Lampooning the President on Creation

“It’s hard to believe we have a president who doesn’t believe in evolution.”

Those were the words of the opening frame of an Easter Sunday editorial cartoon from the hugely popular strip, “Doonesbury,” alluding to US President George Bush’s religious beliefs (shown below). The strip, authored by Garry Trudeau (a Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist), usually features biting political and societal satire, so much so that the strips are increasingly being found in the editorial sections of American papers rather than in their “funny pages.”

© Universal Press Syndicate

First, we do not know precisely what the President (who declares that he is a “born-again Christian’) believes about the historicity of the Book of Genesis. Many who call themselves Christians accept evolutionary beliefs. Interestingly, the character making the pro-evolution comments in the strip is a pastor: the Rev. Scot Sloan.

The President has made only a few public comments about creation/evolution, and it could simply be that Trudeau—who has not been friendly toward this President—is taking some license to conclude that as a Christian, Mr Bush denies all aspects of evolutionary belief. (Sadly, while many Christians reject “molecules-to-man” biological evolution, they might accept long geologic ages and other evolutionary/antibiblical ideas.) Trudeau admitted last December that he may “stretch the truth” and “exaggerate” in his editorial strips to make a point,1 so we do not know if his Sunday strip is actually based on any comment the President may have made about doubting evolution.

By permission of Johnny Hart and Creators Syndicate, Inc

Here is a sample of the wonderful work of cartoonist Johnny Hart, the creator of the extremely popular strip “BC” (and co-creator of “The Wizard of Id’). He has graciously allowed AiG to re-print one of his Genesis-friendly strips.

The fact that a noted cartoonist would want to get a pro-evolution message out to millions of readers has merited this response from us—as well as a counter (see the pro-Genesis strip, above). In Trudeau’s second frame, the character comments that “the leader of the free world has closed his mind to VAST areas of human experience and knowledge” from various scientific fields about evolution. In the final frame, this character concludes that the President’s lack of belief in evolution “pretty much explains all those [grades of] C’s” in college. (Both Trudeau and President Bush are alumni of Yale University, by the way.)

For more than thirty years, readers have come to expect strips from Trudeau with a secular humanistic bent. Although he touches on many non-political topics, Trudeau often lampoons presidents and other leaders who hold to anything resembling a Biblical worldview.

If you wish to send Mr Trudeau one of AiG’s books such as Refuting Evolution 2 or The Answers Book for his enlightenment, you can write to him (respectfully, even if firmly, we should add) care of his syndicators: Mr Garry Trudeau, c/o Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64111.

To discover how a Christian and creationist is using his talents to share Biblical truths through his own popular strip, read our Creation magazine article on cartoonist Johnny Hart. And, of course, there are AiG's After Eden and Creation Wise strips by Dan Lietha.