From Survival to Love
A sermon offered by Reverend Kathleen C. Rolenz
Sunday, February 1, 2015
I must have been only about eight years old when
my family and I watched the movie “Inherit the
Wind” together and it left a deep impression on me.
The play, made into a film was a dramatization of
the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial,” that occurred in
1925 based on a true story, that of John Thomas
Scopes who as a substitute teacher in Dayton,
Tennessee violated the Tennessee law which made
it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state
funded school. The trial pitted the famous
William Jennings Bryan, a Biblical fundamentalist,
for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow, an
avowed agnostic who agreed to defend Scopes, in
one of the greatest trials in history, pitting religious
and biblical literalism against Charles Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution. My family was always on the
side of the character based on Darrow, Henry
Drummond, who savaged his fundamentalist
counterpart, Matthew Harrison Brady, on the
witness stand. Using logic and reason, he
systematically took apart Bryan’s insistence on the
Biblical narrative of creation, blasting holes through
what was called Creationism, and now re-branded
as “Intelligent Design.” Intelligent Design has
many faces, but the jist of the argument is that
evolution is a theory, not a fact and should be
understood as a theory just as valid as believing that
the world was created in seven days by an
Intelligent Creator, the culmination of that creation
being us –humans.
I haven’t read all of Darwin’s books, but I
have read enough to understand that Darwin’s
theories have been tested enough that 99.9% of
scientists accept evolution as the dominant scientific
theory of biological diversity. Yet, more than 4 in
10 Americans, approximately 40% do not accept
evolution and 40-50% of college students believe it
to be “just” a theory. 1 Just this past week in our
local Sun Newspaper, the editorial featured two
respondents to the question “Does creationism have
a place in Ohio’s public classrooms?” Why, I
wondered, would they even ask this question?
1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/02/creationismamerica-survey_n_5434107.html
Why has there been a Disney-like theme park in
Kentucky devoted to promoting Intelligent Design
and denouncing evolution as the way humans came
into being? Why are we, in the 21st century even
debating the facts about the veracity of evolution?
Didn’t we leave that behind with the Scopes
Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee?
Apparently not; because it’s showing up not
Tennessee, but in my suburban newspaper in
Northeast Ohio. This morning, in a little shout-out
to Darwin as we approach his birthday, I want to
look with you at evolution, but not as a means to
defend the theory nor to I to put holes in the
arguments for creationism. Instead, I want to
explore the one aspect of the evolution of our
species that is absolutely essential for human
development, which the theory of evolution and
natural science ignores and which is the one
ingredient that the fundamentalists got partially
right. (Want to know what that one thing is? I’m
going to get to it in a few minutes…)
The reason we’re still talking about
creationism in the 21st century has little to do with
science, but everything to do with theology.
Theology is not about attempting to prove what we
know, but is a discipline that articulates what we
believe to be true –and even more important –what
we want to be true. For example, when I speak
about the Beloved Community it’s a kind of shorthand phrase for a vision of my everyday life that is
rich with diverse people who interact from a place
of curiosity and cooperation; instead of
competiveness or (crime. ) Rationally, I don’t think
it will happen in my lifetime, but I preach about
because I want it to be true – and maybe by talking
about something enough you might make it come
true.
You can’t do that with creationism. You
can’t make the theological belief of creationism into
a scientific fact. But this isn’t about facts – it’s
about faith in a vision of humanity; and the reason
the debate is so emotional and so bitter is because
those of us who support evolution as a given miss
the emotional theological assumptions that are
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underneath the theories of Creationism. Let me try
to break this down a little more for us, and to do
that, we have to understand what a person who
believes in Intelligent Design would have to give up
in order to fully embrace the theory of evolution.
First – they’d have to give up the literal
interpretation of the Bible. It would mean that the
story of the Garden of Eden would be nothing more
than a fairy tale, and if God wrote the Bible, then
why would God make something up that wasn’t
true? If you were to say, “Well, the Garden of Eden
didn’t happen that way, but what about all the other
stories?” Before you know it, they all come
tumbling down and you are left holding the apple.
Without God, what’s to keep you from just taking a
bite out of it?
Second, and this is where we start getting
into painful theological territory – embracing the
theory of evolution eliminates the need for a Creator
God who loves and cares for us as a mother would
care for a child she birthed. Creationists would
argue that evolution cuts the umbilical cord between
God and nature and; instead of having a deep
connection between creator and creation, we have a
savage, unsentimental relationship with nature that
is completely indifferent to our concerns or worries
as human beings.
