Feb 11, 2007
GOD AND EVOLUTION
By Rev. Dr. Ledyard Baxter
OldSteepleCommunityChurch, United Church of Christ
Aquebogue, NY
Genesis 1:1-5 About 550BC the Hebrew people in exile in Babylon and surrounded by a mythology that involved many Gods and a violent creation story, found a way to restate their deep belief in one all powerful but non-violent God. It is the familiar Biblical creation story.
Mark 1:40-45 As followers of Jesus we believe that he was God's new creation sent to reclaim a still troubled world for the author of creation. He came filled with the Spirit and power of God to bring healing and hope to people then and now.
May our minds be refreshed and our spirits renewed through the reading and sharing of God's living and creative Word for us.
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I want to talk with you today about GOD AND EVOLUTION. Just saying that reminds me of school day experiences when the teacher would say, "You should limit your topic." Well, let's think of this as opening a door into this huge subject and at least seeing what's in there. To be a bit more specific, I'm interested in the tension between what scientists call "evolutionary biology" and in this whole idea that has been in the news so much lately called "Intelligent Design" or "ID." What I intend to do here is to review the history of this conflict briefly and then to show how we can embrace both religion and science, both faith and reason, as a faithful and creative response to the life that God gives us.
Why do this today? This whole subject has fascinated me for years and I would love to include it in our growing list of issues that we are facing together. I am prompted to delve into it today in part by something called "The Clergy Letter Project" in which over 10,000 clergy persons have joined a kind of declaration that science and faith need not be enemies but can and should work together. I have signed the letter (which is available here) and we are one of over 535 congregations from many different denominations all across the country who are talking about this today. All of this is a response to those who want to drive a wedge between religion and science and specifically to undermine Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as the basis of modern evolutionary biology. So this is much more than an intellectual exercise or a different kind of sermon. What is at stake here is the future of scientific inquiry - which is currently being under funded and under taught in this country. What is also at stake is a deeper understanding of God and nature including human nature. So much for "limiting" our topic!"
Here's the problem: Since the time of the ancient Greeks, some people have wondered, did God (or the gods) create things as they are or do some things just happen on their own - through natural processes? Fast forward to Copernicus around 1500 and Galileo around 1600 who opened our eyes to the truth that the earth goes around the sun, not the other way around. The 16th century Protestant Reformation also shook the foundations of the medieval church. Things really got interesting during the period of the Enlightenment in the 18th century when old systems were being challenged everywhere. There was - and still is for many - "a crisis of faith" as reason and the emerging sciences raised serious questions about such things as the literal truth of the Bible. By 1859 when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, there was already a clear division between those who saw the hope and promise of scientific "progress" and those who saw these new ideas as a threat to their Christian faith.
The essence of Darwin's claim was that all life "evolved" from simple organisms to more complex ones through a process of "natural selection" and "the survival of the fittest" to adapt to various environments over a long period of time - perhaps 3 to 4 billion years since the earliest life forms appeared. That means that all of life is related. And so we humans are quite literally cousins not only of chimpanzees and gorillas but also of all the rare and rapidly vanishing species of plants and animals in the rain forest. Of course, as with our extended human family, there will be some of our relatives who we will appreciate more than others and some who we would just as soon not have living with us in the same house - such as mice and fruit flies. But we are, none the less, one family on the tree of life. As the theory of evolution itself has developed over the last 150 years and as more recent discoveries in such related fields as genetics and molecular biology have been added to it, it has become the widely accepted back bone of the modern life sciences.
Because it seemed to upstage God, the concept of evolution through natural selection was a direct challenge to the classical Christian view that God created living things all at once and pretty much as they are now and not very long ago - 6 to 10,000 years at the most according to "young earth" advocates. Darwin was English, but the conflict carried across the Atlantic and was intensified in this country as the evangelical, Biblical literalist churches provided much of the structure of meaning and hope for those on the American frontier and in the Southern states and in the more "evolutionist" north as well.
Does God work through gradual change and natural processes or through sudden and miraculous intervention? That's one way of phrasing the key question. Throughout the 20th century, right up to the present there has been an intense cultural clash between "progressive evolutionists" who are inclined to see hope for humanity in the present as we continue to evolve socially and biologically toward the greater fulfillment of God's purposes, and (largely) "Christian fundamentalists" who believe that Genesis contains literal history, that only God can save us from our own folly, and who therefore put all their bets on Christ coming again in the near future to suddenly make things right.
These two camps have historically been in reaction to each other. How many of you remember when the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957? I do. I was in 7th grade and our teachers were upset about it. All of a sudden there was a big push for science in this country. We had to catch up! Suddenly evolution was being taught in high school science classes. The fundamentalists renewed the battle and have been fighting ever since. The Intelligent Design movement is only their latest effort. Court cases like the one last year in Dover, Pa show perhaps that they will not have an easy time of it. That's good news for those of us on the side of evolution where I clearly put myself. I put myself there because I don't believe that Intelligent Design theory is science at all as its proponents claim. I would agree with the court decision that they are trying to sneak religion - their particular brand of religion - the biblical literalism of the creationists - into the public school system. If they were to succeed, it would undermine and compromise or at least confuse the teaching of science - especially, evolutionary biology. It would be one thing to discuss Intelligent Design and other religious theories of creation in a social studies class or a course on comparative religions but it would be totally inappropriate to masquerade it as science.
