Defender of the faith

Dr. Wesley Elsberry

DarkSyde has a long, excellent interview with Wesley Elsberry, Information Director for the National Center for Science Education, a leading defender of the teaching of evolution in the public schools, and a major player in the Dover case. Elsberry is a professed Christian, and it’s clear from the interview that he gets particularly ticked off at the IDiots for their persistent attempts to hijack Christianity (and all religous faith) for their own reactionary ends.

Wesley Elsberry: I’m a Christian believer, a member of the United Methodist church. I think that the assertion that one must give up belief if one accepts the findings of evolutionary biology is a misguided attack on the faith that I and many others hold. Certainly the "intelligent design" advocates have advanced this notion, saying that "intelligent design" is no friend of theistic evolution. If one looks at the transcripts of the 2005 Kansas board of education hearings with their antievolution advocates, one will see this reflected in particularly virulent form.

There you can see various "experts" opining that people like me simply have not given this matter due consideration. This is what "separation of church and state" is all about, though. The First Amendment means that they don’t have the legal authority to put their particular theology, which is hostile to mine and millions of other Christians, into the public school classrooms. If they want to preach a sermon on how awful they find the faith of myself and others like me, they have to do it on their own dime and without appropriating the authority of school teachers to do it.

The NCSE is fighting the good fight. It only costs $30 to join them; I’ve signed up, and I hope that many others will do so as a result of the exposure that the Daily Kos is giving them.