Finally, perhaps the biggest objection to
teaching evolution, as relevant today as it was at the
Scopes Monkey Trial or during Darwin’s time, was
that evolution degrades values, undermines morals
and that if children grow up believing in evolution
instead of religious doctrine, they will behave like
animals. Does this sound like an outrageous claim?
Former Texas Republican Representative Tom
DeLay claimed that the Columbine school shootings
were caused by the teaching of evolution. DeLay is
quoted as stating that "Our school systems teach the
children that they are nothing but glorified apes who
are evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial
soup.” It’s an easy way to dodge larger issues like
how two teenage boys were able to get a cache of
guns – but that’s another sermon for another time.
So, we have two seemingly incompatible
belief systems. One – evolution – has been founded
on the scientific method, years of observation,
refinement and testing and has the backing of some
99.9% of scientists. The other, Creationism or
Intelligent Design also claims to have been equally
researched and tested and has convinced at least
40% of the population of its validity. What I
suspect is so offensive to those who believe in
Intelligent Design about Darwin’s theory of
evolution is the notable absence of one of the most
important, driving forces known to humanity – love.
I can hear you thinking now – but evolution
is not about love, it’s about science and facts. I
agree; but how we think the world should be – that
is about theology - that is what we do here in
church week after week – think about how the
world “should be,” and here is where, as much as I
am loathe to admit it, I think the impulse behind
intelligent design arises.
Evolution does not account for or consider
the role of love in how we human beings evolve. I
understand that this happens in a different field of
science all together - that’s for the psychologists
and sociologists to figure out. But, if you base your
belief system on a relationship with God, it’s hard
to square the brutality of nature with the glory of
creation and our place in it. Darwin himself, who
became an agnostic Unitarian later in his life, did
not try to explain the presence of love in humans as
a product of evolutionary science. Instead, he too,
looking at the evolutionary process, was taken
aback by its ruthless suffering. He once wrote:
“what a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the
clumsy, wasteful, blunderingly low and horribly
cruel works of nature!” How can you account
theologically for the adorable male gray langur
monkey in India that will slaughter the infants of a
female if she birthed them by a rival male? Or cute
gerbils killing and eating other offspring; or even
the parasitic wasp laying eggs in the soft body of a
caterpillar, which then feeds on the caterpillar’s live
body until it is consumed? All of these evolutionary
adaptations are necessary for a species’ survival and
none of them shed light on the most
incomprehensible leap of the human heart – to love
beyond even the personal mandate for survival.
Where Darwin’s theory ends is where
theology begins. We begin with the realization that
we take responsibility for life not needing to be
nasty, brutish and short; that those deemed weaker
physically or otherly-abled are worthy of full
participation in life. The bodies we have are the
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product of evolution, as Darwin described; and
presumably, we have reached the end – or at least a
long pause – in the physical process of evolution.
Now, we are in the midst of an evolution revolution
– a spiritual revolution that is demanding the ongoing evolution of not just the human mind – but
the human spirit. The process of evolution was not
for nothing – it is to lead us to the point whereby
our hearts and minds are ready to take the next
evolutionary step – from survival to love.
In order for us to continue evolving as
human beings, old forms must die out. Just as
Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest meant that
those who were least willing to adapt to change had
to die – so do some beliefs, habits of human
construction. Because you see, if they don’t die – if
we don’t allow some parts of our life to become
extinct – we will never evolve into the human
beings who carry with us the DNA of divinity as
well. This world has to end, my friends. Parts of
our world must become extinct. To tell us about it,
I’m going to ask rapper and public intellectual
Prince Ea to come into the worship service and tell
us why he thinks this world should end.
Video Reflection – Why this World Should End
(4 mins)
Sermon – Part II
Prince Ea challenges us to look at love in a
new way, not romantic love, not insipid love, not
the fake air kissy kind of love, but one that is so real
and so bottom line that our very survival as a planet
and as a people depend on it. So how to go from
evolutionary survival – just claiming a place on the
planet – struggling to stay on top of the heap – to a
being who is capable of a truly evolutionary,
revolutionary kind of love? And what does that
kind of love look like? What qualities transform us
from our basic, biological, animal, aggressive
passions into something “divine?”