OK, so I want to join the rising chorus of concerned voices who see this Intelligent Design movement as another foray of what has been called the fundamentalist jihad against evolution. There is another reason for speaking up about this. Not only is ID bad science - or non-science, it is also not very good theology. You could say that it is a simplistic Deism by which God is like a great watch maker who created the world and then left it to run on its own. That is one of their own examples. ID proponents say they want to show - from the complexity of nature - that there had to be an intelligent designer. They are offended or fearful of the seemingly Godless theory of evolution which apparently sees no need for God in the Darwinian process of natural selection. Now it is true that there are some scientists and proponents of evolution who are atheists believing in no God or agnostics who aren't sure about God, but there are plenty of people of faith who think that evolution makes lots of sense and who also believe in God. Call it "theistic evolution." How do we put it together? Well, for one thing you have to look at the Bible differently. I believe that the Bible is "The Word of God" that it was inspired by God, but through many people and generations and in many different situations. As I've said before, the Genesis story is not even about how the world was created in any modern scientific sense. It is primarily about who did the creating. Those 6th century BC exiles needed to retell their story to their own people and to succeeding generations - to promote their God, Yahweh, in the face of the Babylonian fertility gods and astrology gods - and also to promote their way of life which centered around the Sabbath - and so "God rested on the 7th day and you should too!" they said to one another. The imagery fits a pre-scientific world view with a flat earth! How is it that light appears before the sun and moon anyway? So it is not "true" as science or geological history, but Genesis in particular, and the Bible in general contains another kind of truth - theological truth - truth about the nature of God and of our relationship to God and to the rest of creation.
When we add the Christian story to the creation story (and to the rest of the Hebrew scriptures), we have a compelling narrative of the God who - in the words of our United Church of Christ statement of faith, calls the worlds into being, creates humankind in the divine image and who seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin through Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church.
So we can resolve the faith/science dilemma by saying they are different subjects - answering different questions. Science is about the "How" and Faith is about the "Who" of creation, salvation, and inspiration. Galileo himself is famous for saying that "faith teaches us how to go to heaven. Science teaches us how the heavens go." Steven Gould, a modern geologist, says "faith is about the Rock of Ages, and geology is about the ages of rocks."
But in another sense this still begs the question of how God creates. Is there a way to relate science and faith without resorting to the special creation of the IDers? Can evolution and God really go together? Yes. There are many ways. And here is a strange irony. I think that you and I are just as concerned to promote God - to convey to each other and to the people around us the power and love of God - as are our more fundamentalist sisters and brothers. I just don't think we need to knock evolutionary science out of the way to do it. In fact, science can be a friend of faith. For example, when I look out at the universe on a clear winter night and see the stars and think of the vastness of it all, I experience awe and wonder. It's a short step from there to worshipping the God who I believe created it all and who continues to be intimately involved in the swirling galaxies and in your life and mine. I feel the same way about the whole process of evolution. That too, is an amazing thing full of wonder and mystery, even though we understand quite a lot about it. Scientific discovery leads to more wonder as we continue to probe the mysteries of creation. But I don't need science to "prove my faith." I do in fact see plenty of evidence of a caring and incredibly imaginative creator in the variety of birds that land on our feeder or in the sound of my grand daughter's giggle, but I don't need even that to prove God's existence. I already look at nature through the lens of faith and "know" that God is here. That sense of God's caring presence is grounded and deepened in Bible study, prayer, and the fellowship of the church - this church - and the wider church. You help me to know and to experience that the God-of-creation-as-evolving-nature is real. We do that for one another.
So then, far from threatening each other, faith and science are two distinct but complementary ways of knowing and understanding the gift of life, a gift that I also believe God wants us to care for and pass on to future generations of people and other living things through careful conservation of this ancient and amazing creation. Let us join in prayer to our creator God.
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Thank you, wondrous God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe - thank you for calling the worlds into being and for the miracle of life. Thank you for your powerful and patient Holy Spirit brooding over the primordial waters and evolving ever more complex forms of life from simple ones. Stir in us a sense of kinship with our fellow humans, with all other living things, and with the earth itself. Though we are but insignificant specks in the vastness of time and space, you have blessed us with a still evolving capacity to comprehend the wonders of nature and all creation and to worship and adore you. Give us wisdom and courage and faith for the living of these days. Bring healing and hope to those we know to be in need and guide us in helping to bring about your Kingdom of peace with justice on earth as it is in heaven. We humbly and hopefully ask all this in the name and spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Selected readings:
Ian Barbour, Religion and Science, Harper/Collins, 1997
Francis S. Collins, The Language of God, Free Press (Simon and Schuster), 2006
Niles Eldredge, Darwin, Norton, 2005
Bruno Leone, Ed., Creationism vs. Evolution, Greenhaven Press, 2002
Ashley Montagu, Ed., Science and Creationism, OxfordU. Press, 1984
Michael Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle, HarvardU. Press, 2005
Claude Villee, Biology, W. B. Saunders, 1962
David Wilcox, God and Evolution, Judson Press, 2004
FROM TEMPTATION TO ADAPTATION
IN OUR EVOLVING CONGREGATION
(From selfish preoccupation to communal adaptation)
By Rev. Dr. Led Baxter
OldSteepleCommunityChurch, United Church of Christ
Feb 10, 2008 - Lent I and "Evolution Sunday"
Matthew 4:1-11 The Temptation of Jesus
I Corinthians 12:27 "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."
