Why Is Evolution Gaining Traction with Young People?

According to Slate, a recent Pew Research Center study has shown that 73% of young adults in the US “expressed some sort of belief in evolution,” up from 61% in 2009. Also, “the number who believed in purely secular evolution (that is, not directed by any divine power) jumped from 40 percent to a majority of 51 percent. In other words, if you ask a younger American how humans arose, you’re likely to get an answer that has nothing to do with God.”

But is evolution gaining favor with the younger generation because the scientific evidence is just so overwhelming? No, not at all. As the author of this Slate article notes, evolution is gaining favor because we have an entire generation of young people who aren’t identifying with any religion—the so-called nones. And, of course, without a belief in the Creator God of the Bible, the only other option in their minds is evolution!

And generations of these young people have been indoctrinated (brainwashed) by public schools and the media to believe in evolution as fact—so it’s no surprise that many of them do! These students are not taught how to think—they’re just taught what to think. If any dare to question evolution, they would likely be intimidated and called anti-scientific and anti-intellectual. They are bullied into believing a lie—a blind faith, anti-God religion of evolution. And secularists are growing increasingly aggressive in trying to push atheistic evolution on younger and younger children. So, really, it’s no shock at all, given these circumstances, that many young people embrace evolution. And when you partner that with a lack of apologetics teaching in churches and the sad reality of many churches and Christian leaders abandoning the historicity of Genesis, it’s no surprise many Christian young people also embrace evolution.

Does this discourage us at Answers in Genesis? No! We’re just as dedicated as ever to shining a light in the darkness. People desperately need to hear the message that they can trust the Bible from the very beginning so they can also trust the message of the gospel. That’s why we do what we do!

And that’s also why we’re building the Ark Encounter (opening July 7, 2016), our full-size Noah’s Ark in northern Kentucky. It will be an enormous monument to the trustworthiness of God’s Word and a powerful reminder of the gospel. As people tour the Ark—experts say 1.4 to 2.4 million will visit in the first year!—they will see how God’s judgment on the world of Noah’s day was a real event that happened in literal history. They will then see that God promises another coming judgment and that, just as Noah and his family were saved by going through the door of the Ark, so we too can be saved from the coming judgment by going through the Door—Jesus Christ! It will be a powerful testimony to God’s Word and the gospel. You can learn more at ArkEncounter.com.

Now, while the number of young people who accept evolution is climbing, I noted in a blog post last year that 42% of American adults do believe that God created humans less than 10,000 years ago. That’s encouraging! Of course, Scripture teaches that God created everything—not just humans—6,000 years ago, so there still needs to be some education of what God’s Word teaches even among those who accept some form of creation. And that’s another reason we do what we do! AiG wants to educate and equip the church to stand on the authority of God’s Word from the very beginning.

If you would like to be involved in reaching out to this generation that so overwhelmingly rejects God’s Word and instead embraces evolutionary thinking, I encourage you to read my new book Ready to Return. You will be shocked and saddened by the current state of affairs among young people (the millennials in particular) in our churches, but you will also be emboldened with practical advice for how to reach this generation for Christ.

One way that you can reach out is by sharing a copy of one of the AiG books The Lie: Evolution and The New Answers Book with young people you know. These are powerful resources to help them think biblically about evolution and millions of years as well as understand that evolution/creation is not an issue of evidence but of interpretation based on one’s worldview, which is built on one’s starting point—God’s Word or man’s word. You can order The Lie and The New Answers Book through our online store or you can read them for free online.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.