by Vernon Meyer

I have been teaching a class over the past few weeks titled: “Creation, Science and Evolution.” My focus has been on the challenge we encounter in the post-modern world, to be people of faith and people of science. It seems that the struggle pits one against the other, religion against science or faith against reason. Since the Enlightenment pulled the proverbial rug out from under the foundations of the spiritual belief system of religion, religion has fought back by insisting and at times demanding adherence to a code of fundamental beliefs that seek to define Christianity very narrowly.

The modern advances in medicine, psychology, anthropology and physics that have expanded our understanding of the human body and the human person have brought to us a fuller and deeper understanding of human sexuality, human psychology and the history of the earth itself. Instead of partnering with these advances, religion has often responded by pushing back in an anti-intellectual, anti-science fundamentalism that narrowly defines human sexuality and marriage, while demanding orthodoxy on Christian values. Some parts of Christianity insist it is engaged in a culture war suggesting that the modern advances of science are the causes of the chaos in society, the decline in family values and the overall trend toward violence and terrorism. Conservative fundamentalism, be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu tries to convince us that unless science supports there narrow view of the human person or the universe, it is corrupt and evil and the work of those devilish atheists.

The false dichotomy of either/or seems to threaten our politics, our faith communities and the very fabric of ability as a society, or better, a community of human beings. And so as I have taught the class on the first couple of chapters of Genesis I have found myself saying in amazement that the inferences and implications that we draw from the text (and for that matter any biblical text) often add meaning that neither the original text nor the original community who received the text could bear or understand. Our theology that has grown and developed over the past 3000 to 4000 years interprets texts and draws conclusions from the text that for the most part have to be held very carefully and very gingerly. Meaning, we can not be so adamant that we know what the text means and we can not be so dogmatic to say the text only means one thing (and that usually means that it can only mean what we think it means based on our theology and dogma), when in reality the text is multi-valant and multi-dimensional.

So much of the fight over texts has little to do with the actual biblical text and more to do with the structures of institutional religion than with God’s revelation. We have created the false dichotomy between science and religion, and until we stop using God’s word as weapons of hate and division, we will never be able hear or understand the text as the revelation of a God who is compassionate, slow to anger, rich in mercy and abounding in deep abiding kindness.