Let us hear the Word of the Lord and know that by the Grace and Spirit of God we can become the creatures God calls us to be.
Today has been declared "Evolution Sunday" by a group of clergy and congregations -775 of us across the country who understand and want to promote the view that faith and science can - and must work together. There are some in the Christian church, as you probably know, who don't think that is true - who would tell you that you have to choose between a literal understanding of the creation story in Genesis and a scientific understanding of life evolving over millions - even billions of years on this planet. These literalists or "Creationists" are a militant group. There is even a new CreationMuseum in Petersburg, Kentucky that goes to great lengths to make the claim that the earth and everything in it was created in 6 literal days just 6000 years ago. Of course, anyone with an 8th grade science education knows that that is absurd. In my sermon about this last year I essentially said that science and faith employ different languages and concepts for understanding reality. As Galileo, the inventor of the telescope said 400 years ago, the Bible tells us how to go to heaven and science tells us how the heavens go. Biology and Theology are like separate subjects in the same one room school house. To some extent we need to keep them separate.
Today, however, having made that point earlier, I'd like to open up the dialogue between faith and science a little more by exploring with you the idea that churches - congregations like ours - are highly evolved life forms - and that we can - carefully - bring the languages of theology and biology together and experience a living transformation FROM TEMPTATION TO ADAPTATION IN OUR EVOLVING CONGREGATION.
It may seem like a stretch - talking about Evolution on the First Sunday in Lent - or evolution and temptation in the same breath - here's how I see it - Lent is about reflecting on our human nature and on our relationship with God. It is a special opportunity to "repent" - to turn away from our anxious selfish tendencies and toward a more loving and generous way of life. Although we are responsible for our actions, the selfishness isn't exactly our fault because in our biological evolution we are "hard wired" for self preservation and it does, or did once serve a purpose.
Back in the days when our ancestors were hunting and running from the saber toothed tiger on the savannah, life really was a matter of survival of the fittest and the fastest. In fact our basic instincts to feed ourselves reach far back down the tree of life. Evolution is a cumulative process so you could say that our highly evolved human brains are built on top of our much more ancient "alligator brains" from our reptilian ancestors - way back there. I mean, look at what happens at the grocery store when we are threatened with a major snow storm - or the need for snacks on Superbowl Sunday. Watch how fast those shelves clean out when a whole herd of humans is hungry.
So it's "natural" for us to just grab what we can for ourselves. It's right here in the Bible. Under the stress and duress of his wilderness trial, Jesus himself is tempted to "sell out" to these baser, more primitive instincts -
Ø He is faint with hunger - and maybe hallucinating a little so he dreams of somehow magically turning the desert stones into loaves of bread. The message is "Just get what you can for yourself right now and don't even think about anybody or anything else."
Ø Jesus would also - naturally - want some fame and recognition - it would help to launch him on his new ministry - make it easier maybe - and he gets an idea for a great publicity stunt - Throw yourself off the temple - without a bungee cord - and live to tell about it.
Ø Finally, he imagines himself becoming very powerful - like the Emperor in Rome - where he could rule over all the kingdoms of the world. He'd be a benevolent ruler, of course, who could do a lot of good for many people with all that power.
But even in his weakened and vulnerable state, Jesus realizes that all those temptations are traps. They will limit his ministry, not expand it. All that raw power would make him just another emperor - if he went that path. To simply serve his own needs and worldly lusts will negate his purpose as the non-violent, suffering Son of God. And so he responds to the manipulations of the tempter out of his understanding of the scriptures and his deep relationship with God - in each case referring the devil himself back to the love and power of God. In his resistance to all these temptations Jesus demonstrates both that he is a human being - he feels the primitive downward pull - and that he is a highly evolved spiritual being who sees clearly a greater vision fueled by God's all embracing love that in the long run will help the human race survive and thrive by practicing forgiveness and peace on a large scale.
During his life and even more so following his death and resurrection, Jesus' early followers are captivated by this loving Spirit - this power to love and forgive one another - to build faith communities that actually provide for one another's basic needs where necessary and that challenge the prevailing culture of greed and excess - all those primitive, worldly temptations. Even though some of these Christians died at the hands of a resistant and jealous empire, the church adapted, survived, and thrived and eventually transformed the empire itself.
This congregation is modeled on those early faith communities. As a Christian congregation, we are called to be the embodiment of this same suffering and loving Christ. To the extent that we actually do that, we are one of the most highly developed human life forms. Let me say that again - Christian congregations are highly developed human life forms - that thrive best when we practice love and forgiveness and when we adapt to our changing circumstances. What makes us so highly developed and able to adapt is our ability to cooperate, to collaborate, to work together in the name and Spirit of something much greater than our individual needs - in a way that reaches out to meet and serve the needs of others.
