In 2009, Chris Anderson wrote a revolutionary bestselling book entitled
Free: The Future of Radical Price. Eric Schmidt, the current executive officer of Google, wrote "With the cost of distribution relentlessly driving towards zero, Chris Anderson has once again identified the next big thing".
Internet evangelism is reaching millions of people with the gospel (see our post:
Internet evangelism is powerful especially when combined with creationism evangelism). We have been talking with creationist evangelist and reading material about internet evangelism too. Some really great ideas has come out of this exchange of ideas.
We believe internet evangelism has the potential to reach even more if it is combined with creationist material - especially if a significant portion of it is free high quality material for people. People who are already Bible believers - especially new and teachable Bible believers - are far more receptive the creationist message.
It is really a win-win situation for internet evangelists and creation evangelists because people who are biblical creationists are more likely to stay Bible believers. Internet evangelists can teach creationists how to effectively reach lots of people with the gospel message since their websites are reaching millions of people. Creationists can help internet evangelists disciple their new converts and/or provide material for their websites. They can refer each other web visitors too. In addition, there is no reason why biblical creation websites cannot have internet evangelism efforts set up on their own domains.
There are a number of ways that free material can build a strong following in a locale community or on a worldwide basis. It is a great strategy to promote creationism - especially if done through a grassroots anti-evolution campaign like the
Question Evolution! Campaign with its
15 questions for evolutionists
Radical pricing and defeating Darwinism
Question: Could radical pricing which causes wider distribution significantly help defeat Darwinism?
Darwinism is not a strong ideology that can stand on its own. There is too much evidence that has piled up against it. At the present time, Darwinism gets subsidized through free indoctrination of students in public schools. Most Darwinists are very reluctant to engage in public debates knowing they will lose these debates badly which
historically has occurred.
Therefore, reducing the cost of distributing excellent creationist material through radical pricing can be an extremely effective strategy to spread information rapidly. It can be used on a local level and as a strategy to spread creationism around the world.
Is this a sound strategy? History teaches us that the radical pricing strategy is very effective. For example, Gillette, a powerhouse in the disposable razor business, built a strong and loyal following by initially giving away its razors for free.
Because Gillette created relationships with other organizations, people found free razors in the most unlikely of places (sticks of chewing gum with a disposable razors in the package for example). There is no reason why strategic alliances with Christian organizations cannot be used to accelerate the dissemination of informative free creationist content.
How effective could radical pricing be? How tough is the opposition?
Consider:
Britain is the birthplace of Darwinism and has had 150+ years to gain public acceptance
In 2006, the British newspaper the
Guardian reported:
Most of the next generation of medical and science students could well be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London sixth-form college. "The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism," she said, "and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all. They have extensive booklets on creationism which they put in my pigeon-hole ... it's a bit like the southern states of America." Many of them came from Muslim, Pentecostal or Baptist family backgrounds, she said, and were intending to become pharmacists, doctors, geneticists and neuro-scientists.
Darwinism has struggled since its inception to gain widespread public support in Britain. For example, in 2006 the BBC
reported:
Just under half of Britons accept the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life, according to an opinion poll.
Furthermore, more than 40% of those questioned believe that creationism or intelligent design (ID) should be taught in school science lessons.
Darwinism has a tough slog ahead of itself in the UK - especially since biblical Christianity
is growing in Britain due to immigration in influential cities. These Christians are challenging the pro-Darwin establishment church in the UK.
In the United States, the Gallup organization
reported in 2012 that 46% of Americans were young earth creationists.
Cutting down the tree of Darwinism down faster
King Solomon wrote: "If the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength. Wisdom has the advantage of giving success." (Ecclesiastes 10:10)
Our blog has used evocative war imagery upon occasion to make points. Since the creation vs. evolution issue is a war of worldviews this certainly has its place.
Yet, the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote: "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
The beauty of the radical price strategy of defeating Darwinism is that it is achieved in large part through people peaceably sharing high quality free content, e-books, video, etc. with their friends, family, neighbors and acquaintances.
No court battles, no legislative battles. No fuss, no muss. Radical pricing may not be as glorious as winning legislative battles, court cases, public debates, blog comment or forum debates to some, but it can be extremely effective in changing people's minds - especially young people.
Creationism is pretty much everywhere now
Harvard agnostic, evolutionist, and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould errantly said in 1986 concerning creationism: "As insidious as it may seem, at least its not a worldwide movement. I hope everyone realizes the extent to which it is a local, indigenous, American bizarrity."
At the world Skeptics Congress 2012, Johan Braeckman, Professor of Philosophy of Science at Ghent University said in a speech titled "The rise of creationism in Europe" that Stephen Jay Gould was wrong in his assessment of the worldwide prevalence of creationism.
Braeckman said about Gould's statement: "I guess it's clear by now that he was wrong about this. Creationism is pretty much everywhere now."
Johan Breackman is correct and creationism is in the United States, Australia, Latin America, Europe, Asia, etc. But how could Gould be so wrong? Often Western skeptics are very myopic and provincial in their outlooks and make poor assumptions and do poor due diligence. In addition, they often underestimate the creationist opposition.
Spreading creationism throughout Europe and the world through radical pricing
In 2005, the Pew Forum
wrote about Global Christianity:
Over the course of the last century, Christian penetration of local cultures has accelerated as never before. The great vehicle of that acceleration has been translation, primarily translations of the Bible into local languages, but also translations of liturgies, hymns, theology, and devotion from the vast archives of the Christian West into the emerging discourses of the world.
