Two weeks ago I preached about the theory of evolution in honor of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. I spoke about the difference between mythos and logos; the difference between the truths of religion and the truths of science. I spoke about my own conviction-and the conviction of many religious leaders around the world-that the timeless truths of the Bible and other scriptures may comfortably coexist with the discoveries of modern science, including the theory of evolution.1
You seemed to really like that sermon. Someone suggested I was "preaching to the choir." Maybe I was, but I wonder if any of you felt the same tug I felt following that sermon, the same feeling of "Isn't there more to the story? "Can we take this deeper?" More to the point, if the theory of evolution is going to inform our religious world-view; if the theory of evolution is going to give us insight into human nature, into our passions and desires, into our suffering and fear; if the theory of evolution is going to serve as ground for our theological reflection; if it is going to infuse and even direct our spiritual lives, what does it actually say? The issue is not simply, 'What are they teaching in the public schools?" The issue is not simply "Who is right: the fundamentalist preachers or the biology teachers?" What does it actually say about who we are? This is something we ought not to take lightly.
When he heard me say that I preached on the theory of evolution, my friend and colleague, Bishop John Selders, said, "that's an interesting thing to preach about during black history month." We didn't have a chance to discuss this further, but I have an idea of what he meant. I suspect he felt a tug similar to the one I was feeling.
If you look through our hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, you will find many hymns and readings that are examples of theological reflection grounded in evolutionary theory. We just sang one such hymn. "Creative Love, our thanks we give that this, our world is incomplete, that struggle greets our will to live, that work awaits our hands and feet. That we are not yet fully wise, that we are in the making still-as friends who share one enterprise and strive to blend with nature's will."2
So what is nature's will?
In the mid-1990s Stephany and I visited a state park in the Seattle area. A park ranger with a telescope asked us if we wanted to see some newly hatched baby eagles. We did. They were in a nest high up in a tree. We watched them for a while through the telescope, a mother and two babies, one baby clearly larger than its sibling. We saw the mother bring food to the babies. The larger one ate everything, the smaller one ate nothing. The ranger explained, "I know it looks unfair, but the mother won't intervene. The little one's too small to survive. The mom's not going to waste energy feeding it."
"She's just going to let it starve?" I asked.
The ranger nodded. "Survival of the fittest."
The larger, stronger, more aggressive bird survives. The smaller, weaker, more docile bird dies. The traits that benefit survival remain in the gene pool. The traits that hinder survival disappear from the gene pool. Survival of the fittest, natural selection. Nature's will? It's not so easy to sing the lyrics, "Creative love, our thanks we give," if we have in our mind's eye the image of a mother eagle letting her baby succumb to the elements. It's not so easy to sing lyrics, read readings, pray prayers about striving to blend with nature's will, when we see in nature a harshness, a brutality, a favoring of strength and aggression, an apparent absence of compassion. Is that what we want as our ground for theological reflection?
In popular culture the term "Darwinian" has always referred to a world of cutthroat competition and struggle, a landscape "red in tooth and claw" to quote Tennyson. Although this characterization holds a piece of the truth, it really isn't the world Darwin portrayed in Origin of Species. Rather, this view stems largely from Social Darwinism, an intellectual movement beginning in the mid-19th century and extending in various forms into the twentieth century. Social Darwinists sought to apply the theory of evolution to human social systems. Their theoretical work became the justification for the exploitation of poor and disenfranchised people during the industrial revolution. Here is historian Richard Hofstadter writing about the work of Herbert Spencer, the "father" of Social Darwinism.
Spencer "opposed all state aid to the poor," says Hofstadter. "They were unfit, he said, and should be eliminated. 'The whole effort of nature is to get rid of such, to clear the world of them, to make better'.. He who loses his life because of his stupidity, vice, idleness is in the same class as the victims of weak viscera or malformed limbs. Under nature's laws all are alike put on trial. 'If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die.'"3
According to Hofstadter, Social Darwinism disappeared as a conscious philosophy in the United States by the end of World War One, but it persists in the political folklore.4 This makes me think about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I don't think it is a stretch to say that the government's utterly inadequate response to the unique and highly publicized suffering in New Orleans had, as one of its sources, an attitude reminiscent of Herbert Spencer and the Social Darwinists. I remember the comments of Barbara Bush, for example, comments emblematic of this attitude. In reference to refugees living in the Houston Astrodome she said, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."5 I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that behind such comments is a callousness, an insensitivity to the true plight of the refugees, an inability to bear witness to the true extent of their suffering because they were poor, mostly people of color, and well, if they're fit for survival, this will work fine for them; if they're not fit, well, we won't mention that, but "they were underprivileged anyway." I don't think it's a stretch.
All this contributes to the tug I felt after my last sermon. The story of the baby eagles-the triumph of strength and aggression-that basic struggle for existence which is very real-it all tugs at me. The false science of the Social Darwinists and the lingering impact of their ideas in our society tug at me. If we're going to sing songs giving thanks to Creative Love and calling us to blend with nature's will-as I believe we should-then we need to be clear about the harsher aspects of evolution which seem utterly opposed to Unitarian Universalist principles; and we need to offer a critique of the ways evolutionary theory has served as a justification for oppression and injustice.
