Repercussions of “Natural Selection”

by Frank Peretti

Next month marks the five-year anniversary of the tragic shootings at Columbine High School, where disturbed teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before taking their own lives. And for the past five years, people have been asking Why? Allow me to suggest one possibility which continues to remind me how important it is to help teenagers see the world—and each another—from God’s perspective.

On his Web page, Eric Harris listed many things he hated, but Darwin’s theory of evolution, particularly his suggestion of natural selection, stood in stark contrast. “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION!,” he crowed. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms … but it’s all natural! YES!”

On the day of the massacre, Eric Harris wore a white T-shirt with the inscription “Natural Selection” on the front. To some, that’s just a footnote in the coroner’s report. But when we pause to ponder it further, we are well on our way to explaining why that tragedy happened. Highly respected author and theologian Ravi Zacharias offered a profound insight in the days following the Littleton incident:

“When we have told our young people today that Naturalism is true—we have evolved from nothing more than some primordial slime; when we have told them objective moral values do not exist—you decide what is right and wrong for you; when we have told our young people that there is no ultimate Designer; when we have told our young people that there is no ultimate destiny; when we have told them that man is the measure of all things, that there is no transcendent basis on which to find out what life is about and what life’s goal is, why then are we surprised when we see the hell that is unleashed by that kind of philosophy?”

Ravi is right! I wish every teacher who indoctrinates his or her students with Darwinian evolution, pawning off unproven theories as fact, could be shown Harris’ bloodstained T-shirt. Remember the old movie Inherit the Wind, in which Christians were portrayed as bigoted nincompoops for opposing the theories of evolution? I wonder if the makers of that movie (and a host of films similar to it) might change their minds if they were called upon to survey the carnage in the Columbine High School library April 20, 1999. Oh, we’ve inherited the wind, all right—and a lot more.

It’s all perfectly logical: If evolution is true, then there is no God. If there is no God, then there is no fixed, external source of truth and morality. If there is no fixed, external source of truth and morality, then truth and morality are left up to the individual. If the individual judges that killing all the “stupid and weak organisms” in his life is justified and right, then by what basis can we question his judgment? He’s only following the moral compass evolution provides. The question is not “Why did the tragedy at Columbine happen?,” but rather, “Why shouldn’t it have happened?”

With God rejected, morality becomes arbitrary. The rights and dignity of others become secondary. Unbridled violence by a Hitler or a Harris, to get what he wants, to guard what is his, or to seek revenge, becomes a perfectly logical alternative.

On the other hand, if a personal, loving Creator God does exist and rule this universe, then we have in Him a transcendent source for meaning, value, sanctity and dignity, not to mention a fixed and objective point of reference for determining right and wrong—God’s Word, the Bible (for starters, Luke 10:27 and Matt. 7:12). If we attempt to remove God from our culture, from our value system, and from our thinking, then we have none of these things, and neither do our children.