Strangely and wonderfully, the ability to work together - to cooperate with one another for a common purpose is also built into our makeup. Like the selfishness that pulls us apart, this drive to pool our energy also seems to be deep in our DNA. In the faith and science dialogue here is one of the ways that it might make sense to talk about God driving or guiding the process of evolution: Evolution is all about adaptation. Life has developed or evolved on this planet into increasingly complex forms as various species have adapted to their circumstances, to their environments. So an octopus with its long tentacles is well adapted to catch the fish that swim by its watery lair. The cheetah that can run like the wind is well adapted to catch the gazelle on the African plain. We humans with our opposable thumbs that can grasp things and our large brains that can grasp ideas are well adapted to be on the fast track of technological development - with all of its promises and dangers.
But something else is going on in the process of evolution that seems to run right up the tree of life - living things, from the simplest organisms to the most highly developed ones seem to have an ability to work together to accomplish much more - to adapt much more readily - than any single organism can do alone.
If you have a computer and internet access, you can actually see this dramatically illustrated on a web site that I've listed in the bulletin www.dictybase.org Here there are amazing little video clips of color enhanced slime mold formations where you can see the individual amoeba like cells within the slime mold organism swirling around - all in the same direction - and actually moving this primitive living substance into an upright position as it follows light. What is impressive about this stuff is that there appears to be a high degree of cooperation among the slime cells to make that happen. There is some kind of purposeful, organized, cooperative activity going on in this very basic life form. The slime mold survives and thrives precisely because the cooperative internal activity helps it to adapt to its surroundings - to move where it needs to go to receive energy from the light. There is even a kind of sacrifice involved as some of the individual cells in the slime slugs move to the bottom of the stalk to form a base and in so doing give up their reproductive options. It's amazing! (Evolution for Everyone, pp. 129 - 132). We could make the same point more easily perhaps with a bee hive or an ant colony or a pack of timber wolves. All through nature the individual creatures work closely together and move as one to function effectively in their environment.
As a further extension on this same tree of life, we humans could learn something from our more humble cousins in the animal kingdom - that it is in our own best interest to work together. When we do that - helping and not hurting each other in caring relationships, in nurturing families, in supportive congregations and communities - we do better and we live longer. Civilization has advanced primarily through times of peace and harmony, not in war and deadly conflict. High culture - art, music, and literature arises when there is a stable and sustainable base to support it.
Of course, we humans are more complex than bees or ants or slime mold. We value the individual in a way that other creatures may not, and we believe deeply that we need to balance individual freedom with social responsibility. What is exciting to me in all of this is that we have the opportunity of a life time to put all that together right here at OldSteepleChurch. Kind of like the swirling dictybase where you can see the individual cells working intensely together, we are "a body" - the Body of Christ - and individually members of it. I believe that the church will survive and thrive to the degree that we are able to truly work together to seek out and be nourished by the Light of Christ and "reach out with God's own loving arms" or "cast our fish nets" into the world around us. It's even better and more life sustaining for everyone if we can coordinate ourselves with other like minded congregations in highly organized ways -such as the Riverhead Clergy Council and the Long Island Council of Churches and the Long Island Organizing Network and the New York Conference of the United Church of Christ.
Now, someone might say, "This idea that cooperation helps us to adapt and evolve is all very interesting, but it seems highly theoretical. How does this grand theory affect our daily lives?" Well, think of what happens when we don't work together - when we become alone and separate and distant from one another. Then things fall apart. There is not much energy for truly caring for one another. At best the church becomes preoccupied with survival - trying desperately to turn those stones into bread.
How well I remember a little old dying congregation out in the middle of a hilly corn field in rural PA near where we first served in ministry. There were 2 or 3 families who clung tenaciously like fungus on a log to their ancient dilapidated building - and to the cemetery. In fact, the maintenance of the cemetery seemed to be the real reason for their existence. This is what happens when a church becomes totally focused on its own need, doesn't really work together, and doesn't adapt at all or reach out to the surrounding community.
In contrast, we see churches across the country - not just the fast growing mega churches, but smaller and mid size churches like ours that are developing small group ministries and outreach programs that are meaningful and energizing for the members and that make a difference in the community. We are already on that track. We have every reason not only to survive but to thrive - to "go forth and multiply" as we extend our reach by working effectively as the Body of Christ that we are called to be. It will be to everyone's benefit and blessing to do this.
Adapting by cooperatively moving toward the light -That's what the dictybase does. So then, with Jesus as our highly evolved brother and guide, we can resist the temptation to become preoccupied with our mere survival and respond to his call to be his loving, caring, transforming Body on this earth. We do this in part by building on our God given capacity to cooperate - to work together in one happy swirling group of believers reaching for the light FROM TEMPTATION TO ADAPTATION IN OUR EVOLVING CONGREGATION.
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Let us pray that we might continue to evolve - to become - the people and the church that God calls us to be - Creator of the universe, master of the majestically swirling galaxies, you have brought the worlds into being and created us in your own image. Wondrous God, you have made us with minds that are endlessly curious and full of questions. We are eager to understand how it all works. Thank you for sending Jesus Christ to also show us your way of love to help us to evolve more fully into the caring and sharing people you call us to be. You have placed a love for others in our hearts and it is out of that love that we offer our prayers today - Amen.