In my own theological reflection I have no desire to ignore or deny the harsh and brutal aspects of nature. I have no interest in romanticizing or sentimentalizing nature, cleansing it of violence and aggression. I refuse to gloss over the reality that in order to sustain our lives we must feed on other life. And I want to hold up and value competition as a driver of evolution. There is a struggle for existence. But I am also interested in balance. Harshness, brutality, violence, aggression: these are not nature's only hallmarks. Competition is not all there is. Though it is well understood in the scientific community, it remains largely unspoken in popular culture: cooperation and dependence drive evolution as much if not more than competition and dominance.
To understand this I look first to Darwin. In The Origin of Species he writes, "I should premise that I use this term [struggle for existence] in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another.. Two canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture."
Pause there for a moment. "Dependent on the moisture." How do we see the world and our place in it? Is the world red in tooth and claw? Must we meet its harshness with harshness, its aggression with aggression, its violence with violence? Are resources scarce and do we have to fight to get our allotment? How utterly different the world looks when we ask and try to answer the question, on what and on whom are we dependent? What are our sources of moisture? The first set of questions lead us into a posture of warfare, to recognition of whom and what we must defeat. The second set of questions lead us, I believe, into a posture of humility in the face of what sustains us, to recognition of how the world nurtures us. "Dependent on the moisture."6
Throughout the course of the twentieth century biologists began seeing, as Darwin certainly did, the role of cooperation and dependence in evolution. Organisms don't survive only because they defeat other organisms. Organisms also survive when they learn to work with other organisms, when they learn to depend on one another. One of the most prolific microbiologists of our time is Lynn Margulis, famous for her studies of the microbial world, the biota-the realms of bacteria and other single-celled organisms. To explain the way cooperation drives evolution, Margulis often uses the term symbiosis, which means "the living together in intimate association of different kinds of organisms."7 Symbiotic relationships are everywhere. Margulis reminds us that "blind shrimp are led around by sighted fish, flowering plants need to be pollinated by specific insects, cows and other ruminants cannot digest grasses without the aid of gut bacteria. Humans also need live bacteria in their intestines."8 The point of her theory is that life evolves as distinct organisms learn to cooperate with each other. Sometimes the cooperation becomes so normal that over time the two partners physically merge together. Two distinct selves form an entirely new self.
You want an example? You and me. You and me and every human being, animal, plant and fungus. We are eukaryotes, meaning we have cells with nuclei which house our DNA. Our cells also depend on mitochondria to process oxygen and produce energy. In the 1970s Margulis noted that mitochondria have their own DNA which is different from the DNA in the nuclei of their host cells. Mitochondrial DNA is actually more akin to the DNA of certain bacteria than to the DNA in the nuclei of the host cells. Based on DNA, mitochondria and their host cells look like distinct organisms. Margulis theorized that they aren't exactly distinct organisms, but they were at one time. Their different DNA is evidence that in our evolutionary past mitochondria were free bacteria that somehow merged with the nucleated cells, creating the oxygen processing metabolism common to all eukaryotic cells today.9 We are, in fact, the result of ancient cooperative activity in the microbial world. Margulis says we are beginning to see the biosphere not only as a continual struggle favoring the most vicious organisms but also as an endless dance of diversifying life forms, where partners triumph.10
As you know, a financial hurricane is sweeping across not only our nation, but the world. We're in the midst of an economic Katrina. More than four million US citizens have lost jobs over the last 18 months. These are, without exaggeration, hard times. If we're wondering about how people will respond to this crisis-and in particular if we're wondering about how we ought to respond to this crisis-the theory of evolution suggests two possibilities. We can ask of this moment, "Who is our competitor, our enemy in the struggle for existence? Who must we defeat?" Or we can ask of this moment, "On what do we depend?" "With whom can we partner?" and "What do I have to share?"
I believe the first possibility is a path of fear and, ultimately, despair for human communities. I believe the great world religions recognize this possibility in many forms and see it as tragic and untenable for human communities. I believe the second possibility is the path of peace and sustenance for human communities, and that the great world religions recognize it in many forms and see it as the path to wholeness and justice in human communities.
As the recession deepens, as the human suffering and stress and anxiety increases, my prayer is that we shall choose the second possibility, that we shall constantly ask these questions: "On what do we depend?" "With whom can we partner?" "What can we share?" and that we shall weather this storm together. Amen and Blessed Be.
1 This statement is adapted from the Clergy Letter Project. See the full text of the Unitarian Universalist clergy letter at: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Unitarian_Universalists/UnivUnitarianClergyLtr.htm
2 Hyde, William DeWitt, ad. Beth Ide, “Creative Love, Our Thanks We Give” in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press and the Unitarian Universalist Association, 1993) #289.
3 These quotes are from Spencer’s early work, Social Statics. They appear in Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) p. 41.
4 Ibid., p203.
6 Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Species, in Appleman, Philip, ed., Darwin(New York: W.W. Norton, 1979) p. 50.
7 Margulis, Lynn and Sagan Dorion, “Microcosmos,” in Barlow, Connie, ed., From Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Readings in the Life Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992) p. 64.
8 Ibid., p. 64.
9 Ibid., pp. 62-63.
10 Ibid., 66.
