Science on MSNBC posted an article last week citing a recent Gallup poll on Americans’ views of creation versus evolution. Gallup found that 40% of Americans believe God created humans about 10,000 years ago. An additional 38% believe that God used evolution, a model called “theistic evolution”. And only 16% believe that humans evolved over millions of years without any divine intervention.

While I suspect these numbers are slightly skewed, they are somewhat encouraging and discouraging at the same time. Encouraging because there is a significant amount of people out there who accept a recent Creation as told in Genesis. Discouraging because the smallest segment has the loudest voice, and to listen to the media, these 16% have solved the issue of mankind’s origins definitively.

That’s simply not true.

I mentioned above that I suspect that Gallup’s numbers are off. His survey identifies that almost 80% hold to a view of human origins that involves God; most Americans believe in God; and 85% percent identify with a religion. And yet, I have a hard time seeing 80-85% of our society living out what they say they believe. Just because we live in a Christian nation does not make us Christians. I suspect that there are a lot of people who claim to be Christians because of the comfort that gives them, and has resulted in little, if any, life change. And so, I think Gallups numbers might be slightly inflated. Just a little. Or more than a little.

But there are a couple of things we can learn from this news.

As Christians, we need to be more vocal about our beliefs. If there truly are 40% who believe in Creation, then why does evolution get all the press time? We need to speak up and defend our beliefs more. There are a few organizations that do this, and do it well: Answers In Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Truth Foundation, just to name a few. We need to partner with these organizations and support their work much more than we do.

A second thing we can learn from this is to not blindly trust the media about everything they say. If there really is 40% who believe in a recent Creation, then when the media tells us that “everyone knows evolution to be true” or evolution is “widely accepted”, we can read between the lines and know that there is a large group of people who disagree. And we can be encouraged and strengthened by the numbers.

It’s an interesting article. You can read the full article here.

What do you think? Do you think there are 40% that accept the Genesis account of Creation?