The Church must stop trivializing Easter Christians must keep their nerve: the Resurrection isn’t a metaphor, it’s a physical fact.
Private Eye ran a cartoon some years ago of St Peter standing in front of Jesus's Cross and saying to the other Disciples: “It's time to put this behind us now and move on.” It was a satire not on Christian belief, but on politicians and counselors, and their trivializing mantras. It depended on Jesus's death being not just an odd, forgettable event - and that it was His Resurrection, rather than a shoulder- shrugging desire to “move on”, that got the early Christians going.
Easter was the pilot project. What God did for Jesus that explosive morning is what He intends to do for the whole creation. We who live in the interval between Jesus's Resurrection and the final rescue and transformation of the whole world are called to be new-creation people here and now. That is the hidden meaning of the greatest festival Christians have.
This true meaning has remained hidden because the Church has trivialized it and the world has rubbished it. The Church has turned Jesus's Resurrection into a “happy ending” after the dark and messy story of Good Friday, often scaling it down so that “resurrection” becomes a fancy way of saying “He went to Heaven”. Easter then means: “There really is life after death”. The world shrugs its shoulders. We may or may not believe in life after death, but we reach that conclusion independently of Jesus, of odd stories about risen bodies and empty tombs.
But “resurrection” to 1st-century Jews wasn't about “going to Heaven”: it was about the physically dead being physically alive again. Some Jews (not all) believed that God would do this for all people in the end. Nobody, including Jesus's followers, was expecting one person to be bodily raised from the dead in the middle of history. The stories of the Resurrection are certainly not “wish-fulfillments” or the result of what dodgy social science calls “cognitive dissonance”. First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he'd been raised from the dead wasn't an option. Unless he had been.
Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn't have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he's still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he's gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.
The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn't defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon - He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.
Let's be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn't mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God's life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect - and in the whole world.
Now, suddenly, the real meaning of Easter comes into view, as well as the real reason why it has been trivialized and sidelined. Easter is about a new creation that has already begun. God is remaking His world, challenging all the other powers that think that is their job. The rich, wise order of creation and its glorious, abundant beauty are reaffirmed on the other side of the thing that always threatens justice and beauty - death. Christianity's critics have always sneered that nothing has changed. But everything has. The world is a different place.
Easter has been sidelined because this message doesn't fit our prevailing world view. For at least 200 years the West has lived on the dream that we can bring justice and beauty to the world all by ourselves.
The split between God and the “real” world has produced a public life that lurches between anarchy and tyranny, and an aesthetic that swings dramatically between sentimentalism and brutalism. But we still want to do things our own way, even though we laugh at politicians who claim to be saving the world, and artists who claim “inspiration” when they put cows in formaldehyde.
The world wants to hush up the real meaning of Easter. Death is the final weapon of the tyrant or, for that matter, the anarchist, and resurrection indicates that this weapon doesn't have the last word. When the Church begins to work with Easter energy on the twin tasks of justice and beauty, we may find that it can face down the sneers of skeptics, and speak once more of Jesus in a way that will be heard.
Iconoclasm, the destruction of images of Christ, the Virgin, or the Saints, stems from an insufficient appreciation of the full humanity of Christ, and as such it is a heresy. The creation of specific imagery of Christ and other Christian figures did not become prevalent until after the waning of paganism. Iconoclasm was most prevalent during these introductions; by the 8th Century a great deal of superstition had arisen in connection with the images and the debate concerning their use had become contentious (Moss, The Christian Faith, 1957, p.88). Saint John of Damascus clarified the issue of images as it related to Christology, stressing the reality of Christ’s humanity. The Second Council of Nicea in A.D. 787 condemned the iconoclasts and directed pictures be restored to the churches.
Churches north of the Alps not represented at Nicea II rejected the decrees of the council. The Council of Frankfort declared that pictures could be used in churches, but not worshipped (misunderstanding the nuances of Nicea II between "veneration" and "adoration" or worship). The authority of Nicea II was questioned by the theologians of the western Church as late as 1540. The Protestant Reformation ignited a new wave of iconoclasm in the West, especially in the churches of the Puritan, Presbyterian, and Reformed traditions. Iconoclasm did not affect Lutheranism to a great degree - crucifixes, statues, and paintings have been in continuous use in Lutheran worship since the Reformation.
