SUSAN BROOKS THISTLETHWAITE
Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary
Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite is professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She was president of CTS from 1998-2008.
A Christian Progressive Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin
In my own work as a Christian progressive, I have found evolutionary biology, and especially the Human Genome Project, a source of rich dialogue between theology and science. As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, however, the norm for the relationship between religion and science is anything but productive and respectful. Instead, anti-Darwinist views in conservative and even moderate-to-conservative Christianity have been increasing, especially in the last quarter century.
As a Christian, an advocate of human rights, and a person strongly committed to democratic ideals, I believe Darwin's work was of consummate importance for human progress. I further believe that religious progressives need to speak out more directly against a religious campaign against evolutionary biology. We need to say clearly that this targeting of evolution by conservative Christianity is far more political in origin than it is purely theological.
There is no doubt that Darwin's legacy in science has been vast; the theory of natural selection that gave rise to the Darwinian revolution underlies both theory and method in science. The Darwinian upheaval is just this: the origin of species is bottom up, through natural forces, rather than top-down and fixed like conservative Christian theology in particular would contend.
This is where all the trouble arises. The idea that human life is continuous with other creatures and indeed with the whole planet is a profoundly destabilizing idea for religious and political practices of dominance and control. This whole struggle is more about politics than it is about abstract issues like religious faith and secularism. In the 200 years since Charles Darwin's birth, this has changed very little.
In the England of Darwin's own time, the great Anglican "compromise" had managed to head off the kind of violence and anticlericalism of the French Revolution, but it was a very fragile compromise. Darwin knew well, coming as he did from a family that contained several prominent "freethinkers" who provoked public controversy, how controversial his ideas on the "Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man" would be. In fact, his ideas might be thought to be more than controversial, they could be regarded as treason. People in Darwin's time could go to prison for heresy because it was seditious, undermining the divine origin of the monarchy.
Today's conservative Christian efforts to force school systems to teach "Intelligent Design," a form of creationism, reveals the same kind of political and social ideology as in Darwin's time. Creationism goes hand-in-hand with efforts to claim the United States is a Christian nation. Creationists posit a God who controls the creation; this ideology reinforces political ideas of control of society. This "Christian politics" is sometimes called "dominionism."
Darwin's ideas are considered controversial by these Christian conservatives precisely because they are freeing for democratic process and they are freeing for theological reflection. I have found dialogue with the newer genetics, the astonishing leap forward beyond Darwin, to be particularly thought-provoking.
Unlike conservative Christian theology, progressive Christian theology, especially in its heritage in Protestant liberalism, has long emphasized the continuity of the human with the rest of creation. Progressive Christians by and large oppose regarding human nature as fixed and static and a unique "lord of creation." The inescapable learning from evolutionary biology is that human beings are deeply creatures. We share 90% of our genes with mice. If that doesn't take the "lords of creation" down a peg, I fail to see what will!
Evolutionary biology also teaches us species solidarity. Human beings are so much more alike than they are different from each other. Carol Gilligan, Jean Baker Miller and Nancy Chodorow, feminist psychologists, have shown that human beings are defined by their relationality and connection. Asian feminist theologians such as Chung Hyun Kyung make a similar argument. Genetically speaking, racial distinctions are so minor as to be almost negligible. Racial difference is a political invention for social and economic dominance. Human beings are also "one of a kind," as our DNA "fingerprints" show. Progressives in religion have long emphasized the unique value and distinctiveness of each human being--the individual and her or his uniqueness is a profound good of God's creation. We therefore support human rights, including all women's rights and gay rights, and racial equality as the political practice of valuing human individuality and human freedom.
Evolutionary biology does not exhaust all that theology has to say about human nature. That's where a Christian interpretation of the whole of human nature is a different interpretation that that of the sociobiologists, in particular, many of whom seek a wholly naturalistic explanation for human nature and behavior. But there are large and increasing areas of fruitful dialogue possible, as second and third generation evolutionary biologists nuance their own arguments.
Secularists take issue with the fact that to posit a God is to pose an "unanswerable question" and thus has no place in a reasonable world. In progressive theology, however, unanswerable questions are not regarded as barriers, but doorways for religious contemplation.
An infinite God can neither be proved nor disproved. Religion and science are, in the end, different ways of knowing. I know several scientists who acknowledge that science is a branch of philosophy; science does not need to replace other epistemologies to do its work.
What is so exciting about some of the new dialogues between religion and science is the imaginative play that results from this simple acknowledgment. I believe that human beings are both spirit and matter, but these are not wholly separate and certainly not opposed. I find the ways science helps us explore the material nature of humanity can also illuminate aspects of the spiritual. That's only possible if religion and science quit pointing fingers at each other, however.
Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary
Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite is professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She was president of CTS from 1998-2008.
A Christian Progressive Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin
In my own work as a Christian progressive, I have found evolutionary biology, and especially the Human Genome Project, a source of rich dialogue between theology and science. As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, however, the norm for the relationship between religion and science is anything but productive and respectful. Instead, anti-Darwinist views in conservative and even moderate-to-conservative Christianity have been increasing, especially in the last quarter century.
As a Christian, an advocate of human rights, and a person strongly committed to democratic ideals, I believe Darwin's work was of consummate importance for human progress. I further believe that religious progressives need to speak out more directly against a religious campaign against evolutionary biology. We need to say clearly that this targeting of evolution by conservative Christianity is far more political in origin than it is purely theological.
There is no doubt that Darwin's legacy in science has been vast; the theory of natural selection that gave rise to the Darwinian revolution underlies both theory and method in science. The Darwinian upheaval is just this: the origin of species is bottom up, through natural forces, rather than top-down and fixed like conservative Christian theology in particular would contend.
This is where all the trouble arises. The idea that human life is continuous with other creatures and indeed with the whole planet is a profoundly destabilizing idea for religious and political practices of dominance and control. This whole struggle is more about politics than it is about abstract issues like religious faith and secularism. In the 200 years since Charles Darwin's birth, this has changed very little.
In the England of Darwin's own time, the great Anglican "compromise" had managed to head off the kind of violence and anticlericalism of the French Revolution, but it was a very fragile compromise. Darwin knew well, coming as he did from a family that contained several prominent "freethinkers" who provoked public controversy, how controversial his ideas on the "Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man" would be. In fact, his ideas might be thought to be more than controversial, they could be regarded as treason. People in Darwin's time could go to prison for heresy because it was seditious, undermining the divine origin of the monarchy.
Today's conservative Christian efforts to force school systems to teach "Intelligent Design," a form of creationism, reveals the same kind of political and social ideology as in Darwin's time. Creationism goes hand-in-hand with efforts to claim the United States is a Christian nation. Creationists posit a God who controls the creation; this ideology reinforces political ideas of control of society. This "Christian politics" is sometimes called "dominionism."
Darwin's ideas are considered controversial by these Christian conservatives precisely because they are freeing for democratic process and they are freeing for theological reflection. I have found dialogue with the newer genetics, the astonishing leap forward beyond Darwin, to be particularly thought-provoking.
Unlike conservative Christian theology, progressive Christian theology, especially in its heritage in Protestant liberalism, has long emphasized the continuity of the human with the rest of creation. Progressive Christians by and large oppose regarding human nature as fixed and static and a unique "lord of creation." The inescapable learning from evolutionary biology is that human beings are deeply creatures. We share 90% of our genes with mice. If that doesn't take the "lords of creation" down a peg, I fail to see what will!
Evolutionary biology also teaches us species solidarity. Human beings are so much more alike than they are different from each other. Carol Gilligan, Jean Baker Miller and Nancy Chodorow, feminist psychologists, have shown that human beings are defined by their relationality and connection. Asian feminist theologians such as Chung Hyun Kyung make a similar argument. Genetically speaking, racial distinctions are so minor as to be almost negligible. Racial difference is a political invention for social and economic dominance. Human beings are also "one of a kind," as our DNA "fingerprints" show. Progressives in religion have long emphasized the unique value and distinctiveness of each human being--the individual and her or his uniqueness is a profound good of God's creation. We therefore support human rights, including all women's rights and gay rights, and racial equality as the political practice of valuing human individuality and human freedom.
Evolutionary biology does not exhaust all that theology has to say about human nature. That's where a Christian interpretation of the whole of human nature is a different interpretation that that of the sociobiologists, in particular, many of whom seek a wholly naturalistic explanation for human nature and behavior. But there are large and increasing areas of fruitful dialogue possible, as second and third generation evolutionary biologists nuance their own arguments.
Secularists take issue with the fact that to posit a God is to pose an "unanswerable question" and thus has no place in a reasonable world. In progressive theology, however, unanswerable questions are not regarded as barriers, but doorways for religious contemplation.
An infinite God can neither be proved nor disproved. Religion and science are, in the end, different ways of knowing. I know several scientists who acknowledge that science is a branch of philosophy; science does not need to replace other epistemologies to do its work.
What is so exciting about some of the new dialogues between religion and science is the imaginative play that results from this simple acknowledgment. I believe that human beings are both spirit and matter, but these are not wholly separate and certainly not opposed. I find the ways science helps us explore the material nature of humanity can also illuminate aspects of the spiritual. That's only possible if religion and science quit pointing fingers at each other, however.
