Evolution: Part II

[This blog post follows on the heels of Evolution: Part I]

In the first post of this series, I returned to some old articles from The Economist that got my mind racing a few years back.

One of the questions I found myself mulling over a great deal at the time is the question I posed at the end of that blog. "If Evolution were indeed a living and active being, should we call it a good one?" It's a question The Economist never really addresses directly, though I think it safe to say from the indirect evidence that writers over at The Economist are as troubled by the question as I am.

So you'd think from my opening words that I'm now going to tackle this question head on here in this posting. If so...

You'd be wrong!

This is a three-part series (I think?) and I believe that this key question is best left for last.

Here in Part II I hope instead to "get us up to speed" and cover the recent article from The Economist that got my mind racing on the same topic yet again.

Where to Begin?

A good one-page article can spark a number of conversations, and this one is a doozy. Titled "All about Adam" (November 23rd issue), this one touches on the sorts of topics that split churches and get professors at Christian colleges fired. As luck would have it, however, I'm neither a professor nor a pastor — so I have very little to lose by juggling hermeneutical hand grenades.

The article begins by noting a dramatic tension present in the contemporary Christian scene here in America. First, there is an affection for biblical inerrancy among huge swathes of the population... including many who don't darken the door of a church until a wedding or funeral forces their hand.

But that's among those who are middle-aged or older.

Among the youth of America affection for both the notion of inerrancy and, indeed, the church itself is rather more muted. As The Economist notes, fifty percent of the children from evangelical Christian homes abandon their faith after turning 18 years old.

[Don't read that sentence too quickly. Let it sink in.]

Why? Why are kids leaving church in droves after they grow up?

Well, probably not least because (as The Economist notes) a quarter of Christian youngsters view their church as an "anti-science" institution.

That would not be a problem, so to speak, if youngsters themselves did not trust science.

But they do. More than their pastors, at any rate.

And, quite frankly, I trust science too, though probably with a fair bit more reserve than the average 18-year-old. That's not to say that I think science is infallible! (Writers over at The Economist are no less naive. A recent article of theirs headlined just how fallible scientists can be!) No, I don't think science is infallible. Not at all. But I've been in churches long enough to know that pastors aren't either.

Well, a few hand-grenades have hit the floor already, but I'm only three paragraphs into the editorial! Where do we go from here?

Let's start with a few absolute truths all followers of Jesus should be able to agree upon:
1) Jesus is the head of his church, and
2) The Church of Christ will not fail.

I'd like to add one more item to that short list...

3) Historically speaking, there have been "hills we must die upon" that in hindsight proved to be quite the opposite.

Examples?

Oh, there are a few.

Looking into recent American history, we have the era preceding the Civil War, where Christians from the South (and North too) preached not only that slavery was acceptable, but that the mark placed upon Cain was that of a black skin.

What a wonderful way to justify the dehumanizing nature of the slave trade. What a salve this doctrine must have been for the consciences of those practicing Christians who perpetuated this horrific practice.

Need I say more?

But let's be clear about this.

This was not metaphorical hill. More than half a million "Christian" souls died in a very real way upon this very hill. A hill that few self-respecting (and no Christ-respecting) Christian would waste spit upon today.

Going back a bit further, there is the debacle involving Galileo. Learned leaders of the church set Galileo straight on the matter of which heavenly bodies were moving, and which were unmovingly firm.

What a relief to know we had good Christian leadership on that point.

Thank goodness the church stood firm on that doctrine.

(Or was it the people wearing infallible white collars who finally moved? Hmmmm.)

Is it not amazing how easily we move past the follies of the past ("Yeah, yeah, yeah... I get it. Right. Can we move on, now?") but by the same token cannot bear to scrutinize the follies of the present ("Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're wrong. And not a Christian. And a freaking moron to boot. Can we move on, now?").

Were a million evangelical Christians to view this blog today, at least half would be slightly (or more than slightly) irritated that I wasted their time reviewing this history that they already know about... history they do not dispute.

Not one thousand of them (if even that many) would want to reverse the results of the Civil War, and perhaps fewer still believe yet that the Earth is the center of the universe.

But how many will tolerate the thought of what I am about to say?

Few. Very few.

But I didn't come up with this stuff. I'm not the author of these claims. Scientists are. A flawed method? Yes. Of course! But in light of the church history we just reviewed, I would hope we were not looking for nor demanding greater perfection from science than we demanded from ourselves?

Ah well, I'm a fair ways into this reflection, and I've not yet touched upon the topic du jour... Prefatory words aside, it's time to hit the heart of this Economist editorial. It's time to cut to the chase.

Getting to the Point

The title of article ("All about Adam") does not mislead. The recent brouhaha is about Adam. Or lack of one, to state the case more accurately. As the article notes, genetic scientists insist that "modern humans, in their genetic diversity, cannot be descended from a single pair of individuals. Rather, there were at least several thousand 'first humans'."

Bombshell.

Bombshell?

Is it?

Can we be honest?

Without drawing swords?

Or must we re-enact the Civil War, defending the mark of Cain?

Come to think of it, the mark of Cain is a good starting point. Let's begin there.

And just to be sociable about it, let's assume that the creation narrative is, as they say, inerrantly true.