Anglicans had varying views on the subject. The cross and candles upon the Altar were often retained by the high churchmen (for instance, Queen Elizabeth I kept an ornate crucifix in her chapel). Post-Reformation portraiture of Anglican divines such as Cranmer, Andrewes, and Laud demonstrated the development of a type of “Anglican iconography,” as did the continued practice of creating effigies for the monuments of the deceased prelates in English Cathedrals. During the Puritan Commonwealth much ancient Christian art left in place in England at the Anglican Reformation was thoughtlessly defaced (literally - it means to destroy the faces) or otherwise destroyed. Anglo-Catholic churches (from the late 1800s to the present) have brought back the crucifix, icons, and statues of Saints to Anglican places of worship, but the iconographic structure and organization of the images as found in the Eastern churches is often lacking. Indeed, in many parishes proportion and focus are lost amid a sea of statuary and images and a repetition of the crucifix.
While God the Father cannot be pictorially represented (He is never depicted in the icons of the Eastern Church, although He often is in the West - as an elderly mirror image of Christ; this is indeed an example of bad theology), both the Holy Ghost and Christ have been depicted in Eastern iconography, the Spirit as a dove or a tongue of fire, both images with biblical foundations. As Christ was Incarnate and fully assumed our human nature, it is not incorrect that His image can be likened as best we can assume He appeared in the flesh. Honor (veneration) paid to such an image is not to the wood or paint, but to the Person of Christ (just the same as when we bow in the Liturgy at the Name of Jesus, we bow not to vibrations in the air, but to the Incarnate Word). The ability to depict Christ as man, as Incarnate God, speaks to the truth of Christianity - we don’t just worship some unseen Deity. Even though we cannot imagine the glory of God the Father nor create any likeness of Him, we have the human attestation of His nature in the Person of Christ.
I have a Methodist relative (I come from that tradition myself and have a bust of John Wesley on my desk) and she has a picture of Jesus (normal European depiction: flowing blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes) in her bedroom. When I visited her house some time back she mentioned, looking at the picture, that she talks to Him every day. I knew what she meant, as would almost any other Christian. Nobody would think that she spoke to the picture or thought that it had any special power. She had an implicit theory of Christian iconography. She speaks not to the image, but to the One that it represents.
As Christ was Incarnate, we can depict Him and revere His image and likeness. As the Saints were humans, we can do likewise. We cannot think that the images have any value or power in and of themselves. They are not magic. I believe most protestants have an understanding of icons close to the understanding of the Second Council of Nicea, even though they might abhor or question their use in Lutheran, Orthodox, Anglican or Roman Catholic worship. Pictures of Christ (or even the Holy Family, if it is Christmas time) might be set upon the mantle and treated with respect in Christian homes of many traditions. If someone were to come into the home and spit upon the image of Christ or smash the crèche the person would probably be horrified, because they would rightly interpret the attack upon the image as an attack on the idea of Christianity or the person of Jesus. If a Democrat has a picture of Kennedy on the wall or the Republican a picture of Reagan and a visitor looks at the image and expresses pleasure or disdain, almost everyone knows that the displeasure or appreciation is directed at the person, not at the image.
The Affirmation of Saint Louis embraces the Seven Ecumenical Councils without qualification. The Constitution and Canons of the Reformed Episcopal Church states: “Nicea II (787).. is disputed in respect of its ecumenicity and application, though in principle its condemnation of Iconoclasm is conceded to be orthodox.” Therefore, the bulk of classical Anglicanism embraces the theology of Nicea II. The main questions that remain for many classical Anglicans pertain not to the general theological conclusions of Nicea II, but rather to the wording of many of the directives within the pronouncements of the Council. The canons resulting from this council do not just allow for images in places of worship, but direct that images be placed in all churches and that honor be paid to these images through gestures (bowing, kissing, etc), and that those who reject “all ecclesiastical tradition, whether written or non-written” be condemned (something that would have to be reconciled to the Articles and their affirmation that nothing is required than that which can be proven by Holy Scripture). An Anglican service of the Holy Eucharist can be validly celebrated without a cross upon the Holy Table; an Orthodox liturgy (to the best of my knowledge) demands the use of an icon. It is in these regards that many Anglicans still question the “ecumenicity and application” of the council, while readily admitting that its Christology in defense of Christian art and its use is orthodox. If any Anglican you speak with says otherwise, ask him if he has a Nativity set or has sent a Christmas card with the Virgin and Child upon it.
