November 24

John Knox and Evolution Day

Author

David Barnhart
November 24, 2025

Fossils at Lyme Regis, 2011. Own photo.

Today marks the death, in 1572, of John Knox, a Scottish Presbyterian reformer who founded the Church of Scotland. His words against tyranny are inspirational, but it also needs to be noted that he was deeply misogynist and reinforced patriarchal theology. 

Today is Evolution Day, which marks the publication, in 1852, of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. And on November 24, 1974, a substantial portion of an Australopithecus skeleton was discovered by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray, who named it “Lucy.” In addition to reframing how human beings thought of themselves in relation to creation, both events led to a strong religious fundamentalist backlash against science and evolution.

Reflection:

One of John Knox’s most famous quotations, which is still appropriate today: 

“Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

Since it’s an important day in the history of evolutionary theory, I think it’s important to hear from Augustine, writing in 415 AD, about Christians who reject scientific knowledge because they read poetic language in Genesis as historical truth: 

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars [...] and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.”

Prayer: Spirit of Creation and Liberation, in our age the forces of tyranny and ignorance have allied themselves against us. Thank you for the assurance that the truth will make us free. Amen.