Our journalistic loyalty is to the Gospel alone and we have no interest in being politically correct. Our editorials are therefore often hard-hitting and challenging, but never compromising.
Sample editorial of the English Churchman
“What Does the Natural World Tell Us?”
We are informed by the press that Sir David Attenborough finds great consolation since the death of his wife in the contemplation of nature. Though he has spent his life exploring plants and animals in the natural world for his television programmes, he has only realised more recently how much nature has comforted him. Viewers of his programmes on the natural world have told him how much they had helped them to cope with grief, and he now realises that he has felt the same. “In moments of grief, deep grief,” he said, “the only consolation you can find is in the natural world … we are part of a big enduring thing.”
We sympathise with Sir David in his bereavement, and are glad that he finds comfort in nature. However, we confess to finding this strange in a number of ways, and especially in view of Sir David Attenborough’s declared atheism, and the way in which he has used his programmes on television to promote a godless view of nature as the mere product of evolution and blind chance.
The view of nature presented by Darwinism, which is the position that Sir David holds, is the very antithesis of what he now describes. Far from being something which induces peace and calm and reassurance, the picture of nature which Darwin conjures up is both monstrous and terrifying. It is “nature red in tooth and claw”; it is the doctrine of “the survival of the fittest”. Sir David has spent his life, and employed his considerable abilities as a naturalist, promoting the Darwinian view of the world and of nature. It is a view which has robbed many of religious faith, and of the peace and calm which come through faith in the God who made the world for his glory, and gave his Son to redeem sinful men and women, and reconcile them to Himself through the Gospel of grace.
Darwinism has done great harm and damage to many, individually and collectively, and also to our civilisation. G.J. Romanes was a young graduate, when he read Darwin’s book, The Origin of Species. It made an extraordinary impression upon him. He had been a devout Evangelical, but felt compelled to renounce his faith, and embrace the desolating picture of the world that the doctrine of evolution, the ‘new faith’, conjured up before him. “I am not ashamed to confess,” he wrote, “that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness.”
Many others can similarly testify to the great damage and harm the doctrine of evolution has done to people’s lives and, indeed, to civilisation. It wrecked the world for millions, and left them feeling aimless and adrift in a universe of atoms all struggling to assert their own existence at the expense of others. That is Darwinian evolution. That is the confusion and despair that it has evoked. That is the creed that Sir David Attenborough has promoted through countless television programmes watched by millions. How then can he now turn to a nature which, according to his own understanding of it, is “red in tooth and claw”, for comfort, peace and solace?
We would entirely agree that nature can at times induce the peace and comfort of which he speaks. Indeed, nature, though fallen as a result of man’s sin, can still tell of the glory of God for it is God’s own handiwork, though marred by sin. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork” Psalm 19:1. The natural world, through faith, can speak of God and give assurance of God’s care for his creatures. Our Lord taught his disciples this very thing: “Consider the ravens… God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?” Luke 12:24. But complementary to that must be the revelation he has given in his Son, Jesus Christ, for man and the creation are fallen and in need of redemption.
However, it is precisely this theistic view of man and nature that Sir David has spent his life opposing and denying. We find it strange, indeed paradoxical, that now in defiance of his own presuppositions he can regard nature as consolatory and comforting. If he does, indeed, find it so, then it is grounds for his questioning the premises upon which he has formerly viewed nature and based his philosophy.