Intelligent Design and Time

New York times
August 23, 2005
Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Last month a team of paleontologists announced that it had found several fossilized dinosaur embryos that were 190 million years old - some 90 million years older than any dinosaur embryos found so far. Those kinds of numbers are always a little daunting. Ever since I was a boy in a public elementary school in Iowa, I've been learning to face the eons and eons that are embedded in the universe around us.

I know the numbers as they stand at present, and I know what they mean, in a roughly comparative way. The universe is perhaps 14 billion years old. Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. The oldest hominid fossils are between 6 million and 7 million years old. The oldest distinctly modern human fossils are about 160,000 years old.

The truth of these numbers has the same effect on me as watching the night sky in the high desert. It fills me with a sense of nonspecific immensity. I don't think I'm alone in this.

One of the most powerful limits to the human imagination is our inability to grasp, in a truly intuitive way, the depths of terrestrial and cosmological time. That inability is hardly surprising because our own lives are so very short in comparison. It's hard enough to come to terms with the brief scale of human history. But the difficulty of comprehending what time is on an evolutionary scale, I think, is a major impediment to understanding evolution.

It's been approximately 3.5 billion years since primeval life first originated on this planet. That is not an unimaginable number in itself, if you're thinking of simple, discrete units like dollars or grains of sand. But 3.5 billion years of biological history is different. All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one. They encompass an actual, already lived reality, encompassing all the lives of all the organisms that have come and gone in that time. That expanse of time defines the realm of biological possibility in which life in its extraordinary diversity has evolved. It is time that has allowed the making of us.

The idea of such quantities of time is extremely new. Humans began to understand the true scale of geological time in the early 19th century. The probable depth of cosmological time and the extent of the history of the human species have come to light only within our own lifetimes.

That is a lot to absorb and, not surprisingly, many people refuse to absorb it. Nearly every attack on evolution - whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution - ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.

Humans feel much more content imagining a world of more human proportions, with a shorter time scale and a simple narrative sense of cause and effect. But what we prefer to believe makes no difference. The fact that life on Earth has arrived at a point where it is possible for humans to have beliefs is due to the steady ticking away of eons and the trial and error of natural selection.

Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective treatment of the physical evidence.

Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.

The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design is to deepen that failure. To present the arguments of intelligent design as part of a debate over evolution is nonsense. From the scientific perspective, there is no debate. But even the illusion of a debate is a sorry victory for antievolutionists, a public relations victory based, as so many have been in recent years, on ignorance and obfuscation.

The essential, but often well-disguised, purpose of intelligent design, is to preserve the myth of a separate, divine creation for humans in the belief that only that can explain who we are. But there is a destructive hubris, a fearful arrogance, in that myth. It sets us apart from nature, except to dominate it. It misses both the grace and the moral depth of knowing that humans have only the same stake, the same right, in the Earth as every other creature that has ever lived here. There is a righteousness - a responsibility - in the deep, ancestral origins we share with all of life.

Copyright, New York Times

Muslim Extremism, Whose Responsibility?

WORK WITH MAINSTREAM MUSLIMS TO DEFEAT EXTREMISM
By Parvez Ahmed

Why are some Muslims willing to kill in the name of their faith, despite clear Islamic injunctions against committing such heinous acts? The debate usually boils down to "they hate us" versus "they hate our policies."

Robert Pape in his new book, "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," suggests that that terrorism has little to do with the teachings of any religion but is rather a response, albeit a criminal one, to policies that condone occupations.

Pape posits that suicide bombings, whether by Hezbollah in Lebanon or by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, are designed to compel the retreat of an occupation force. He notes that when Israeli forces left Lebanon, Hezbollah did not follow them to Tel Aviv.

This explanation, while credible, does not absolve the perpetrators of their crimes. Islam, like other faiths, allows for defensive war against combatants but unequivocally forbids the killing of civilians.

