How an Evangelical Creationist Accepted Evolution

Young people are reconciling faith and science.

Dec. 30 2015 4:49 PM
By Rachel E. Gross

Scientists announced in September that they had discovered a huge cache of ancient hominid bones deep in a cave in South Africa. The bones, representing at least 15 individuals, belonged to previously unidentified member of our family tree. Homo naledi had fingers curved for climbing, a brain the size of an orange, and perhaps even a penchant for disposing of its dead.

When he heard the news, Brad Kramer rejoiced. “Awe-inspiring” is how Kramer, who was watching the two-hour NOVA and National Geographic special at home on PBS, described it. “The discovery, the evolutionary science, was amazing.”

Coming from a typical science-loving American, that response would hardly have been noteworthy. But Kramer isn’t like most science-loving Americans: He’s an evangelical Christian, a demographic group not particularly known for rejoicing over the study of human evolution. If the Homo naledi discovery had happened 15 years ago, Kramer would have had a far different reaction. He would have considered it an attempt by atheists to hijack faith with their “science-based religion.”

“I would not have seen such a discovery as beautiful,” he says now. “I would have seen it as grotesque.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/12/how_an_evangelical_creationist_came_to_accept_evolution.html