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Question: I've heard you talk about the creation/evolution debate. Does a person need to believe in creation to be a real Christian?

Tom: Let me be clear: A real Christian is one who has genuine faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. To be a genuine Christian requires that I understand and believe the gospel which tells me that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose again from the dead.

It is possible to be a genuine Christian and yet be a believer in evolution. Personally, I was an evolutionist for about two years after I became a believer in Christ. I would never want a person to think they had to become a creationist in order to be saved.

However, that being said, I do not believe this is an irrelevant or peripheral issue. Here are several reasons why a serious Christian (is there any other kind of Christian?) ought to carefully study this issue and reach God-honoring conclusions about the origin of life.

1. Although it is possible to be a genuine Christian and yet still believe in evolution, there is no doubt that Darwinian evolution has been the cause for multitudes of people to abandon faith in God and in the Bible. Evolution attacks the very first chapter of the Bible. A large number of people accept that evolution has proven the Bible to be inaccurate and untrue. This alone ought to raise doubt in our minds as to the truthfulness of the theory of evolution. 
   
2. Ideas have consequences. A proper understanding of our origin is vital to understanding our place in life and in the universe. If you honestly believe you are simply the result of mutations that happened to survive via natural selection, you will have a radically different view of life than if you believe an almighty and loving God created you in His own image.  
   
3. From a theological position, I look at our world and I see a great deal of suffering and death. Was this God’s original plan? I think not. Suffering and death are the result of Adam’s sin which upset the entire creative order. How does a Christian evolutionist explain millions of years of suffering and death before Adam sinned? 
   
4. Personally, I don’t think the scientific data compels us to reject a literal Genesis. The key concept is whether the Bible is right in declaring that every living organism reproduces after its own kind or whether Darwin is right in saying all living species originated from a previous species. At this point, 100 % of observable data is on the side of the Bible on this one.

These are just several of the many reasons I think every serious Christian should carefully research and listen to the creationist arguments. We must be humble enough to admit that each of us has been educated in a materialistic and naturalistic worldview that has often mocked rather than tried to understand the creationist point of view. This may be understandable for non-believers; it is inexcusable for us believers.