Creation or evolution: Do we have to choose?

My experience is similar to the author of this article: Archived Current Debates -> Creation or evolution: Do we have to choose? They say: "As someone raised in a Christian home and active as a Christian student in the Oxford of the mid 1960s, I can report that creationism was unheard of at the time. Christians didn't have any problem with evolution and it was not a topic for discussion or debate. I was nurtured as a Darwinian and remain so today."
Now my upbringing was not fully Christian, I was brought up believing in God, and to respect Jesus (along with Buddha, Mohammed etc) but not churchgoing. But when I considered spiritual development in my mid-teens, I didn't see evolution as a difficulty, and later when considering the Christ path, it seemed to me self-evident that Genesis was not doing the same kind of writing as Origin of Species. The only qualm I had was the way that survival of the fittest seemed to have eugenic ideological properties (as I would now express it).

So it was interesting to discover through this article what the Revd Charles Kingsley wrote in response to Darwins book (he'd been given and advance copy, being a personal friend);

'I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development …. as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas (or ‘gaps’) which he himself had made'.

Quite so. In principle, it seems to me, this is little different from asserting both that 'God made me' and that I am the product of a paternal spermatazoan and a maternal ovum and uterus.
There was a lot of positive reception of Darwin's ideas by Christians. There is some evidence that Huxley saw some negative Christian reactions as a way to make political capital for his science agenda; by presenting things as a science versus religion thing in order to raise the profile for science and funding also. Conflict sells, still!

Like the author, I have watched with bemusement, and sometimes anger, as 6x24hr creationism has not only persisted but seems to have gained ground in the UK. And, again, I think I concur with the writer:

Why the change in the late twentieth century? As far as the UK is concerned, much has to do with the efficiency of US exports - a steady stream of creationist financing, publications, speakers and movies has been flowing over into UK churches. But the new breed of tub-thumping atheists also have a lot to answer for: if you keep telling the average Christian in the pew that 'evolution equals atheism', then it's not surprising if they find the glossy creationist magazines more attractive.

I suspect that is about right.