"As I write these words right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in my community. Outside my window there are two cars, one brandishing a bumper magnet of a “Darwin fish,” the early Christian emblem of the fish, growing legs with the word “Darwin” inside. Next to it is a car, I’m guessing owned by a Christian, with a bumper sticker of that Darwin fish being devoured by a larger Jesus fish. Is this really an evangelistic tool?
Has there ever been an atheistic evolutionist who has seen such a thing and concluded, “You know, Darwinism is crazy. Where can I find a gospel tract showing me how to believe?” I doubt it. Instead, much of our rhetoric is less about persuading unbelievers, or maintaining the faith of believers, than about, as Thomas Merton put it a generation ago, our search for an argument strong enough to prove us ‘right.’ That’s why we caricature the views of our opponents that can get loud ‘amens’ in our own settings but leave our children completely unprepared for the more careful, nuanced arguments they find when they actually encounter the viewpoints we’ve lampooned. What is the end result? The end result is a self-referential Christian rhetoric that not only fails to persuade outsiders, but also fails to protect our own children and grandchildren from what we’re afraid of exposing them to in the first place.”
--Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried (2011 A.D.)
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