Contact: John Aman, Coral Ridge Ministries, 954-334-5330, 954-540-8560 cell, CRMNews@crministries.org

FORT LAUDERDALE, Aug. 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- Coral Ridge Ministries today rejected the Anti-Defamation League charge that it misled and “wrongfully” used Dr. Francis Collins in the new television documentary, Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, which airs August 26 and 27 nationwide.

The ADL, in a release on Tuesday, “denounced Coral Ridge Ministries for misleading Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute for the NIH, and wrongfully using him as part of its twisted documentary, Darwin’s Deadly Legacy.” In addition, Dr. Collins reportedly told the ADL that he “had NO knowledge that Coral Ridge Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler.”

The ADL and Dr. Collins are both wrong. A producer told Dr. Collins in person before the interview began that he was being interviewed for a program that would address the adverse social consequences of Darwin. In addition, he was asked specifically, during the interview, about the Darwin-Hitler connection and responded on tape that he did not agree with that view. Dr. Collins also signed a Talent Release, which gives Coral Ridge Ministries the right to use his interview “without limitation in all perpetuity.”

Coral Ridge Ministries did not mislead Dr. Collins. Nor have we misused him. He is a highly esteemed scientist and theistic evolutionist who appears in the science section of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy to address the question of whether random forces alone could have created the human body.

We have spoken to Dr. Collins and agreed to remove his name from promotional efforts for the special and to remove him from all future airings of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy. We consider him a fellow Christian and have reached a friendly understanding with him about this matter.

As to the ADL charges issued Tuesday, we are grateful for the response issued today by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Founder and President of Toward Tradition. (See response in full here.)

“On behalf of all those American Jews who feel misrepresented by the ADL, I apologize to Dr. D. James Kennedy for Foxman’s ad hominem attack,” Rabbi Lapin states. “Dr. Kennedy has always been friendly and supportive towards Jews and has courageously defended the Biblical values shared by both Judaism and Christianity.”

Rabbi Lapin also endorsed the program. “I believe it appropriate for thoughtful Jews to support the Coral Ridge documentary and perhaps even for it to be shown in Jewish schools because there really are only two ways to account for human presence on our planet.  One is that God created us in His image.  The other is that by a lengthy and random process of totally unaided materialistic evolution, primitive protoplasm evolved into Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven.  This approach, ruling out any role for God, is simply incompatible with Jewish values.”

Coral Ridge Ministries has also published a companion book to the television special, Evolution’s Fatal Fruit: How Darwin’s Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions, which examines the social consequences of Darwin’s theory. Written by Tom DeRosa, Executive Director of the Creation Studies Institute (an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries), the book explains how Hitler tried to use genocide to speed up evolution and reveals how the American eugenics movement is likewise indebted to Darwin.

To request review copies, or interviews with Darwin’s Deadly Legacy producers Jerry Newcombe and John Rabe, or Evolution’s Fatal Fruit author Tom DeRosa, please contact John Aman at j.aman@crministries.org or (954) 334-5330.

Coral Ridge Ministries is a Christian broadcasting organization with radio and television programming that reaches into 200 nations.