Relics and Pilgrimages
Every year or so I go to a large shrine that houses the mortal remains, the relics, of a man beloved by millions - the shrine is huge and impressive, filled with icons of the man entombed there. There are paintings, busts, and in a museum nearby numerous wax figures. It is the shrine of the 16th president of the United States. Usually I will take a token of my pilgrimage back with me; last time it was a bust of President Lincoln. With this example we see that most people will embark on some manner of pilgrimage in their lives to visit the tomb of a famous person now deceased, even if it is a secular one. All of us visit the graves of those we have loved and lost. Even the most ardent Protestant must admit the similarity between the two practices.
Wheaton College in Illinois has a collection of the "relics" of C.S. Lewis (personal belongings, etc) and many Christians have made pilgrimages to see them. However, there are no indulgences granted for such trips, and no years will be taken off of time to be spent in purgatory. What such pilgrimages will do is help to connect the living with the faithful who have "departed this life in Thy faith and fear" that "we might follow in their good examples."
There should be no objection to pilgrimages to such shrines, either to C.S. Lewis or to Lancelot Andrewes, or to the site of Cranmer or Laud's martyrdom. What most find abhorrent (as the Reformers did in the late Middle Ages) is the creation and selling of relics - body parts taken from the grave, dismembered portions from a desecrated corpse removed from his resting place in Christian burial and sold for profit. There is a great and important difference between visiting the tomb of a faithful Christian and taking parts from that faithful Christian in order to create "a tomb away from the grave." We must ask ourselves if we would approve of the dismemberment of a saintly elder of our family so that a church might have "a piece of her" for the parish.. I would hope not.
As strange as it sounds coming from someone whose been a Christian since 1995, to this day I still manage to go multiple days without much in the way of regular prayer and Bible reading.It hasn't always been this way..
When I first got saved, of course, I would spend hours in prayer and reading the Bible, and enjoying intimate friendship with God. Not a few times I openly wept as I read about Christ in the Gospels, and saw what His love for the despised sinner and the social outcast is like. I realized that nobody is too far gone for Him.. nobody is too sick and scummy. I was a new Christian, and this was the "honeymoon".
But honeymoons end, and everything else that can happen to an earthly marriage can also happen to us in this spiritual marriage. The passion can settle down, things can become routine, we can even end up straying and "cheating". Nowadays all I seem to do is get caught up in the distractions, the distractions even seem to be what define me as a Christian. I've settled in, the passion has chilled, things have become routine and over time falling into sin has even become easier then it used to be. That's me, that's where I'm at.
When I was new Christian I didn't get caught up in nonsense like Church Politics, or in minutia such as how the worship was (or wasn't) done that morning, or what our denomination was (or wasn't) doing nationally or whatever else. It didn't matter.. only Jesus Christ, meaningful fellowship with new friends, and sharing the Gospel with those who didn't know Him mattered.
All of this rhetoric about saving Anglicanism is in fact a distraction for me, as you've certainly already noticed from past posts. "isms" aren't human beings, nor are they sinners in desperate need of forgiveness, nor do "isms" have any real need of being reconciled with God. Anglicanism can sink or swim, in the long run it doesn't really matter.
What matters is that I still need Him to fix me, and you still need Him to fix you. Likewise, we need to be there to help Him fix our other struggling brothers and sisters. To pray beside them and for them, to encourage them, and even to rebuke them.
Yes, my "liberal" friends need me as well. Besides there are no "Liberals", or "Conservatives".. just an earth-load of broken sinners for whom Christ has died.He didn't lay down His life for tags and labels, but rather for you and I. Me?, I'm just a backslider that needs to meet Christ again as if for the first time, as it were.. and so are you.
The honeymoon was easy, but we're in this for the long haul. This is marriage, and marriage is about commitment. So Pray for me, and I'll keep you in prayer as well. And if you ever just want to talk.. I'm here to listen. Drop me a line in the comments section, or in my e-mail.
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy On Me, A Sinner!"
Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward; If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast! And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too. And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay. For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first. To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor. The deed He honors and the intention He commends. Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!
Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hell when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
"God of Wonders" performed by Third Day, and Caedmon's Call.
The music and natural scenery mesh together beautifully in this offering of worship to our God. Maybe it's just the Franciscan bent in me, but this video really got to me.
Whether you are a young-earth creationist, or an old-earth theistic evolutionist is hardly the point. What IS the point is that if we are Christians, we can agree that He is a God of wonders and that you and I, this earth, this universe is His masterwork.
It's hard to understand how anyone can look at this masterwork, and not see a master artist at work. Sure.. there is tragedy as well as beauty in this masterwork, and a whole lot we don't fully understand. There is even that which truly repels us and causes us to ask why: "how could the artist do that, how could He? No artist would ever do such a thing!" But if we stop and pay attention, clearly there is something more and clearly this cannot all be an accident of mere chance.. can it?
According to the theologian Paul Tillich.. once you start asking yourself these sorts of questions, you are already being "religious". For that matter every time you ponder the existence of things like beauty, joy, love, selflessness.. even grief, deep sadness and despair.. you are acknowledging that there is also a vertical (deep) aspect to this world. Everything isn't horizontal (shallow), and once you acknowledge this.. you are in "religious" territory already.
I think St. Paul said it best:
"..His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. " (Roman 1:20a)
Anyway, I didn't mean to go off on a big tangent.. I was just going to post the video and leave it at that.
Lord, Have mercy upon us. Christ, Have mercy upon us. Lord, Have mercy upon us.
O God the Father of heaven, Have mercy upon us. O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy upon us. O God the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Have mercy upon us. O Holy Trinity, One God, Have mercy upon us.
~+~
O God, Eternal Father, Who didst choose the Church of Thine elect before the foundation of the world, Have mercy upon us.
O God, Who on the fall of man didst promise redemption through Thine only-begotten Son, Have mercy upon us.
O God, Who leddest Thy people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron, Have mercy upon us.
O God, Who in the fullness of time didst send Thy Son to be the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King of Thy people Israel, Have mercy upon us.
O God, who by the cross didst bring both jew and gentile into Thy one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, Have mercy upon us.
O Jesus, who hast built Thy Church on the foundation of Thy holy Apostles and Prophets, Have mercy upon us.
O Jesus, calling Thy Church Thy bride, Have mercy upon us.
O Jesus, who in the last great manifestation of Thyself wilt come to deliver Thy Church, Have mercy upon us.
O Jesus, who hast comforted us with the promised glory of the Church Triumphant, Have mercy upon us.
~+~
We sinners beseech Thee to hear us, O Lord Jesus, that as Thou hast promised to avenge Thine own elect, Thou wilt hear us when we call upon Thee, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest pour down plenteously Thy Holy Ghost upon Thy Church, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest endue the clergy with the spirit of power and love, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest vouchsafe unto all Thy people a right apprehension of Christian truth, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest give unto all Christians a right understanding of the grace of the Apostolic ministry, and of the blessed efficacy of Thy sacraments, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That thou wouldest bring back all separatists to the one communion of Thy holy Church, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest vouchsafe unto her the long-desired restoration of her godly discipline, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest richly bless the divided portions of Catholic Christendom, and remove all hindrances to a perfect reunion, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
That Thou wouldest speedily bring this great nation to the knowledge and love of Thy truth, We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord.
~+~
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord. Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, Hear us, O Lord. Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, Have mercy upon us.
Almighty and everlasting God, Who in Christ hast manifested forth Thy glory unto all nations; preserve that which Thy mercy hath wrought, and grant that Thy Church being spread throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of Thy Name. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
The trouble with homo sapiens is that we’re only human. People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges which changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights. The church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy, and has since realized its error. Some church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking, then and now - and the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth in 1809 is a good time to do so.
Theories raised moral questions
But if Darwin’s ideas once needed rescuing from religious defensiveness, they may also now need rescuing from some of the enthusiasts for his ideas. A scientist has a duty to the truth: he or she is called to be fearless in discovering the way the world works. But how a scientific theory is used, and the ways in which ideas can be deployed politically or ideologically, are the responsibility of a less easily defined constituency. 'Darwinism' has become something bigger than Darwin’s own theories, and raises many moral questions. This doesn’t make the church of the 1860s right to have attacked Darwin, but it does suggest that the question is deeper than deciding whose side you would have been on in that historic debate between Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Darwin’s supporter, Thomas Huxley.