Muslims today have many legitimate grievances. Some of these grievances are the result of foreign occupation, some are the fruits of brutal authoritarian rule and others are a consequence of Muslims themselves failing to adapt to a rapidly-changing world. But again, none of these grievances should ever be used to justify the unjustifiable.

Normative Islam does not allow Muslims to retaliate in kind against inhuman behavior. The Quran, Islam's revealed text, issues a call to moderation when it states: "And thus have We (God) willed you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind." (2:143) Moderation is to be exercised in both spiritual and temporal matters. Terrorism is certainly not the path of moderation.

What then is the motivation of those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam?

Terrorists seem to be driven by a messianic desire for justice. In order to achieve that goal, they are willing to precipitate an apocalyptic civilizational conflict.

Members of Al-Qaeda and their ilk have deluded themselves into thinking that such a conflict will somehow produce a victory for the "believers," who are defined as only those Muslims who agree with their misguided interpretation of Islam.

This view of the world places most Muslims squarely in the cross-hairs of the terrorists. Only Muslims can counter this extremist ideology, which unfortunately, resonates in some of the isolated and darker recesses of Muslim societies.

Presenting an alternative ideological discourse to counterbalance the hijacking of young and impressionable Muslim minds is as urgent as establishing effective law enforcement or military doctrine. The dissemination of core Islamic values to counteract this murderous ideology requires a multifaceted national strategy and will only be successful with the support of those Muslims who are well-versed in mainstream Islamic theology and enjoy broad-based support in the Muslim community worldwide.

It is disappointing that following a brief meeting with American Muslim leaders after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and other top administration officials have made no meaningful effort to reach out to those who are best equipped to wage such ideological battles. This self-imposed disengagement harms our national security and does a disservice to all those American Muslims who want to help defend their nation.

American Muslim groups recently issued and endorsed a "fatwa," or Islamic religious edict, that reaffirmed and bolstered their previous condemnations of terrorism and extremism. The fatwa undercuts the apocalyptic ideology of the terrorists by unequivocally forbidding both the targeting of civilians and cooperation with terror groups. Muslims were also urged to cooperate with law enforcement authorities as part of their civic and religious duty.

The endorsement of this fatwa by all major American Muslim organizations, including hundreds of Imams, offers a new opportunity for engagement. It is major step that our political and religious leaders should recognize and support.

Parvez Ahmed, Ph.D., is board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. He may be contacted at: pahmed@cair-net.org. For a photo of Parvez Ahmed, go to: http://cair.com/default.asp?Page=Board&person=Parvez ]

Christian Creeds, relevance for today?

Discussion about the relevance of Creeds for today’s world.
"I would, however, lend more importance than you to the creeds of the faith. They give us the essence of what we can know of the mystery of God, the basic mysteries of the faith: the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, etc. I know that you're not dismissing all of that out of hand, of course; I guess it's a matter of accentuation.
"Where I agree completely with you is that these creeds are sterile if they're only intellectual concepts and are not translated into a life lived according to the teaching of Christ." –A Catholic Bishop friend.

I respect this point of view and agree that Doctrine, or Right Teaching is necessary and useful. They will always be part of my faith tradition.
But consider.
The "life lived according to the teaching of Jesus" in the Gospels is NOT part of the creeds.
Nicene: "he came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. Became Incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man...
(Now note that the gospel teaching is omitted for the next verse is)
. . .For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. "
Notice that Jesus’ actual human life as portrayed in the gospels is skipped. Wow! The Creeds are not about Jesus teaching essentially, but about our belief in the redemption and atonement of Jesus' life and death.
His gospel teaching, Beatitudes, parables, compassion for the outsider, the real challenges to our ego and human blindness is OMITTED.
The implication is "Believe these concepts" and you are part of the Christian community to be saved. I suggest this is easily a hidden idolatry, "Believe and be saved."
Where is the challenge to our radical renewal that the gospel parables and Jesus actual message in the Beatitudes present? The Creeds have been proposed as giving us the Certainty of Salvation. Is it possible that they only open the door?
Consider also (#2) how the Creeds were early and continuously used to discriminate, judge and abuse others, to assume that this One View of the Revelation of This Mystery we call God is superior to any other view and must be imposed on all others. We have used our Certainty about the Creeds combined with the power of state imposed church doctrine to separate, kill and torture many, countless, untold numbers.
If the Creeds are absolutely necessary for today’s world where is the message about the compassion of Jesus for the Outsider, his hospitality for the marginalized, clearly stated (as his actual life, example and teaching do portray) in any of the creeds?
Is Jesus actual teaching and example necessary for the global village in which we live today, with neighbors who are Muslim, Hebrew, varying Protestant cousins, Buddhists, etc. ?
We shall not know it from the Creeds.
Also, where is the respect for the earth itself, and all of creation, which we are destroying today, fundamentalist and corporate believing Christians assisting, to be found in those Creeds developed 1700 years ago, for a very different world than ours?

