The Case For a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator, published in 2004, emerged during a period of intense cultural and legal conflict over the teaching of evolution and alternatives to it in American public education. The book appeared amid what became known as the “intelligent design movement,” a coordinated effort by evangelical Christians and some theistic scientists to challenge the dominance of Darwinian evolutionary theory in scientific and educational institutions. This movement, largely coordinated through the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, sought to present intelligent design—specifically, the idea that evolution is guided not by natural selection but by intentional, ongoing intervention—as a legitimate scientific theory rather than as religious advocacy. The cultural moment was characterized by school board battles, legislative initiatives, and media controversies surrounding the inclusion of intelligent design in science curricula.

The publication of The Case for a Creator coincided with the buildup to the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial of 2005, in which a federal court would ultimately rule that intelligent design constituted a religious viewpoint rather than a scientific theory and that its inclusion in public school science classes violated the First Amendment. Several of Strobel’s interviewees, including Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer, played prominent roles in intelligent design advocacy and would be directly involved in the Dover case.