Nothing in scientific method contradicts Christian teaching
Darwin was, in many ways, a model of good scientific method. He observed the world around him, developed a theory which sought to explain what he saw, and then set about a long and painstaking process of gathering evidence that would either bear out, contradict, or modify his theory. As a result, our understanding of the world is expanded, but the scientific process continues. In science, hypotheses are meant to be constantly tested. Subsequent generations have built on Darwin’s work but have not significantly undermined his fundamental theory of natural selection. There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching. Jesus himself invited people to observe the world around them and to reason from what they saw to an understanding of the nature of God (Matthew 6: 25-33). Christian theologians throughout the centuries have sought knowledge of the world and knowledge of God. For Thomas Aquinas there was no such thing as science versus religion; both existed in the same sphere and to the same end, the glory of God. Whilst Christians believe that the Bible contains all that we need to know to be saved from our sins, they do not claim that it is a compendium of all knowledge. Jesus himself warned his disciples that there was more that he could say to them and that the Spirit of truth would lead them into truth (John 16:12-13). There is no reason to doubt that Christ still draws people towards truth through the work of scientists as well as others, and many scientists are motivated in their work by a perception of the deep beauty of the created world. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that scientific theories can be overtaken in their turn even as old ideas prove to have an enduring quality. Most of us get by with some version of Newtonian physics and understand little of Quantum Theory. Newtonian ideas suffice for most of our everyday needs - but we now know that we can’t push them too far as there is plenty that they do not adequately explain.
Reaction now seems misguided
Darwin’s meticulous application of the principles of evidence-based research was not the problem. His theory caused offence because it challenged the view that God had created human beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world.
But whilst it is not difficult to see why evolutionary thinking was offensive at the time, on reflection it is not such an earth-shattering idea. Yes, Christians believe that God became incarnate as a human being in the person of Jesus and thereby demonstrated God’s especial love for humanity. But how can that special relationship be undermined just because we develop a different understanding of the processes by which humanity came to be? It is hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was largely based on what we would now call the 'yuck factor' (an emotional not an intellectual response) when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans.
But for all that the reaction now seems misjudged, it may just be that Wilberforce and others glimpsed a murky image of how Darwin’s theories might be misappropriated and the harm they could do. Even if they were blind to the future, it remains that the legacy of Darwin (rather than Darwin’s own achievements) has had a shadow side.
Social misapplication of Darwin
If evolution is continuing, and humanity as we know it is not the final summation of the process, it is not difficult to slip into a rather naive optimism which sees the human race becoming better and better all the time. Despite our vastly expanding technical knowledge, even a fairly cursory review of human history undermines any idea of constant moral progress. Humanity’s advance in terms of technical prowess and achievements has not, to most people’s eyes, fully liberated us from our burdens. Christians believe that all of us are constrained by sin and that only through the death and resurrection of Jesus can we move beyond what constrains us, to a fuller and more human way of living. But Christians are not the only ones who are skeptical of the idea that evolution means moral progress.
Natural selection, as a way of understanding physical evolutionary processes over thousands of years, makes sense. Translate that into a half-understood notion of 'the survival of the fittest' and imagine the processes working on a day-to-day basis, and evolution gets mixed up with a social theory in which the weak perish - the very opposite of the Christian vision in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). This 'Social Darwinism', in which the strong flourish and losers go to the wall is, moreover, the complete converse of what Darwin himself believed about human relationships. From this social misapplication of Darwin’s theories has sprung insidious forms of racism and other forms of discrimination which are more horribly potent for having the appearance of scientific “truth” behind them. Darwin’s immense achievement was to develop a big theory which went a long way to explaining aspects of the world around us. But to treat it as an all-embracing theory of everything is to travesty Darwin’s work. The difficulty is that his theory of natural selection has been so effective within the scientific community, and so easily understood in outline by everybody, that it has been inflated into a general theory of everything - which is not only erroneous but dangerous.