If Darwinism is to be defeated in Europe though free material (e-books, videos, online content) it will require at a bare minimum for it to be translated into German, French, Spanish and Italian in the initial stages. Also, a substantial part of Russians live in the European portion of Russia and culturally Russia is European. For example, Moscow and St. Petersburg are both in Europe. We have a contact with an organization which does ministry in Russia so we would like the campaign to be translated into Russian too.
CreationWiki has translated their content into multiple languages so we know it can be done. In addition, a grassroots movement like the
Question Evolution! Campaign with its
15 questions for evolutionists with a significant amount of free translated content can rapidly spread. This is particularly true if it has booklets, books, videos, audio, etc.
Why Italian?
Reuters
reported in 2007:
"Bible-based criticism of evolution, once limited to Protestant fundamentalists in the United States, has become an issue in France now that Pope Benedict and some leading Catholic theologians have criticized the neo-Darwinist view of creation...
These American concerns caught notice in Europe after Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a confidant of Pope Benedict, attacked neo-Darwinist theories in 2005 in what seemed to be a move to ally the Catholic Church with "intelligent design."...
Herve Le Guyader, a University of Paris biology professor who advised the Education Ministry on the Atlas, said high school biology teachers needed more training now to respond to the increasingly open challenges to the theory of evolution.
In January 2012, a news article titled
The Pope’s New Cardinals — More Roman Than Catholic? proclaimed:
Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on 6 January of 22 new cardinals shows that he is continuing a pattern of stacking the College of Cardinals with Europeans (mainly Italians) and with leaders of the Roman curia, the papal bureaucracy whose officials are often considered more conservative than prelates in dioceses around the world.
A 2008 graph of the present scope of evolutionary belief in Europe
Europe is having significant problems in the economic realm. History teaches us that conservative forms of protestantism do well and grow in tough economic times.
For example, during the Great Depression in America churches which emphasized holiness
grew and so did pentecostal Christianity (I realize there can be considerable overlap as many pentecostal church also emphasize holiness). Both of these types of protestantism tend to support creationism. In Latin America, where many people are of modest means, evangelical Christianity is growing very fast. But it is also doing well in Brazil which is an upcoming country in terms of economic performance.
Given the effectiveness of internet evangelism and other forms of evangelism, there is no reason to believe that such strategies could not be used in Europe - especially a Europe which is in trouble and looking for answers.
Belief in evolution in various countries including European countries:
(Graph appeared in science magazine, New Scientist Magazine, April, 19, 2008)
Implementing the free content strategy worldwide
Professor Breackman about creationists in the 2012 Skeptics Congress: "You might be surprised and intelligent these people often are."
There certainly are a lot of bright creationist in the world, but it has only been recently that Christians have aggressively used e-based strategies to spread the gospel around the world and now this approach is spreading quickly due to its very strong results. See:
Internet evangelism and shrinking atheism faster
Creationists are now starting to use more effective means as they see what their internet evangelists brethren are doing.
There are several ways to implement the free content and free sample strategy. The strategy is only limited by your imagination. With that being said, it is important to have good content so the free material spreads quickly. To give you an idea how quickly free content can spread, according to Compete.com, the Christian website Gotquestions.org had 700,000 unique visitors a month in June of 2012. The content of that website is largely created by Christian volunteers.
Fundraising can be used to promote a free content strategy using a variety of mediums. For example, a librarian suggested this awesome book to a member of our Question Evolution! group:
The Everything Grant Writing Book: Create the perfect proposal to raise the funds you need Can substantial amounts be raised by grants? I spoke to a Christian website staff person and they raised enough money to support their ministry team for several years. You just need a worthwhile proposal.
For more information please see:
A plan for accelerating the decline of global atheism
Why is a worldwide strategy important?
The Birbeck, University of London professor Eric Kaufmann declared to a secular audience in a lecture titled
Shall the religious inherit the earth: "The trends that are happening worldwide inevitably in an age of globalization are going to affect us."
As noted earlier, in Britain evangelical immigrants are already starting to challenge the pro-Darwin establishment church in England. Wait until there are more or them via immigration and they have bigger families than the liberal sectors of British protestants. An radical price strategy to promote creationism could help further energize these Bible believing Christians in Britain and similar places as well.
Internet evangelism video
Jesus said: "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Internet evangelism and creation evangelism are a great way to pull seekers and open minded people into the Christian and creationist fold. Millions of people are being reached through internet evangelism.
Here is a video series on the exciting things which are occurring through internet evangelism.
The power of free - video
Other resources
Question Evolution! Campaign
15 questions for evolutionists
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15
Refuting evolution
Shall the Righteous Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Professor Eric Kaufmann
Photo and graphic credits:
1. Internet - public domain - http://www.clker.com/clipart-applications-internet.html
2. Earth picture - public domain,
3. Italy map - public domain
4. Europe map, public domain
5. Belief in evolution graph, public domain: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Views_on_Evolution.svg
6. Countries, globe - public domain - http://www.clker.com/clipart-3195.html
7. World map public domain - http://www.clker.com/clipart-2143.html
We believe that we can help Creation Ministries International increase their internet evangelism and teach people about biblical creation as part of the discipleship process. In addition, we are working out relationships where internet evangelism organizations send people to the website of Creation.com and its 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer. Next week we expect a major internet evangelism organization to establish links from one of their main websites to the website of Creation Ministries International. Specifically, the internet evangelism organization Network211.
