God made the world.

Evolution happened.

God let the world evolve.

Intelligent design (ID) discredits evolution.

I have to boil down the increasingly complex arguments of the divided camps of origin theorists into these elementary statements in order to make sense of a topic facing church leaders.

Not that it wasn’t facing them before. However, I recently received a news release about the launch of The Discovery Institute’s new Web site (www.faithandevolution.org) as an attempt to provide accurate information about evolution and intelligent design to the faith community. According to the release, the site will help people explore science and the implications of Darwin’s theory for ethics, theology and culture.

Specifically aimed at pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders and church elders, the site offers video, audio and text to explain various scientific theories. They include Darwinian evolution and intelligent design in light of the recent explosion of findings in the field of genetics.

"I sometimes wonder why anybody talks about anything else," says Philip Johnson, the figure behind the idea of intelligent design, on the site’s introductory video. "Because this is the most interesting topic there is. Where did we come from?"

The site offers resources, such as curricula purported to be useful for youth groups, small groups and adult Sunday schools. Available resources include Ben Stein’s "Expelled" documentary. In addition, they have an endorsement from author Lee Strobel.

What is a little surprising about this bold venture into the church world is the surprisingly different stance from the institute’s position of just a few years ago.

Four years ago I reported for Christianity Today about the testimony of Discovery’s Jonathan Wells during the Kansas state school board’s look at science standards. At that time Wells was not interested in kids learning about ID. Nor was he interested in being tied to creationism or churches. Instead, his interest was in pure scientific inquiry that would not be forced to stop short at evolution, or, in theory, an intelligent designer.

The debate succeeded in adding wording to the Kansas science standards challenging the validity of evolutionary theory. But the state board of education later struck this wording from the standards.

Apparently, having lost classrooms to evolution-only scientific inquiry, the ID camp has moved on to churches and is joining the intellectual debate that is quickly turning into a throw-down of Web muscle.

Beliefnet contributor David Klinghoffer, who also writes for Discovery's new site, says it sets the record straight—and notably against theistic evolution.

Alternately, the BioLogos site, (Francis Collins and theistic evolution) attempts to set the record straight for the faith community—combining evolution and Christianity. However, BioLogos explains that it is not a proponent of social Darwinism. This is the major criticism by Klinghoffer, who says evolutionary theory and its social implications since Darwin cannot be separated.

Also entering the fray is Answers in Genesis, which offers its view of the accurate picture with a literal interpretation of Genesis and creation.

All three sites offer churches resources.

So what’s a church leader to do? Follow a site that includes people of various faiths as contributors (F&E)? Click over to a site that follows evolution (BL)? Cling to fundamentalism (AiG)?

Ultimately, changing the question from "How did we get here?" to "Why are we here?" may be more instructive in the theological realm where churches live.