Capacity to love consistent with Darwin
Christians will want to stress, instead, the human capacity for love, for altruism, and for self-sacrifice. There is nothing here which, in principle, contradicts Darwin’s theory. Humanity has acquired the capacity to reflect, to imagine, and to reason from what is known to what is not yet known. Some animals may have these features in a very rudimentary form, but the human capacity is so much greater as to be effectively unique. It is our capacity to imagine other people as more than bodies, but as persons, which marks us out. It is that, above all, which has enabled the human mind and will to achieve so much. And if this capacity - which we can characterize as the capacity for love - is consistent with Darwin’s ideas of natural selection, it suggests that our capacity as a species to act in ways which appear to be against our personal interests has, paradoxically, enabled us to survive as “fitted” to our context and environment. So the pseudo-Darwinian reductionism, which elevates selfishness into a virtue and celebrates power and dominance, is not only a misunderstanding of Darwin but may even contribute to human decline by eroding those aspects of being human which have given us such a natural advantage. Even the more sophisticated versions of 'Social Darwinism', which interpret all human behavior in terms of the struggle for dominance and the maximization of genetic advantage through the generations, risk presenting us with an image of being human which makes us slaves to some kind of evolutionary imperative, as if we are programmed in ways we cannot over-rule. But the point of natural selection is that it is precisely by being most fully human that we demonstrate our fitness. And being fully human means refusing to abdicate our ability to act selflessly or lovingly and to challenge thin concepts of rationality which equate “being rational” to material self interest. It is vital that Darwin’s theories are rescued from political and ideological agendas that are more about controlling human imagination and unpredictability than about good science.
Discerning where culture threatens Christianity
All that I have said so far will remain contentious in some circles. Some Christian movements still make opposition to evolutionary theories a litmus test of faithfulness and - the other side of the coin - many believe Darwin’s theories to have fatally undermined religious belief and therefore reject any accommodation of one by the other. Why should this be?
The Church of England in 1860 was already facing challenges to its former pre-eminence. Freethinking and non-conformist Christianity were confronting the power of the established church - and then came Darwin. These were nervous times for Anglicans, and when worldly power is thought of as God-given, threats to power are perceived as attacks on God. What was true for Anglicans in 1860 is largely true for all kinds of Christians today, although (depending where you are in the world) the threat may be perceived to come from radical Islam, secularism, consumerism or atheism. The cultures within which Christians try to be faithful are widely seen to be hostile, at least in some respects, and discipleship means, at some level, standing against some social trends. The problem for all Christians is discerning where the surrounding culture is really a threat and where it is compatible with our understanding of God. Because “science” has been widely regarded as offering a total theory of everything; because some scientists have encouraged this claim; perhaps because we all know how reliant we are on scientific ideas which we barely understand and which make us nervous of our ignorance; and perhaps because the churches have not been good at equipping people to see God at work in the contemporary world - for all these reasons and others, a parody of science has become a focus for certain forms of social unease. In so far as the practice of science has its hubristic side, there is a case for science to answer. In so far as 'Social Darwinism' has diminished our sense of being human and being in relationships, there are real problems to address. But first it is important to recognize that the anti-evolutionary fervor in some corners of the churches may be a kind of proxy issue for other discontents; and, perhaps most of all, an indictment of the churches’ failure to tell their own story - Jesus’s story - with conviction in a way which works with the grain of the world as God has revealed it to be, both through the Bible and in the work of scientists of Darwin’s caliber.
Rapprochement between Darwin and Christian faith
At a university in Kansas, I asked a biology professor how he coped with teaching Darwin’s theories to students whose churches insisted that evolution was heresy and whose schools taught creationism. “No problem,” he replied, “the kids know that if they want a good job they need a degree, and if they want a degree they have to work with evolution theory. Creationism is for church, as far as they’re concerned. Here, they’re Darwinists.” Perhaps he was over-cynical. But he was also pointing to young lives which could not be lived with integrity - the very opposite of how Christians are called to live. There is no integrity to be found either in rejecting Darwin’s ideas wholesale or in elevating them into the kind of grand theory which reduces humanity to the sum of our evolutionary urges. For the sake of human integrity - and thus for the sake of good Christian living - some rapprochement between Darwin and Christian faith is essential.
Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science - and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well.
I believe in a Generous Orthodoxy as expressed in the Nicene Creed & Definition of Chalcedon. I believe that Life & Salvation are found in Jesus Christ, not in Church Politics.
The Church must stop trivializing Easter
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