Re: Stealth attack on evolution

>>> Either Carol or John Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com> 1/31/2005 5:48:00 PM
>>>writes:

See page 53 of TIME, Jan 31, 2005. This article addresses the question of
who is behind the movement attacking evolution.

The scary sentence is on page 54. Funding is provided in part by Howard
F. Ahmanson Jr. My sources on Ahmanson indicate that he is about 1000
miles to the right of Jerry Falwell. Ahmanson's goal is an America (I
have read) that is not only a theocracy, no church-state separation, but
one governed by strict OT laws.

Ted responds:
I know people who know Ahmanson, and my understanding is that he has not
held a thenomist position for many years. He is very conservative
politically and religiously, but no longer a follower of Rushdoony. It is
IMO fair to discuss this as part of his personal history, but unfair to say
that it remains central to his belief structure.

It would also be fair to note, that Rushdoony helped arranged for Morris
and Whitcomb to publish The Genesis Flood with Presbyterian & Reformed.
However I have not seen evidence to show that Morris and Whitcomb themselves
believed in theonomy.

Of all the people at Discovery Institute whom I know (this would include
many of them), none endorses a theocracy. Some of them would probably agree
with my own view, that the Supreme Court errs when it invokes Jefferson's
extra-constitutional language about "a wall of separation between church and
state" rather than sticking with Madison's constitutional language about
"disestablishment." I do not believe in the "separation of church and
state," rather I believe that no specific religion should be established by
government as the official American church. There's big difference. The
purpose of the "first part of the first amendment," as Yale law professor
Stephen Carter likes to call it (see The Culture of Disbelief), was to help
religion(s) flourish and to enhance religious influence, not to keep them
out of public affairs.

Ted
Received on Tue Feb 1 10:28:47 2005