Yes. The doctrine that is causing such frustration amongst our (yes, our) children.

So... that mark. It's not that he's been made black. No. We're enlightened enough to know that being African is not a crime. Nor the mark of a former crime.

Why did God give him that mark? Because Cain is afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid that those who find him will kill him. What people might Cain be referring to? Well, if we're inerrantists, there is exactly one answer. His brothers and perhaps nephews. [Editorial note: the scriptures don't say that Cain is afraid of his siblings. We do.]

So what happens next? Cain gets married.

And has a son.

So.... Who did Cain marry?

Oh.... Yes.... There is an answer for that one, too.

(Does it echo the mark of Cain? A little too convenient?)

Yes, Cain married his sister. Apparently this would be a sister disinclined to kill him for murdering her brother Abel. Willing to marry Cain instead? Or was this an arranged marriage? Did Adam and Eve think it up? [Editorial note: the scriptures don't say that Cain married his sister. We do.]

And somehow... it was OK. Incest in this special case was just A-OK.

Incest with the brother who killed your brother.

Nice package.

Why?

Because conservative Christians of this century are committed to a doctrine which dictates that no other female humans existed on earth (Eve excluded) except Cain's sisters.

It's our version of the Civil War era mark of Cain. A convenient package. One that won't hold up for another hundred years.

Incest? With a brother who killed your brother? But we're Americans. So (as anyone who watches our entertainment will know) we're more concerned with sex than we are with violence.

[Truth be told, I do not recall in all my life a single soul ever questioning why Cain's sister would willingly marry the man who murdered her own peace-loving brother Abel. That's an interesting... and damning... thought, all by itself. We were curious about the sex, but we didn't think twice about the violence. Be that as it may....]

Moving on. Cain's wife. Conservative Christians do not like to speak of it as incest. Not incest proper, at any rate. A brief review on the internet confirms there is a clever "mark of Cain" story all ready to remedy this problem. It goes like this: the gene line was pure at that point, so sex with your sister won't produce kids with three legs.

Problem solved.

The breathtaking, breathtaking, breathtaking Christian hypocrisy.

One might as well argue that with the advent of condoms and birth control we should no longer be uptight about extra-marital affairs because there is no longer a real concern of adulterating gene lines. All we have to do is make sure no conception does not take place, right? After all, that's the main issue with adultery. That's where the word adultery got its name.

No church propagating this story about Cain and his sister would tolerate this line of reasoning where adultery is concerned. Why then is the incest situation between Cain and his sister suddenly "only about the genes?"

Isn't it remarkable how Christians sometimes become scientists... and bloody awful ones at that... the notion that Adam and Eve had "pure" genes is a schlopped together conspiratory-theory-worthy howler... but I digress. [Editorial note: the scriptures don't talk about genes. We do.]

Isn't it remarkable how Christians sometimes become "scientists" when they think it will serve their anti-science biblical agenda? Some paradoxes are beautiful. This one is ugly.

Yes, I scorn this incestuous theory. But I don't only scorn it. I grieve over it too. Men and women I love dearly believe this stuff. Their descendants will not. As surely as 150 years have cleared the church of a love for slavery, another century (should the Lord tarry that long) will cleanse Cain of the guilt of incest and restore him to his proper place as the world's first murderer, not the world's first sexual deviant.

But we're not done with Cain just yet. What did Cain do next, after marrying his sister and committing incest with her?

He built a city.

A city? Yes, a city.

For whom? Well, inerrancy requires that he built it for his siblings.

For siblings? The ones he was afraid would kill him?

For his descendants. His descendants??? So... He just started building a city.... for people who hadn't been born yet?

Hmmmmm. [Editorial note: the scriptures don't say Cain built a city for his siblings, children and/or shirt-tail relatives. We do.]

Question.

At what point do we acknowledge that the "Adam and Eve only" narrative doesn't work so hot? Not just for science. It doesn't even work very well with Genesis itself. The Genesis account is fine. It's God's word for us, and all we need to know (from a biblical perspective) about origins is in it. But how we've chosen to read it is not holding up so well.

When will we as Christians be free to say that?

100 years from now?

At what point do we acknowledge that just maybe we have to bend not only God's own laws (about incest, for starters) but also all boundaries of reason in order to accommodate the notion that Adam and Eve were the only two humans on earth when it all began.

When?

Isn't it remarkable how quickly we would ask our forebears to turn their back on Bible-sanctioned hatred for Africans? And we scorn their failure to have done so.

But yet we cling to instances of Bible-sanctioned incest? To support a scientific claim we rammed into the book of Genesis? And we expect our children to toe the line?

Strange, isn't it? We're like the Pharisees Jesus condemned. We hold ancestors to account for the same crimes we perpetuate today.

Moving on. The Economist notes, "Academics have lost jobs over the Adam controversy. Many Christian universities, among them Wheaton College (a sort of evangelical Harvard and Yale, rolled into one), oblige faculty members to sign faith statements declaring that God directly created Adam and Eve, the 'historical parents of the entire human race.'"

As an alumnus of Wheaton College I can honestly say that it's amazing what I was able to agree to in writing twenty years ago when I signed that pledge myself.

This series is continued in Evolution: Part III