Now my experience is far different from most Catholics and most Catholic authority for the past forty years. I have been in the trenches, working mostly in interfaith settings, where the value of other Wisdom traditions is respected and honored.
Let me tell you a paradox. Where doctrinal teaching and conceptual structure is less, that is, less credal concepts, and the incentive is on personal listening to the Light within, then the commitment to personal change and social involvement to assist this change seems far greater.
Go to a Society of Friends (Quaker) meeting and then listen to the projects being announced and recruited for among members afterwards. 80% of the gathering will be so engaged. Now maybe the Friends simply attract that kind of person, who is more internally committed, or maybe they support it better.

But if I am being led by the Spirit to some new community undertaking, like increasing awareness of the absurdity of our Kentucky Penal Code developed 30 years ago to deal with the explosion of addiction in our society (so that we are simply incarcerating addicts by the truckload and recidivism (because all the correctional monies are being spent on warehousing alone) means that 2 out of 3 are back in jail within three years, that is, if I have some community activist project that means I am caring for my community in the way I believe Jesus would care, I am not going to some Catholic church gathering to promote or recruit concerned persons, but rather to groups like the small Society of Friends.

What does that say about the openness to the prophetical challenges to care for others at personal cost? Here is what it tells me, after some forty years. The more doctrinal certainly there is (which I find, by the way, most prominent among my U. Of Notre Dame graduate friends) the less openness there is the prophetical challenges of transforming our world so that it is a better place for all our children.
I will always value creeds as part of my own faith tradition. But truth without beauty, without wonder and awe and deep personal challenge, does not speak to the
imagination--the human heart today does not move us.
For many or even most today, the Creeds do not have that revelance. However the radical challenges of Jesus teaching, in his parables and Beatitudes and his welcoming of the Stranger (Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren you do to me. Matthew 25)–everything about Jesus life that the Creeds leave out-- do have that potency. Still.

I mean this post for discussion purposes, not that anyone should or ought to accept my views. We took the Creeds and used them historically to divide and judge others as further from this mystery we call God than were we ourselves. That is the human and historical tendency. It is a hidden idolatry of concepts, a heresy of nominalism, which I propose, along with many others in liberation and feminist and Black theology, may be one root cause of lack of transformation found among Christians and many Catholics.
Only when the Creeds were aligned with the power of the state under the Emperor Constantine, did actual persecution of the Jews begin (carried on, with endorsement by Christian authority for 15 centuries, with every sort of abuse, so that the Nazi Holocaust was only the culmination and industrialization of what Christians had been doing piecemeal to Jews for all that time.). Creeds have been used often to exclude, even the Orthodox Tradition, for many centuries. They drip with the blood and abuse of many. We should be aware of how the Creeds have been used by our forefathers in the faith.
Last example: Reciting the Creeds for 1600 years, I propose, did nothing to awake the churches to the inhumanity of slavery. The first religious society to awaken to that abuse and to risk rejection and persecution for their beliefs may have been the Quakers, who believed only that the Light was within each of us and that each of us had access to that Light.
I have been blessed to bring some ten persons into prison ministry this past year and helped create a large community-wide effort to expand awareness and help in transitioning offenders to jobs, housing, etc., which is beginning to bear real fruit. I never needed to talk about the Creed or even about Jesus to any of them.
Is it not good for us to discuss and even argue about what is the essence of what we can know about the mystery of God to be found in Jesus? Can that Mystery be found conclusively and absolutely in Creeds developed for a faith community of 1600 years ago, or can we see more clearly today what the Gospel summons us into and toward? Does not the community of faith today have the gift of the Spirit to understand even more fully the message of Jesus for our world? Our context is very different and we have the power (and the obligation) to understand the challenge of Jesus' Gospel summons more clearly for our world.
Namaste. Discussion, please?
Paschal