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Resources for Evolution Sunday:
www.ucc.org - "Big Things" (on top horizontal menu bar); Science and Technology Pastoral letter; link to John Thomas's excellent pastoral letter on faith and science
www.dictybase.org - Pictures/videos (on left hand menu); morphogenesis; prestalk cells during culmination.
Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives, by David Sloan Wilson
PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS EVOLVE!
By Rev. Dr. Led Baxter
Old Steeple Community Church, United Church of Christ
Aquebogue, NY February 8, 2009
Ephesians 1:3-10 I imagine the author of this encouraging letter to the Ephesian church to be overflowing with gratitude and joy as he writes about the glorious grace that God freely bestowed on us and lavished on us in giving us Jesus Christ. In verse 8, 9, and 10 he says, with all wisdom and insight (God) has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him(in Christ), things in heaven and things on earth.
I understand that to mean that the big picture of God's plan "for the fullness of time" is that everything and everyone would be brought together, related and connected through the love of God that we see in Jesus. I am among those more 11,000 clergy in this country who have signed on to "The Clergy Letter Project" who think that God's plan for unity includes a unity of thought in bringing together the realms of science and faith. To see evolution and the Bible as mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. Fundamentalists and Atheists both miss the point in perpetuating that conflict. And so today we are again recognizing Evolution Sunday as a time to continue and encourage the faith and science conversation. I do welcome your thoughts and your continued interest in this important dialogue.
Listen to the words of the Thomas Troeger anthem today that sings of the interconnectedness of all things - how much we are a part of creation - not standing above or outside it. "The sea flows in our veins. The dust of stars is spun -to form our DNA - the coiled encoded skeins by which our cells are run - Each breath is borrowed air." All of life is a gift ultimately on loan from the Creator of the universe. Let us PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS EVOLVE!
~ Anthem ~
Feb 12, Abraham Lincoln's birthday, is also - this year - the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Birthday. And it is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's most famous book, The Origin of Species in which he outlined his basic theory of evolution based on the process of "descent with modification" by means of "natural selection" - that living creatures become increasingly complex - over a long period of time - as they adapt naturally to new situations. Scientists learned nearly a century later - in the 1950's that the ones that do this successfully do so by passing their genetic makeup - their DNA - on to the next generation. It's as simple - and as difficult - as that.
I am quoting extensively today from Michael Dowd's fascinating new book, Thank God for Evolution. He and his wife Connie Barlow have become traveling "evolutionary evangelists." They have made it their mission to bring science and faith together by telling THE GREAT STORY of the creation and evolution of the universe.
THE GREAT STORY (also known as the Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, or Evolutionary Epic) is humanity's common creation story. It is the 14 billion year science-based sacred story of cosmic genesis, from the formation of the galaxies and the origin of Earth life, to the development of self-reflective consciousness and human technology, to the emergence of comprehensive compassion and tools to assist humanity in being a blessing to the larger body of life. (From www.TheGreatStory.org)
THE GREAT STORY
is a way of telling the history of everyone and everything that honors and embraces all religious traditions and creation stories. It is the sacred narrative of an evolving Universe of emergent complexity and breathtaking creativity and cooperation ? a story that offers each of us the opportunity to find meaning and purpose in our lives and our time in history.
Five Unique Characters of The Great Story
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1. The Great Story is the story of the changing story. Whenever a new discovery is made in the sciences, this creation story changes. Change is to be welcomed ? not feared.
2. The Great Story is a creation story that is not yet over. Evolutionary change at all levels (cosmos, planetary, life, culture) will continue into the future, and we humans bear a responsibility for how the story will continue on Earth.
3. The Great Story is a new creation story shaped with a planetary perspective to which all cultures contribute. Because the scientific enterprise is now global in scope, this story necessarily has its origins and ongoing influences centered at the scale of the whole Earth ? influenced by peoples of all ethnicities, all religious traditions, and hailing from all bioregions. (This is the unity character.)
4. The Great Story is radically open to multiple interpretations. Because the empirical and theoretical sciences search entirely for material explanations of the world, whenever one ventures into the realm of meaning or into the realm of spirit, the interpretations necessarily go beyond the science. And yet, make meaning we must! Humans are intrinsically meaning-makers, whether we construe that meaning to be innate in the cosmos or created by the human mind. (This is the diversity character.)
5. The Great Story manifests synergistic coherence between science, religion, and the needs of today's world. Because the creation stories of classical religions and primary peoples were birthed well prior to the discoveries of an evolutionary universe, these stories can at best be reconciled with scientific awareness. In contrast, The Great Story grounds its celebratory creation story on the contributions of the scientific endeavor, and the interpretations are nuanced to be empowering for today's concerns.
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So how does this "Great Story" match up with our Judeo Christian Biblical Story of Creation and God and human nature? Well, it potentially includes our story and the creation stories of all faith traditions as long as people are willing to accept the universal language of science.
