Africa. Olufemi came to Seattle in the summer of 2017 to participate in Discovery Institute’s C. S. Lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society, which I direct. The trip ended up being Olufemi’s first and only visit to America. Although offered a visiting research professorship at the Catholic University of America years earlier, Olufemi had not been able to accept it at the time. Eyes and Heart Olufemi opened my eyes and heart to the importance of Nigeria to Africa, the dynamic role of Christians there, and the importance of Africa to …

When Darwin Came to Africa

_{John G. West
February 20, 2023
4
Scientific Racism}

Except for a short visit to Cape Town on his way home back to England on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin did not spend time in Africa. But his poisonous ideas certainly did, spread by aggressive Social Darwinists who left a bitter legacy that impacts Africans even today. My dear friend Olufemi Oluniyi spent the last years of his life documenting what happened so the world could finally know the truth. Olufemi was a Nigerian pastor, theologian, journalist, scholar, and human rights activist. I met him in 2017 when he participated in the Center for Science & Culture’s Summer Seminar program here in Seattle. A Resolution to Write By the end of the program, Olufemi had resolved to write a book about the impact of Social Darwinism on his home country, and at the final …