Revelation and Inspiration: a question

To a Scripture Scholar: Dr. Margaret Nutting Ralph, a question:

Q. What is your view of revelation and inspiration and how has it changed, if any?

As part of teaching people to be contextualists, and emphasizing
the three contexts you have heard me emphasize, I say that learning this
information caused me personally to narrow my preconceived notion of
revelation and broaden my preconceived notion of inspiration.

(These are 1. literary form 2. beliefs of the time 3. a process of revelation.)


The narrowing of my idea of revelation was necessary because I had
previously thought that inspired authors had God's point of view and so
spoke the truth on every subject. I later realized that these particular
books are in the canon because they are addressing one specific topic: our
relationship with God, namely: Who is God? Who are we in relationship to God and each other? What would God have us do? Those are the only questions I am claiming that the Bible will answer truthfully.

Connected to that idea of revelation, an inspired author is inspired only
on the topic being addressed. The author has had an important spiritual
insight. The author doesn't know more on other topics than his contemporary generation. However, inspiration is broader that one inspired person. God
doesn't whisper to one person and that person tells everyone else. Rather,
the biblical texts are community products. Inspiration takes place at every
step of the five step process that results in the Scripture that we now have
(These five steps are on my And God Said What? handout that you already
have:1. events, 2. oral tradition, 3. written tradition,4. edited tradition,
and 5. canonical). Inspiration is also involved in the reception of the text. So, your students are also inspired; otherwise they would not be motivated to
read Scripture and try to understand the truth that it teaches about our
relationship with God and with each other.

I don't think revelation and inspiration can be taught without teaching the
three contexts, especially the third one: that fuller answers to the
questions that inspired authors address occurred over the 2,000 year
process. An inspired author on a topic pertinent to revelation could have a
partial insight, not the fullness of insight that was understood in
subsequent centuries.

Hope this helps. Margie

Books by Margaret Nutting Ralph (see Amazon)
1. And God Said What?: An Introduction to Biblical Literary Forms (Paperback)
2. Discovering the Gospels: Four Accounts of the Good News (Paperback - July 2001)
3. Discovering the First Century Church: The Acts of the Apostles, Letters of Paul and the Book of Revelation (Discovering the Living Word, Vol 2)
4. Plain Words about Biblical Images: Growing in Our Faith Through the Scriptures
Scripture: Nourished by the Word (Catholic Basics)
5. The Bible and the End of the World: Should We Be Afraid?
6. Discovering Prophecy and Wisdom: The Books of Isaiah, Job, Proverbs, Psalms (Discovering the Living Word, Vol 4)
7. Discovering the First Century Church: The Acts of the Apostles, Letters of Paul & the Book of Revelation
8. Discovering Old Testament Origins: The Books of Genesis, Exodus and Samuel (Discovering the Living Word Series)
9. Discovering Prophecy and Wisdom: The Books Fo Isaiah, Job, Proverbs and Psalms
10. Discovering Old Testament Origins: The Books of Genesis, Exodus & Samuel
11. Willie of Church Street
12. Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups and Lectors - Cycle B

“Dr. Ralph is a marvelous teacher and educator. I have seldom seen anyone be as sensitive to her audience as she is, pacing herself diplomatically according to their understanding of what she is saying. Her first book: And God Said What? is still a marvel of understanding of the Bible years later.” –Paschal Baute

Fundamentalism and terrorism, Islamic?

