You most likely know Ben Stein as that boring economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off repeating names on the class roster: “Bueller
. . . Beuller . . . Beuller . . . .” You’ve seen him in movies from time to time, doing “clear eyes” commercials for Visine, or on his game show, Win Ben Stein’s Money. Fewer people know that Ben Stein is a practicing lawyer, a political commentator, and very pro-God.

A couple of years ago, Stein appeared on CBS Sunday Morning at Christmas and delivered the commentary quoted here in part:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees “Christmas trees.” I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against . . . . It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto . . . . I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. . . . I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat . . . .

I was, of course, floored when I first read these words from the mouth of a media personality. Since then it has come as no surprise to me that this popular, intellectual, pro-God entertainer is producing a documentary Christians need to see.

The name of the movie is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (opening in theaters February 12^{th). Yes, it’s a documentary, but it’s worth your time and money. Ben Stein blows the lid off the idea that science is about the free search for truth and that universities are sanctuaries for freedom of speech. In interview after interview, Stein introduces scientists who actually make their living as scientists—in research institutions or as university professors.}

These scientists have been persecuted, denied tenure, told to “shut up,” or fired because they questioned the naturalistic philosophy behind Darwinism. Some of them believe in Intelligent Design (the theory that complex structures in nature prove that random, gradual evolution is impossible). Others have merely taught the problems with Darwin’s theory.

But the scientific community—that is, the people in power—are quick to attack them all, saying they’re unscientific, religious fanatics, or just plain stupid. For Ben Stein, the attack on Intelligent Design speech is an attack on freedom of speech, intellectual honesty, and the freedom to think openly about anything.

Science is now doing the opposite of what it used to do and universities are now denying the open pursuit of knowledge. That the truth is being proclaimed by someone as visible, intelligent, and articulate as Stein is nothing less than a mass media blessing. And we should respond to it.

You can start by checking out the movie’s website: expelledthemovie.com. Then tell everyone you know about it, buy as many tickets as you can for the opening weekend, and take your entire church to see the movie. I’ve said this before: movies are made or broken at the box office in the opening weekend of their release. If a lot of people see Expelled on its weekend opener, the film will get a strong advertising push for others to go and see it. Don’t wait till it’s out on DVD—see it in theaters.

A wise mentor of mine once pointed out to me that 20th century thought and history were shaped by four influential thinkers, all antagonistic toward Christianity: Marx gave us Communism, Nietzsche gave us Fascism (and Hitler), Freud made people sex crazed animals, and Darwin removed God from science completely. Today psychology has left Freud behind, Communism is practically dead, and Nietzsche has lost his credibility. Three (who based their ideas in Darwin) have fallen; the fourth remains entrenched.

Darwin cannot be brought down by creationist theories because the scientific establishment will not be convinced that creationism is science (I’m not attacking creationism here.) The theory of Intelligent Design is forcing scientists to admit the obvious truth that Darwinian Evolution is as rooted in a faith system as creationism (creationists just admit it). That faith system is called Naturalism. But when scientists, using scientific methodology and mathematics, show that randomness plus lots of time cannot explain the successful mutation of complex systems in nature, the establishment will not be able to hold out long. Intelligent Design is the first real chink in the wall of the fortress of naturalistic evolution. We need to support the ID discussion wherever it presents itself, for it will allow science to pursue truth again, and its effects will be felt everywhere in Western culture—from our movies and music to the way we treat criminals and hospital patients. It will be an effect no less profound than the effects Darwin had on the 1900s: a world war, world-wide Communist revolutions, and God removed from public life in America.

The fortress is beginning to crumble. Go see Expelled and help loosen another stone. |L