Former atheistic evolutionist now promotes materials (but requests prayers)!
From Jeff Jasper of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, who gave permission for his full name to be used. His letter is printed first in its entirety. A response by Dr Jonathan Sarfati immediately follows his letter.
“I would really appreciate prayers for me. I am a former atheist and evolution apologist. After I became a Christian I had a tough time fitting my new found Christianity with my evolutionary thinking. Christians I knew were not of much help since most of them believed in evolution and those who did not couldn't explain why.
I finally heard a tape [from your ministry] talking about creation and was blown away. I dug into as much information as I could from both the [your] ministry as well as other organizations. Finally I could defend my faith and it was like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my back.
Since then I have promoted [you ministry's] views on creation to my church and they have been welcomed with open arms, including hosting Bible studies on the subject with both our youth and adults alike. Now many people who couldn't defend their faith or compromised their faith with evolution had a whole new vigor. I have seen my church grow strong because of not compromising their beliefs any more.
I also had a friend who is a research scientist in genetics and retro viruses for Ohio State University. He was baptized in high school but had since lost interest in Christianity and wholeheartedly believed evolution as a fact. After introducing him to your material he is now a creationist and a subscriber to Journal of Creation.
The reason I need your prayers is the fight for God's Truth is very exhausting and demoralizing. I spend a lot of time debating with evolutionist, most who use the Talkorigins web site as their “bible”. Usually in talking to them as I start picking away at evolution they resort to slander and anger against me and creationist views. It is very hard to have a rational debate with someone when their argument is that you are stupid because most scientists believe in evolution as a fact. Yet I find it funny that these same people will promote aliens or primitive alien life as colonizers of earth, which evolved into life as we know it, and other such nonsense with little to no proof. So please pray for me and any words of encouragement would be very helpful.
Thanks,
Jeff Jasper
Cincinnati, OH
Thank you for this testimony and your fine efforts in your church. It’s most interesting that many churchian academics claim that we have to kowtow to evolution to have any credibility with secular academics, but time and time again we find that the opposite is true. Evolution, to them, explains life without God—Darwin referred to ‘My Deity, Natural Selection’. Until their confidence in their substitute ’god’ is undermined, they are unlikely to consider the true God. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:4–5:
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Take courage that if their best arguments are slander and appeal to authority, then it shows that they haven’t any rational answers. One thing to ask them is, since when is truth decided by majority vote? Also, since they are just bowing to peer pressure in following the majority view of scientists, have they considered that perhaps most of the scientists are also simply bowing to peer pressure? After all, does any real science depend on the view that microbes turned into men without any intelligent input?
Our Q&A: Countering the Critics page should be helpful when dealing with devotees of essentially atheistic sites like TalkOrigins, as should the website TrueOrigin.
One additional comment: You need to use careful judgement to determine when someone is so blinded by the need to believe in evolution and thus not have to acknowledge their Creator (Romans 1:18 ff.) that ongoing debating rounds will not get anywhere. I.e. give everyone a fair go, but know when to withdraw to be able to divert your efforts to those who are genuine seekers, but have barriers to faith from their evolutionary indoctrination. For example, after some discussion with a person, it may be worth asking, ‘If I could answer the X questions you raised, would you become a Christian?’ If they say, ‘Of course not!’, then the appropriate response is, ‘Then your problem is not with your intellect as you’ve claimed, but with your will.’
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