HOw Distinguish?

Terrorism is not Islamic
By Abdul Cader Asmal
The Boston Globe

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2005
BOSTON
Whether we are American, Nigerian, Indonesian, or British, we look like them, we dress like them, we speak like them and we pray like them. We cannot identify them before they strike. They hate us because we reject their ideology. They would kill us as "infidels." We are Muslims. So are they. But they are terrorists and we are not. That is the distinction. This is where we must make our stand.

As troubling as it is for Muslims to be identified as potential terrorists, the truth is that the terrorists conducting such barbaric acts in today's society are Muslims. That is not to say that they are the only or the biggest terrorists, but they are the most mindless, unpredictable and deliberately merciless. Driven by motives or grievances that they may legitimately share with countless other Muslims, they have devised their own demonic modus operandi that almost all others abhor and are repulsed by. In an open society they bear no distinctive traits.

While the recent terror acts have been committed by Muslims, there is nothing "Islamic" about them. They are totally antithetical to the fundamental principles of Islam and represent a heretical deviation of the religion. When the Sept. 11 Commission went out of its way to define terrorism as not just any generic terrorism, but specifically as "Islamist," this pejorative label, despite the banal niceties of "Islam being a religion of peace," sent a chilling message to Muslims worldwide that terrorism is a hallmark or prerogative of Islam, or that when committed by other groups it is in some way mitigated by intrinsic extenuating circumstances.

The leap from deviant Muslims perpetrating atrocities to a religion being impugned for the sins of its supposed adherents is breath-taking in its audacity. This distinction has become critical ever since the "showdown with Saddam" transmuted into the "war on terror." With the daily mind-numbing imagery of maniacal Muslim "insurgents" savaging troops and civilians alike, a transformation rapidly took place: The problem was just not Muslim terrorists but an "evil" Islam itself. This is a theme broadcast with malevolent glee by talk shows on a daily basis thereby intensifying suspicion, fear, contempt, and hatred of Islam. Demonizing Islam makes it the enemy in the "war on terror."

Ironically, we Muslims have the greatest vested interest in eradicating terrorism. We need to do this to salvage our religion and our self-respect. As long as we are marginalized by the West and taunted by the extremists, we are made to feel as if we were part of the problem rather than of the solution, and our commitment becomes ambivalent. If the so-called war on terrorism has any chance of being won, there needs to be an immediate redefinition of the enemy.

First, to achieve a delinkage between Islam and terrorism, the term "Binladenism" has been suggested. It is an accurate characterization of the architect whose unifying call is hate, whose target is the current world order, whose modus operandi is the terrorization of innocent civilians, and whose fascist ideology directly contravenes the basic principles of the religion it claims to espouse.

Second, it is essential for Muslims to dissociate their legitimate concerns from the terrorist acts that have been perpetrated to justify them. Irrespective of whether Muslims see the victimization of Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine or Iraq, the terrorists can never find justification for their terror tactics. In Islam the end does not justify the means.

Third, because these concerns have been hijacked by a bunch of hoodlums as a pretext for terrorism does not delegitimize the concerns, nor does responding to them in any way justify the terrorism. It would be crass to ignore Muslims' legitimate concerns, or, worse still, to consider any response to them a negotiation with terrorists. Until the issues are addressed, the war on terror will smolder on.

Finally, with a redesigned strategy, the stand against the ideology of terrorism (Binladenism) must be, and will be, united, unwavering, unequivocal and unconditional. The recent fatwa by the Fiqh Council of North America against terrorism is a small first step.

But for Muslims the conviction for such a stand has always been and is direct from the Koran: "Stand steadfast before God as witnesses for justice, even though it is against yourselves." An act of terror is an act of supreme injustice. Its prevention is the moral imperative of every Muslim. Those who fail this basic test should have more to fear than that their civil rights might be infringed. In this stand lies our hope, our security, and our future.