But let's back up for a second. We've talked before about how it is helpful to separate science and faith. For one thing they are asking different questions. Science is about how things work. Faith is about Who keeps it all going. The Bible is not a science book. The creation story in Genesis - written about 500 years before the time of Jesus - is based on a "Flat Earth Faith." People then saw all of creation as a big disc with a dome over the top. The disc was the earth and seas. The dome was the sky. The sun, moon and stars were holes in the dome. And God sat up above the dome some where. After all, that is what the world looks like if you stand outside anywhere. It is only in the last 500 years or so that we began to understand that the earth goes around the sun - not the other way around. So one way to break up the fight between science and faith is to see that they are concerned with different realms - Astronomy describes the physical universe. The Bible invites us into a relationship with God - who we believe created this awesome universe.
The problem with keeping them too separate is that you get scientists who don't appreciate God and deeply religious people who don't understand much science. The new story, the Great Story celebrates the scientific discoveries of astronomy, geology, anthropology, and biology and seeks a way to integrate this new knowledge - to bring science and faith back together - with a deep trust in God through "evolutionary faith."
Evolutionary faith tells us that the universe is not a mere 6000 years old as some Biblical literalists actually still insist, but more like 14.5 billion years old. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The story of biological evolution tells us that life originated here about 3 billion years ago and that all of life had arisen from simple single celled animals to complex creatures like ourselves. Now we can begin to see that we are really thinking, worshipping star dust - the universe reflecting on itself. (p 53)
Why should we thank God for evolution or PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSING EVOLVE? There are many connections. I'll name a few that jump out at me.
The Key theme is: "Nested Emergence" (p 86) - each new reality growing out of and resting in the previous one. Think of Russian dolls nested inside one another. (Show the dolls) "We now know that stars create almost all the atoms on the periodic table of elements. (Did you have chemistry somewhere along the line?) Atoms in community give rise to molecules. Molecules assemble into living cells. Out of cells emerge multicellular plants, animals, and fungi. Ants, termites, crows, prairie dogs, and human beings generate societies. Societies spawn cultures and technologies. Cultures - at least human ones - yield artistic and religious expression. And - this is where the faith comes in - the creativity of all of it, at every level, is possible only because of the Ultimate Whole of Reality, which (we could) enthusiastically call "God."
... Creation is a self-organizing, nested, emergent process of divine creativity - creative wholes that are part of larger creative wholes within still larger wholes." Philosopher Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of Everything, predicts that this view of reality will be the first principle, the solid foundation, for 21st century science, philosophy, and theology.
These are big ideas - huge ideas! So, practically speaking, how does this new evolutionary way of looking at God and all of creation help us?
Evolution is helpful, for example, in understanding and accepting our own human development - especially the more aggressive and needy parts of ourselves. Remember that catch phrase from high school biology - "ontongeny recapitulates phylogeny?" In other words each later more complex development in the tree of life is built on the previous ones. So we humans carry within ourselves some of the characteristics of our more primitive ancestors. Are we related to monkeys and gorillas? Absolutely! They are among our closest cousins on the tree of life. Does that bother you? Get over it, says Rev. Michael Dowd. We are also related to zucchini!
Regarding our place in the animal kingdom, Michael talks about this in a child friendly way as 3 stages. From way back there is our "lizard legacy." Our reptilian ancestors and their modern descendents were and are interested primarily in food, fighting, and sex. Does any of that sound familiar? Some would say that pretty much sums up the modern American male. This may sound funny - and it can be a problem - but how liberating to realize that all those powerful drives are wired into us - men and women - from way back. Just understanding that reality can help us to be more self accepting which is a form of grace. It was also at this stage of our evolutionary development that we learned to walk and breathe. We need to appreciate, respect and embrace and govern our Lizard Legacy, but not try to escape it or deny it.
A later major stage is the "furry l'il mammal." All our drives toward status and our needs for affection - our emotions began to evolve at this point. We can see that cats and dogs and apes have feelings. It's part of why they are such great companions. (Well, the cats and dogs are anyway :-)
Then in a more recent stage of our evolution, our forebrains really took off and we developed what Michael light heartedly calls "our higher porpoise." We now have the capacity - if we choose to use it - to think deep thoughts, to engage in the symbolic sounds and writing of language. And we can regulate those more ancient urges and channel our energy in ways that benefit others as well as ourselves.
Just knowing all this about ourselves is a gift and a blessing. It is a matter of faith as well as science, because God is in and through it all. In this view, God is not "outside" of reality sitting on an invisible throne above the heavenly dome as the ancients thought or "watching from a distance" as the Bette Midler song says. God is that which embraces everything else - like the largest nesting doll that encloses all the others. (Show Russian dolls.) But God is also - as Jesus said - within us and among us. "God" in this new understanding "is no less than a holy name for Supreme Wholeness, that Ultimate Creative Reality that brought - and is still bringing - everything step-by-step into existence" (p282) while being completely in that existence.
This means, of course, that since God includes all that God has created and is not separate from it, we ought to be very concerned about every one and every thing around us. If we pollute the earth, we pollute God - and ourselves.
Jesus is, of course, the supreme example of God in nature - or God as nature by becoming one of us. In this interpretation of the Christian Gospel, "Jesus as God's way, truth, and life" means that to the extent that we live in harmony with God and the universe - or with "evolutionary integrity," as Jesus lived then we are living God's way, manifesting God's truth, and bringing God's vitality and life-enhancing service into the world.(p337) The love that Jesus showed us is also there for us - if we open our eyes and our hearts to it - in every tree and flower, every endangered creature, and in every sunset over the Sound.
