Evolution education in evangelicals' home schooling

The Atlantic has an interesting story on evangelical Christian home-schoolers who prefer using science teaching materials that present genuine science rather than the creationist crap that infests home-school “science” curricula like those from Answers in Genesis or A Beka Book. I was struck by this quotation from one of the home-schooling mothers:

The assertion that anyone who believes in evolution “disregards” the Bible offends many evangelicals who want their children to be well-versed in modern science. Jen Baird Seurkamp, an evangelical who homeschools her children, avoids textbooks that discredit evolution. “Our science curriculum is one currently used in public schools,” she says. “We want our children to be educated, not sheltered from things we are afraid of them learning.”

Contrast that intellectual courage with the fundamentalist Christian supporter of John Freshwater I talked with some years ago:

I also spoke with one of Freshwater’s adult supporters. The No True Scotsman fallacy was alive and well in that conversation. There was an enlightening moment when I recommended that he read Francis Collins’ The Language of God to get an idea of how an evangelical Christian who is a scientist tries to deal with the conflict. The man asked if Collins accepts Genesis. I replied that Collins is an evangelical Christian, but that he doesn’t read Genesis literally and believes that evolution is the means by which God created the diversity of biological life. The man then refused to consider reading it, saying “I don’t need to look at beliefs I don’t agree with.” That level of willful ignorance pretty much says it all.

I hope that Ms. Seurkamp is aware of Dennis Venema’s series of posts introducing evolution at BioLogos (click “Next post in series” at the bottom of each OP to step through the posts now up, or go here for all of Venema’s posts).