(Abdul Cader Asmal is former president of the Islamic Center of Boston and former president of the Islamic Council of New England. This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.)

BOSTON Whether we are American, Nigerian, Indonesian, or British, we look like them, we dress like them, we speak like them and we pray like them. We cannot identify them before they strike. They hate us because we reject their ideology. They would kill us as "infidels." We are Muslims. So are they. But they are terrorists and we are not. That is the distinction. This is where we must make our stand.

As troubling as it is for Muslims to be identified as potential terrorists, the truth is that the terrorists conducting such barbaric acts in today's society are Muslims. That is not to say that they are the only or the biggest terrorists, but they are the most mindless, unpredictable and deliberately merciless. Driven by motives or grievances that they may legitimately share with countless other Muslims, they have devised their own demonic modus operandi that almost all others abhor and are repulsed by. In an open society they bear no distinctive traits.

While the recent terror acts have been committed by Muslims, there is nothing "Islamic" about them. They are totally antithetical to the fundamental principles of Islam and represent a heretical deviation of the religion. When the Sept. 11 Commission went out of its way to define terrorism as not just any generic terrorism, but specifically as "Islamist," this pejorative label, despite the banal niceties of "Islam being a religion of peace," sent a chilling message to Muslims worldwide that terrorism is a hallmark or prerogative of Islam, or that when committed by other groups it is in some way mitigated by intrinsic extenuating circumstances.
The leap from deviant Muslims perpetrating atrocities to a religion being impugned for the sins of its supposed adherents is breath-taking in its audacity. This distinction has become critical ever since the "showdown with Saddam" transmuted into the "war on terror." With the daily mind-numbing imagery of maniacal Muslim "insurgents" savaging troops and civilians alike, a transformation rapidly took place: The problem was just not Muslim terrorists but an "evil" Islam itself. This is a theme broadcast with malevolent glee by talk shows on a daily basis thereby intensifying suspicion, fear, contempt, and hatred of Islam. Demonizing Islam makes it the enemy in the "war on terror."

Ironically, we Muslims have the greatest vested interest in eradicating terrorism. We need to do this to salvage our religion and our self-respect. As long as we are marginalized by the West and taunted by the extremists, we are made to feel as if we were part of the problem rather than of the solution, and our commitment becomes ambivalent. If the so-called war on terrorism has any chance of being won, there needs to be an immediate redefinition of the enemy.

First, to achieve a delinkage between Islam and terrorism, the term "Binladenism" has been suggested. It is an accurate characterization of the architect whose unifying call is hate, whose target is the current world order, whose modus operandi is the terrorization of innocent civilians, and whose fascist ideology directly contravenes the basic principles of the religion it claims to espouse.

Second, it is essential for Muslims to dissociate their legitimate concerns from the terrorist acts that have been perpetrated to justify them. Irrespective of whether Muslims see the victimization of Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine or Iraq, the terrorists can never find justification for their terror tactics. In Islam the end does not justify the means.

Third, because these concerns have been hijacked by a bunch of hoodlums as a pretext for terrorism does not delegitimize the concerns, nor does responding to them in any way justify the terrorism. It would be crass to ignore Muslims' legitimate concerns, or, worse still, to consider any response to them a negotiation with terrorists. Until the issues are addressed, the war on terror will smolder on.

Finally, with a redesigned strategy, the stand against the ideology of terrorism (Binladenism) must be, and will be, united, unwavering, unequivocal and unconditional. The recent fatwa by the Fiqh Council of North America against terrorism is a small first step.

But for Muslims the conviction for such a stand has always been and is direct from the Koran: "Stand steadfast before God as witnesses for justice, even though it is against yourselves." An act of terror is an act of supreme injustice. Its prevention is the moral imperative of every Muslim. Those who fail this basic test should have more to fear than that their civil rights might be infringed. In this stand lies our hope, our security, and our future.

(Abdul Cader Asmal is former president of the Islamic Center of Boston and former president of the Islamic Council of New England. This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.)

