Early Christians used the now-ubiquitous fish symbol to identify themselves to each other during the time of Roman persecution. One man would trace an arc in the ground with his foot, and it became clear that both men were Christian if the other finished the fish by tracing a second arc.
Fast forward a couple thousand years and there are fish on millions of cars all over the United States, but the meaning of the fish has apparently changed. Now the fish seems to mean that the driver believes in Creationism and we’ve launched an all-out “bumper war” against evolution. Darwinists came up with their own Darwin fish, and we came up with a Truth fish that was big enough to eat their Darwin fish. Then they fought back with a T-Rex!
Take a really good look at that T-Rex emblem if you haven’t already. That dinosaur is actually eating our fish. They think they’ve proven that Christianity is a myth because they have dinosaurs. We’ve set up an argument that says that one and only one of the following can be true: (1) God created the earth in seven days, and there were no dinosaurs involved; or (2) Darwin was right, and there is no God. This seems to be exactly the fear of the Cobb County school board in Georgia, except the war there is over textbooks instead of bumper decals.
Why are we fighting this fight? If I weren’t so loathe to participate in this war altogether, I’d put a Jesus fish and a Darwin fish on my car. The two beliefs do not have to be mutually exclusive, and we are creating barriers to people learning about our faith. We are alienating nonbelievers because of the views that some of us hold about Creation before we can even get to the important part: the Good News about Jesus Christ!
In the New Testament, Jesus says that we need to believe & trust in him in order to be saved; he did not say there would be a Creation litmus test at the gates of Heaven. Let’s focus on the important stuff and save the details for spirited debate with other believers.