Thank God for Evolution! And PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL our BLESSINGS EVOLVE!
Let us pray to and with the source and sum of life itself!
Creator of the universe, you in whom we live and move and have our being, you have made us in your image not for us to stand above the rest of creation, but to live in harmony with everything and everyone since we are all a part of you. Help us to feel deeply our connection with all of the rest of life - the people around us - and also the animals and the plants, the forests and the fields, the rivers and the oceans, the mountains and the plains. Thank you, awesome God, for creating us from star stuff and then evolving us into creatures who can look up and out and back to our beginnings. Guide us to be loving and careful with ourselves and all of reality so that we are helping you with your dream of uniting all things in the kind of love that Jesus brought us.
With that love, we reach out with our hearts now to all those in need this day as we silently pray. Amen.
Additional thoughts
- We are both remote and special - The scale of things: In one sense we may feel insignificant - a tiny spec on the edge of a far flung galaxy - but each of us is also the result - so far - if 14+ billion years of cosmic evolution. Does that make you feel at least a little "special?"
- We are related to everything -
89 Ancestral stars are part of our genealogy
Nat. Geog, Feb, 2009, pp64,65- same gene for bird songs and human speech
- Evolution as "Purposeful" - even though mutations are "random"?
- One thing is crucial - that we align our self-interest with the Well-being of the Whole of creation.
What gives us the ability to give of ourselves is that somehow we are able to see beyond ourselves to a larger goodness. Sharon Parks, who teaches developmental psychology and faith education at Harvard Divinity School says, “Human beings bear a consciousness of something beyond the immediate. Human life finds itself forever on the thresholds of time, space, and of the unseen – “reaching up to the gates of Heaven while one foot is slipping off the edge of the Abyss.” (Philip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain, 1954, pp 8-16) In spite of the massive evidence of the mundane and the ugly in our experience, we human beings tenaciously harbor the conviction that we were “made for more.” Something more was promised. There is more for us to live into, to embrace, or to be embraced by. We have a sense that we participate in something wider and deeper than we have yet realized – a more inclusive patterning of relation, a more profound ordering of justice, a richer loving of life in its manifold forms … Having the capacity to intuit the whole, we have the capacity for faith. (Parks, The Critical Years, p 108).
The disciples – and we – looking over their shoulders – get a glimpse of that “something more” that we are made for in the Transfigured Christ who is aglow with the promise of a more altruistic humanity where all of the law and the prophets and the love of God come together. The biblical and biological hope is that we are still evolving into that kinder, more altruistic humanity that – in spite of our sinful, selfish, destructive nature - we can yet become.
The catch is that we need to help the process along. We cannot afford to just wait and see how it all turns out. Our selfishness has become dangerous – climate change, terrorism, continuing poverty and hunger, and corporate greed – are all symptoms of the collective selfishness that threatens to undo us all. The hope is that our faith will evolve to the point where our altruism overcomes our selfishness on a large scale.
What would a more fully evolved faith look like? I’d like to hear your answer to that. To stimulate your thinking, the bulletin insert today offers Eight Dimensions of “Mature Faith.” Would you read them with me as a kind of affirmation of OUR EVOLVING FAITH today.
(Begin each point with “Mature Faith …”)
1. Trusts in God's saving grace and believe firmly in the humanity and divinity of Jesus.
2. Experiences a sense of personal well-being, security and peace.
3. Integrates faith and life, and sees work, family, social relationships and political choices as part of religious life.
4. Seeks spiritual growth through study, reflection, prayer and discussion with others.
5. Seeks to be part of a community of believers in which people witness to their faith and support and nourish one another.
6. Holds life affirming values; including a commitment to racial and gender equality, an affirmation of cultural and religious diversity, and a personal sense of responsibility for the welfare of others.
7. Advocates social and global change to bring about greater social justice.
8. Serves humanity consistently and passionately through acts of love and justice.
(Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, “What Makes Faith Mature,” Christian Century, May 9, 1995)
Can our own faith formation or evolution make a difference?
An ancient Chinese voice of wisdom that goes well with our Christian perspective says,
If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person;
If there is light in the person, there will be harmony in the house;
If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation;
If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
Brian Luke Seaward, StandLikeMountain, Flow Like Water, pp 295, 296
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Let us pray together – and today I invite you to pray the same words with me each time I pause …
O God of love … Who is always reaching out to me through other people … In the secrecy of my own soul … I acknowledge that I have shied away from you … I am truly sorry for my self-centered attitude and ways … I am willing to turn from this sinful nature … and so I surrender my control over my capacity to change myself … I cannot do it alone …
At the same time … I see my capacity to care for others … to be kind, to be altruistic … I openly receive your love … as brought to the world … including me … through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the gift of His Holy Spirit … Only you can save me from myself … and transform me into the caring person that you want me to be. Amen.
And let us continue to pray - altruistically - for the needs of others...Haiti, Soldiers, Sick and Sorrowing, etc.
Amen.
