Timothy Jones Reflects on Darwin

[This was originally found in the comment section to the previous post. I thought it deserved more attention than that.]

For what they're worth, here are the reflections that I wrote after our meeting on Thursday ...

A few days ago, I decided to read Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man in its entirety. I’m not quite certain what demon possessed me when I made this decision. I’m not, after all, a fan of Mr. Darwin’s ideas, and The Descent of Man isn’t exactly the most exciting book to grace my shelves.

I suppose that the primary reason I decided to read The Descent of Man is precisely because I disagree with Darwin, and it annoys me when people pounce on someone else’s ideas without paying attention to what the supposed purveyor of mistruth actually said or wrote. For example, growing up in a series of fundamental Baptist churches, I heard over and over how rock bands like Van Halen promoted excessive drinking, promiscuous sex, and senseless debauchery.

When I began listening to Van Halen, I discovered that what the band actually promoted was excessive drinking, promiscuous sex, and senseless debauchery, but that they sounded really cool while doing it.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best example.

Still, I think it’s a good idea to read what an author says before deciding that his or her ideas come from the depths of hell. I suppose this is why my bookshelves sag beneath the weight not only of biblical scholars with whom I agree but also of writings that I could do without—right-wing political rants, a trans-gender translation of the New Testament, the works of Frederick Nietzsche, The Da Vinci Code, an Asian cookbook, pretty much anything that shows up in the inspirational section at Wal-Mart … oh, and Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man.

Here’s the claim that Charles Darwin makes in the closing chapters of The Descent of Man:

Sexual selection depends on the success of certain individuals over others of the same sex, in relation to the propagation of the species. … The sexual struggle is of two kinds; in the one it is between individuals of the same sex, generally the males, in order to drive away or kill their rivals, the females remaining passive; whilst in the other, the struggle is likewise between the individuals of the same sex, in order to excite or charm those of the opposite sex, generally the females, which no longer remain passive, but select the more agreeable partners. … Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

If I understand Darwin correctly, here’s what he was getting at: When two people pursue an intimate relationship with each other, it isn’t because of love or even lust. All of humanity’s capacities for courtship, flirtation, and romance are merely social tools that we have evolved for the sole purpose of preventing the extinction of our personal DNA. If Charles Darwin had visited a few singles bars instead of spending so many years on the H.M.S. Beagle, he would have realized that this is a stupid idea, of course. If these social tools have evolved so precisely for the sole purpose of spreading our genetic code, they shouldn’t require an excessive number of margaritas to reach their maximum effectiveness.

Which causes me to wonder something: “Did Charles Darwin really believe this?” I mean, did Darwin ever say, in some moment when he and his wife found themselves flushed with pleasure in the afterglow of intimate union, “You know, honey, the only reason that I did this with you is because you seemed like the best choice for passing on my genetic code”?

If Darwin did say anything of this sort, I can almost guarantee you that many cold nights passed before he saw another opportunity to send his DNA into the next generation. As it turns out, he and his wife had ten children together; so, either Charles never made that comment or his wife was an extraordinarily forgiving woman. (By the way, Charles Darwin’s wife was also his cousin and—if you look at photographs of Charles and Emma—neither of them seems very likely to produce blissful flutterings in anyone’s underwear. So, unless you enjoy psychotherapy, I wouldn’t dwell too long on the thoughts I’ve presented here.)

Here’s what I suspect, though: Deep inside, even Charles Darwin knew that something more was happening in those moments of passion than a desire to keep his DNA from following the dinosaurs down the pathway to extinction. There is magic and wonder and mystery in this mysterious intertwining of a man and a woman. There is something in the sexual relationship that defies scientific explanation. There is something—dare I say it?—holy that happens between the bed-sheets.

Deep inside, every human being already knows this. It isn’t shame or religious repression that causes first-graders to share their sexual misinformation with each other in such hushed tones; it’s the instinctive awareness that this mysterious country on whose borders they so gingerly tread is a sacred place.

And, yet, the temptation remains to reduce our sexuality to a mechanical process or a series of sure-fire steps: Place Part A into Part B while touching Part C, repeating until Events A and B occur in succession … sure, this may work on paper, but who wants to share life’s most intimate moments with someone who’s making a list and checking it twice? The full pleasure of the relationship is greater and more mysterious than the mere physical process. What humanity craves isn’t a more mind-blowing orgasm but to know and to be known in nakedness of flesh and vulnerability of soul. Yet, Western humanity lives in sexual frustration because we have reduced our sexuality to measurable quantities—how large is yours? how long did it last? how many times did you do it?—while our souls starve for something more profound than any caliper can calculate.

It seems to me that many Christians are frustrated with their faith for similar reasons.

Let me explain: Faith is a process of living in God; it is a mystery as undefinable as the wind; it is not merely a momentary event of justification, but “an ongoing history, born new every morning” (Karl Barth). And yet—with the commendable goal of bringing more people to faith in Jesus Christ—Christian faith has been reduced to a series of rational stages and logical arguments.

I can still see the tracts that I handed out as a child, trying to plant the seeds that would save the world by handing out these scraps of paper to unsuspecting householders: “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation,” “Four Spiritual Laws,” “This Was Your Life,” “Admit, Believe, Confess”—all of them, reducing the infinite mystery of faith to a series of laws and steps and badly-rendered comic strips.

In the context of such reductions, faith shrinks from a living awareness of God’s grace lavished into my life through Jesus Christ to an intellectual ticket to escape the torments of Hell. Simply put, evangelical Christians have inflicted on faith the same reductionism that Charles Darwin inflicted on sex.

Yet, deep within, I think we know that we’re missing something.

Evangelical publishing companies are, of course, quick to provide the magical curriculum that will fulfill our inner emptiness, and denominations pack our calendars with programs for guaranteed success—the spiritual equivalent of How to Have Mind-Blowing Orgasms in Only Thirty Days, or whatever other book happens to cower beneath the “Relationships” banner at Barnes and Noble at this moment.

But not everyone is buying it (no, not the mind-blowing orgasms book—the idea that faith can be programmed or reduced to a specific series of steps). It seems to me that this is what the emergent movement is all about. Is there some mindless disgruntlement in it? Sure—but there’s also something that I call “sacred dis-ease,” a hallowed restlessness by which we are realizing that there is more wonder and mystery and holiness than we have been experiencing. What is emerging from this dis-ease is a nameless yearning, a holy craving, a desire to experience a community that is rooted in infinite mystery. This is, of course, a longing for God, for he is—in the eternal dance of Father, Son, and Spirit—the consummate community of infinite mystery. As such, the goal becomes—at least from my perspective, which is far from the final word—a rooted restlessness. That is, to embrace this hallowed restlessness as a longing for a God greater than our definitions while, at the same time, rooting this restlessness in the particular God who reveals his glory to us in Jesus Christ.