The New Dark Age Begins (Catholics too)

Fundamentalism spreads: Catholic Christianity returns to the mindset of the Inquisition.
Several years ago, in a column about the harassment, removal and silencing of Roman Catholic scholars like Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff, Charles Curran and Edward Schillebeeckx by that church, I referred to the leader of this "Inquisitional" mentality, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as "the pit bull of the Vatican." Little did I realize that this church's leadership would elect this man Pope and install him as Benedict XVI. That action sent a signal throughout the world that we are entering a new "Dark Age." On many fronts this mentality, which has been building inside religion for at least forty years, has finally broken into our full awareness.

We saw it in a document published a few years ago, written by the same Cardinal Ratzinger, in which the Vatican declared there to be only one true religion, namely Christianity, and only one true expression of Christianity, namely the Roman Catholic Church. The gentle Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), who opened that church to the accents of the 20th Century, must have turned in his grave. Ratzinger's document went on to counsel Roman Catholic ecumenical representatives never to refer to other Christian bodies as "sister" churches for that implied some tacit recognition of their legitimacy. This attitude, the hallmark of authoritarian anti-intellectualism that historically has produced religious wars and persecution, is now installed in the Papacy itself. It signals the dimming of reason and suggests that Catholic Christianity has returned to the mindset of the Inquisition.

Rome is not alone. A Danish Lutheran bishop has recently removed one of its most creative clergy, Pastor Thorkild Grosboell, from his parish near Copenhagen by charging him with heresy. To charge one with heresy implies that the charging authority possesses the truth of God. Another Danish bishop, seeing this as a public relations disaster, sought to smooth over the conflict by offering Pastor
Grosboell another chance to resume his ministry, but only after a public interrogation in which the bishop read parts of the Creed developed in the fourth century and demanded that Pastor Grosboell declare, with a "yes" or "no" answer that he believes that these words have captured the eternal truth of God. That is "Dark Age" theology.

We see the same mentality almost every day when various evangelical spokespersons, such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or R. Albert Mohler go on national television to express their opinion that the words of Scripture are the inerrant word of God. Their comments are frequently in the service of opposing evolution. All of these gentlemen either ignore the last two hundred years of biblical scholarship or they are not aware of it. Their rhetoric does little more than give aid and comfort to uninformed members of local school boards in the less well educated and less cosmopolitan parts of our nation who thrive on a lack of knowledge and who want to carry us back intellectually to the 1920's, so that once again we might put learning on trial and convict it as we did in the Scopes Trial in Tennessee. One wonders when the historicity of Adam and Eve might begin to be defended again by the current ecclesiastical mentality. The Bible is so often used to perfume both ignorance and prejudice.

If one had any doubt about this developing religious darkness, an op-ed piece that appeared on July 7, 2005 in the New York Times removed any lingering questions. This article, written by the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Christopher Schoenborn, suggested that evolution was "not compatible with Catholic doctrine." This author, no secondary figure in the Roman Catholic Church, served as the editor of the official 1992 Catechism of that Church. Earlier in his career this man had actually defended the literal historicity of the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve here we come! Though the Vatican did not officially authorize this editorial, it is well known that Cardinal Schoenborn and Benedict XVI are very close friends and in that Church such events are never unplanned or accidental.

Cardinal Schoenborn's argument was intriguing as he first tried to undermine John Paul II's words spoken in 1996 that "Evolution is more than a theory." Secondly, he sought to drive a wedge between what he called the Theory of Evolution articulated by Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution that is held by those he called "The Neo-Darwinians." According to the Cardinal, the distinction was that evolution "in the sense of a common ancestry might be true," but evolution as "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection is not." Perhaps he does not recognize that the full title of Charles Darwin's 1859 book was "The Origin
of the Species by Natural Selection." The implication was that anything that disagrees with or challenges the true faith of the Catholic Church could not be truth ipso facto. That is the typical claim found in all imperialistic religious systems. Clearly an alliance is emerging between the Vatican and the "creationist" wing of Protestant fundamentalism.