OUR EVOLVING FAITH
By Rev. Dr. Led Baxter
OldSteepleCommunityChurch, UCC, Aquebogue, NY
February 14, 2010
Luke 9:28-36 The Transfiguration of Jesus
May our own lives be transformed as we gaze upon the transfigured Christ
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It was a bitterly cold winter Saturday. But the sun was out and people were walking by the riverfront. Some children were playing on a pier that reached out into the water. Suddenly a shrill cry came from the river – a child had fallen in. Just as suddenly – a man who was standing nearby chatting with friends tore off his coat, jumped into the frigid water and pulled the child to safety.
A mother with a bad back was cleaning up her kitchen. She could see from the window over the sink that her teen age son was working on his car in the driveway. He was underneath the car with just his legs sticking out. He must have tugged at a bolt or something because the jack slipped and the car came down on top of him. Without hesitation, the mother ran outside, grabbed the bumper and single handedly with seemingly superhuman strength lifted the front end of the car off her son so that he could crawl out.
These are dramatic acts of altruism. Altruism is a fascinating concept that is at the heart of our Christian values. Altruism is concern for the welfare of others – as opposed to concern just for oneself. It is kindness, goodness, selflessness - kindness for its own sake. Love is patient and love is kind, Paul says. So altruistic kindness is an expression of love. To be altruistic is to reign in your own needs – at least temporarily – and to give of oneself to others without counting the risk, or the cost, or the consequences.
Where does our capacity for altruism come from? If we could understand that, we might increase the altruism. We’re pretty nice already – most of the time, but we could become even kinder, more loving people. We could become a more caring community – and the world would be a better place. I think that both faith and science offer us insights about altruism.
Regarding our on-going exploration of the relationship of Science and faith: This is our 4th “Evolution Sunday.” I continue to be committed to the point of view that we need to see science and faith as partners, not enemies – particularly in this “conversation” that we’ve been having between biology and the Bible. Science has much to teach us about the role of cooperation and altruism in our evolutionary development. Our Faith tradition has much to teach us about the value and the urgency of altruism for our survival as a species and as a planet. The whole point of this interdisciplinary dialogue is to better understand our own nature and destiny as God’s creatures on this earth. So, I’d like to explore with you this morning the great hope for humanity that we can see in the Transfiguration of Jesus and in a scientific, evolutionary understanding of altruism – all for the sake of OUR EVOLVING FAITH.
You could say that what we see in the transfiguration of Jesus is a brilliant glimpse of the power of pure altruism - This is what agape’ looks like - totally selfless love embodied in one person. Jesus had just been talking about his own journey to the cross - a relentless drive given his determination to face up to the principalities and powers of this world. He said that there were tough times ahead – for him – and by implication for his followers. There would be sacrifice and suffering ahead – for him and for them if they stuck with him. And so Jesus dramatically reveals what it would be like to be completely self giving – totally altruistic – and – by implication –if we are true followers of Jesus, this is our destiny too.
Science gives us hope that there is something deep in our DNA that wants to move us toward a more cooperative, altruistic world. There is some controversy about this. Richard Dawkins, a modern atheist, wrote a book in 1976 called The Selfish Gene. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It was quite popular at the time. The basic idea is that our genetic material wants to reproduce itself – that that is the basic drive of life. Altruism is an illusion in this view because it is just one member of a group or tribe helping another for the sake of the survival of that group.
But that doesn’t account for kindness among strangers. I heard of some folks who were stranded in an airport by flight delays. There were a number of restless and fussy children there. One traveler, a kindergarten teacher, offered to create a class right then and there, and – to the delight of the kids – and their parents – transformed a very boring time into an enchanting learning process. You could say that she was just staving off her own boredom, but she didn’t have to give that much of herself. And yet she did.
We bemoan the selfishness in the world – from the aggressive driver who cuts you off at a busy intersection – to the corporate CEO who seems to have no qualms about taking a big bonus – with tax payer bailout money. The evening news is filled with stories of human selfishness.
And yet, there is undeniably also this other kind and caring altruistic side to us that I believe has its roots deep in the evolutionary process. "Cooperation is a form of goodness...We see cooperation (at the most basic levels of life) between molecules, between cells, between organs, between organisms, between groups, and between groups of groups." (Steve Davis, "Altruism: It's Origin, It's Evolution, and it's Discontent") Many animals cooperate and even sacrifice for each other - like some monkeys I read about that will make noises to warm of approaching predators even though it exposes that particular noisy monkey to more danger.
In fact, “much about morals (or human morality) can be explained by evolution. Since humans are social animals and (we) benefit from interactions with others, natural selection (the basic process of evolution) should favor behavior that allows us to better get along with others.” Simply put – when we resolve our difference peacefully, we all get along better and live longer. From the “Talk Origins Archive” www.talkorigins.org It’s not just “survival of the fittest,” but survival of the kindest and most diplomatic. Valentines Day is a good tradition because it emphasizes this loving kindness.
We humans have evolved to a point where we can take altruism to a new level – if we choose to do so. And that, I think, is where faith comes in. The role of faith, it seems to me, is to encourage and grow that natural, evolutionary, God given ability to cooperate – to care about close neighbors and total strangers when we see their need.