It’s hard to believe that Shenandoah County School students already have two weeks under their belts and it’s not even Fair week yet. Having spent 17 years in front of a classroom myself, my sympathies are with those teachers who have already gotten their classes rolling. What started as a shortened summer this year, however, will end in the earliest release date ever next spring!
In light of the early start, I would encourage all Christians to join me in praying for our teachers and students throughout the year concerning both their safety and learning. In these times of terror and random violence, it’s crucial that we cover them with God’s protection and deliverance. Thanks also to the administrators and resource officers who work hard to keep our schools safe for all.
It’s a little ironic, however, why many would fear any kind of an explosion at a school for many textbooks describe how a random blast resulted in highly developed and complex life forms. The Big Bang is promoted as the current theory most likely to have started the evolutionary engine that has brought us butterflies, belugas, babies, and buttercups. If such a detonation really did give rise to so many good and orderly things, why would we fear them? In fact, why wouldn’t we encourage them?
We all know the answer to those questions. We’ve seen enough bombings to know that explosions do not create order, but rather disorder. We know that even dynamite has to be placed strategically to result in the types of demolition desired to flatten buildings and bust up bedrock. Even destruction is not orderly without some type of direction and guidance.
It’s really bizarre to believe that somehow a cosmic explosion is vastly different. Just because it happened so long ago in an unobservable vacuum seems to give this particular bang special powers to create unimaginable beauty and complexity. Even with the magic of billions of years, this theory blatantly contradicts the second law of thermodynamics which declares that things tend toward randomness and disorder if left to themselves, and not toward order and design.
There are various beliefs among Christians as to how God created the heavens and earth. While the Bible tells us He spoke it into existence, and I believe He did, that does not prevent Him from using physical forces in the Creation process. In fact, He also created those physical laws of gravity, motion, relativity, etc. as well. In this regard, some Christians believe that God used a Big Bang to start Creation Week and directed the forces and processes to form the universe we know. Since none of us were there to witness it, it may well be what happened when God said, “Let there be light.” But even this belief is vastly different than an atheistic explosion. For starters, the Big Bang theory begs the question of where the original matter and energy came from and who or what caused it to go, “Bang!”
Certainly faith is involved in Christian belief, but faith is also necessary for the theory of the Big Bang and Evolution. In fact, the god of evolution is extremely gifted to develop the unexplainable interactions of all living things, the immensity of the universe, and the detailed intricacies of every single cell. For me, the God of the Bible is a much more logical explanation of these than an empty universe where things tend toward randomness if left alone.
Add to this the fact that God has visited humanity in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ, who verifiably rose from the dead, and we have a God worthy of our faith! He is the same God who has revealed Himself through His Word and throughout history and has given testimony to His existence through numerous prophecies which were fulfilled to the last detail.
Our school leaders are right in their endeavors to prevent terror and bombings at our schools for we all know these don’t create life, but destroy it. We all know that explosions produce destruction and disorder and no organization or design whatsoever. Since that is true, let us pray not only for the physical protection of our children and teachers, but also for their spiritual and intellectual protection as well. May we and they examine theories closely and think through them that we might know truth from error.
Thinking and praying, George