Evolution, let it be said clearly, is no longer a debatable theory. DNA evidence has made it very clear that all of life is deeply and historically interconnected. Medical science assumes the truth of evolution in all that it does. The vast majority of the scientific world no longer salutes the primitive idea that a supernatural deity who lives above the sky has guided evolution to the glorious end of humankind and that it will go no further. Yet frightened religious leaders now interpret that to be an assault on their image of God. These leaders are unable or unwilling to embrace the fact that God for most Christians is a human creation that got frozen in a pre-modern form. The religious anxiety of our day stems from the fact that this definition of God is dying. Conservative Roman Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants appear to know that in the depths of their souls and so they seek to use authority in the task of divine artificial respiration. Former Christians also appear to know that much more consciously. That is why the fastest growing religious movement in the western world is the Church Alumni Association.

The crisis to which these data point is real. I, for one, am not interested in being a part of a Christian Church that has to defend its faith against the insights of new knowledge. Any God who has to be protected from new truth cannot possibly be God. If the only alternative to the traditional view of God, that portrayed the deity as a supernatural theistic Being who invades the world periodically in miraculous ways to accomplish the divine purpose, is to say that there is no God, then I find that a healthier solution. That, however, is not the only alternative. I seek the God beyond the gods of men and women, beyond the gods of church and religious systems. I seek the God who is not bound by those antiquated creeds and dogmas that were hammered out in a world that no longer exists. If Cardinal Schoenborn wants to assert that anything that conflicts with Catholic doctrine cannot be true, or if Protestants insist that all truth is ultimately defined by the inerrant words of a 3000 year old book, then we are back to the time when the Christian Church condemned Galileo. Christianity lost that battle and it will lose this one as it marches headlong into the marginalized existence that leads to an inevitable death.
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What the fundamentalists, both Catholic and Protestant, do not appear to embrace is that evolution by natural selection is only the tip of the iceberg that threatens their narrowly defined religious system. Once the Darwinian principle of evolving life is fully understood, the old idea of an original creation that is both good and finished is doomed. The post-Darwinian scientific world almost unanimously views creation as an ongoing, unfinished process. Therefore the suggestion that there ever was a "fall into sin," becomes nonsense, and the doctrine of 'original sin' collapses. The story of Jesus as God's invasion of the world to rescue us from this fall becomes inoperative. One cannot fall from a perfection one never had. One cannot be rescued from a fall that never happened. One cannot be restored to a status one has never possessed. Inevitably, as this theological house of cards falls, we become aware that the traditional way of understanding baptism as the washing away the sin of the fall, or the Eucharist as a reenactment of the moment when the divine rescue was acomplished on the cross also become meaningless. The idea that salvation was accomplished in the shedding of Jesus' blood becomes barbaric. Neither Cardinal Schoenborn nor the Protestant "creationists" appear to understand any of these implications in their shallow analysis of Darwinian thought. It is a sad day for enlightened people when the leaders of major parts of the Christian Church seek to reassert Catholic authority or scriptural certainty by herding us back into the ignorance of yesterday.

The Christian Church has a choice to make. It will either engage the thought of the contemporary world or it will die. The early signs are that this Pope and the Church he represents have decided to cast their lot with the mindless fundamentalism, which is today the public voice of Protestant Christianity.

This means that they are willing to allow their children to be shielded from truth and insight because the God they worship is simply too small to be God for the 21st century. A Christian Church ushering in a new Dark Age has no future.

This frightening specter becomes very real when we recognize that this is the kind of Christianity encouraged by members of the Bush administration. They too are engaged in an assault on both intelligence and learning. They deny global warming, they oppose stem cell research, they are closed-mindedness about end of life issues, they express uninformed negativity about homosexual persons and they attempt to blur the line between church and state.

The clouds are darkening. The fundamentalists are now allied with the Vatican and the present administration has given this mentality credibility by embracing it. Is it any wonder that I fear for the Christianity that has long nurtured me and for the country that I love.
- John Shelby Spong