The evolution of love requires not a
subduing of passion; but a disciplining of them. A
disciplined passion is not a theme that’s going to
make it into Hollywood movies. It’s the
undisciplined passion that sells tickets on
Valentine’s Day – the running off into the sunset
with the soul mate you met hours ago on the
internet; the hooking up and sleeping around
because you’ve decided someone is “hot” regardless
if you’re committed or not; passion, like lava flows,
will eventually cool and harden. D.H. Lawrence
writes “Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater
depths, love is like the grass, but the heart is deep
wild rock molten, yet dense and permanent…”
What we’re looking at today and for the rest of this
month as we wonder if love can conquer all is the
ways we can move into greater depths – into the
deep wild rock of the heart. I submit that there are
at least two things that move us from pure survival
to mature and lasting love:
The first is forgiveness. In an article entitled
“From Survival to Love”, the author Sollerder
writes: “Forgiveness is specifically a matter of
dealing with pain.” 2“Forgiveness is the choice to
accept pain inflicted by another and to refuse to
return that pain upon the perpetrator. It is a choice
to end the cycle of violence and the spread of hurt.
It comes at great cost. If someone hurts us and we
hurt them back, we feel vindicated. We have,
following our evolutionary impulses, reminded
them of the cost of meddling with us…but by going
through the process of pain, love opens up a new
option of finding healing and turning the pain from
the agent of evil to the use of good.”3 Forgiveness
interrupts the baser aggressions within us; keeps us
from eating alive, not our offspring, but our very
spirits. It’s a natural instinct to want to hurt
someone who has hurt you. But, “let a person know
that they have are truly forgiven and a whole
lifetime of change may not pay the debt of
gratitude…the forgiven is either transformed by the
touch of grace, or at the very least, not provoked
into any further action by receiving fresh violence.”
The second quality of an evolutionary,
revolutionary love is surrender. That is completely
contradictory to Darwin’s theory of evolution,
natural selection and survival of the fittest.
Surrender is not something that is supported by
evolution because to surrender to another animals’
takeover of your turf is a sure way to die. Yet, in
evolution, what happens molecule by molecule is
the surrendering of the self to the environment. The
environment changes – you change with it. You
2
Sollereder, quoting Elphinstone, whose book she is
reviewing.
3
Bethany Sollereder, From Survival to Love; The Christian
Century, September 17, 2014, pgs 24
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adapt to the change and that adaptation changes
you. This is something that we do all the time, but
it’s harder to see if you live in the same house,
perhaps with the same spouse you’ve known for a
very long time, but you must change and by so
doing surrender your insistence on permanence.
The song the band played earlier in the service
reminds us of another truth – especially when it
comes to love – remember these words from the
song “to win you must fight or so they say, but
with love things never seem to work out that way;
with love you can’t win if love can’t get in and it
can’t pierce the heart of a defender, to win in love
you must surrender.”
asks us to lay down our arms and our weapons? I
think singer songwriter Jonathan Richman
unwittingly challenged us towards an even higher
evolution, when he wrote, ““your armor so strong is
strategically wrong, victory this time goes to the
tender, to win in love, you must surrender.”
Surrender is not a word that we typically use
or think of as a spiritual practice. It certainly would
not promulgate the species if the animal kingdom
simply surrendered to their predators. But we’re
not talking about predators here, we’re talking about
people – human beings – struggling not just to
survive, but to give and receive love – to have one’s
heart opened up and become vulnerable…and now
you’re asking me to surrender? Surrender what?
My power, my will, my ego, my desire to be right,
my insistence on having this my own way, my lack
of consideration for “the other” the I – the ME –
and the MINE – the inability to let the other person
be who he or she is instead of what you want them
to be or fantasized them being as another reflection
of your personality – you surrender those things as
part of the revolutionary, evolutionary love.
Love is surely as much of the evolution of
our spiritual self as dropping a tail and walking
upright has been to our biology. Author Bethany
Sollereder writes: “The untrasmuted self has had
3.5 billion years of evolutionary training to sharpen
its skills of self-preservation, to build its strength, to
learn its perilous cunning. This self is not evil, but
she is a keen and powerful survivalist…[but] the
path of love is a longer, harder road than the simple
one of survival called for by evolution. … The bitter
raw products of evolution are slowly being brought
to transcend evolution itself4”
Can you imagine a world in which we
evolve past hatred, greed and ignorance? Can you
imagine this evolutionary, revolutionary love that
4
Bethany Sollereder, From Survival to Love; The Christian
Century, September 17, 2014, pgs 24-25.
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