Alice C. Linsley
The 1922 Report of the Commission on Doctrine in the Church of England is full of ambiguity when it comes to the question of Creation. The report states: "There are systems of Catholic Theology and of Protestant Theology. To them we have, of course, owed much. But there is not, and the majority of us do not desire that there should be a system of distinctively Anglican Theology." (p. 25) No worry there. You can be an Anglican and believe just about anything. Some Anglican clergy have actually been Muslims and Druids, though these were eventually defrocked. Then there was the falsely reported story about Bishop Bruno giving communion to Hindus in his Los Angeles cathedral. It was believable because, like William Swing, Gnostic Bruno wants to dialogue with Hindus. Probably he never read the Anglican statement that maintains that the Christian doctrine of Creation "is not to be confused with any doctrine which represents finite individuality as illusory or tends to blur moral distinctions... that both finite individuality and moral distinctions are lost in the Absolute."
The British theologian N.T. Wright is justifiably frustrated with the American leadership of the Episcopal Church, but he ought not to blame wrong interpretation of the Bible on the Americans. Wright says that Americans have more difficulty interpreting Genesis than people in England because Americans tend to bundle biblical literalism with conservative social values. This makes it difficult to speak with precision about what the text actually tells us. On this point I fully agree. That said, Wright needs to face the historical fact that his own Church of England has been far from faithful to the text. The 1922 Commission on Doctrine wasn't willing to do the hard work of sorting out the threads of Genesis 1-3, opting instead for the briefest treatment on the question of Creation (not even 2 full pages) and the dismissal of the material with these words:
No objection to a theory of evolution can be drawn from the two Creation narratives in Gen. i and ii., since it is generally agreed among educated Christians that these are mythological in origin, and that their value for us is symbolic rather than historical.
Besides the tone of superiority, one notes that the Church of England was quite ready, ahead of the facts, to embrace evolutionary theory although the binary distinctions evident in Genesis do not permit the view that one species can change into another. Instead, Genesis presents a worldview in which the boundaries between all created "kinds" are fixed. Genetics has in fact shown this to be true. Further, there is no physical evidence to support the macro-evolutionary theory, especially as this touches on human origins.
It is time for Christians on both sides of the Atlantic to set aside assumptions and look more closely at what Genesis tells us about our world.
Related reading: Anglicanism on the Doctrine of Creation; Genesis and Genetics; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; John Walton's Lost World of Genesis One; Hierarchy in Creation: The Biblical View; Rightly Reading Genesis 1-3; The United Religions Initiative, A Bridge Back to Gnosticism; Russian Church Seeks End to Darwinian Monopoly in Education; The Oldest Human Fossils; Q and A on Creation and Evolution
The 1922 Report of the Commission on Doctrine in the Church of England is full of ambiguity when it comes to the question of Creation. The report states: "There are systems of Catholic Theology and of Protestant Theology. To them we have, of course, owed much. But there is not, and the majority of us do not desire that there should be a system of distinctively Anglican Theology." (p. 25) No worry there. You can be an Anglican and believe just about anything. Some Anglican clergy have actually been Muslims and Druids, though these were eventually defrocked. Then there was the falsely reported story about Bishop Bruno giving communion to Hindus in his Los Angeles cathedral. It was believable because, like William Swing, Gnostic Bruno wants to dialogue with Hindus. Probably he never read the Anglican statement that maintains that the Christian doctrine of Creation "is not to be confused with any doctrine which represents finite individuality as illusory or tends to blur moral distinctions... that both finite individuality and moral distinctions are lost in the Absolute."
The British theologian N.T. Wright is justifiably frustrated with the American leadership of the Episcopal Church, but he ought not to blame wrong interpretation of the Bible on the Americans. Wright says that Americans have more difficulty interpreting Genesis than people in England because Americans tend to bundle biblical literalism with conservative social values. This makes it difficult to speak with precision about what the text actually tells us. On this point I fully agree. That said, Wright needs to face the historical fact that his own Church of England has been far from faithful to the text. The 1922 Commission on Doctrine wasn't willing to do the hard work of sorting out the threads of Genesis 1-3, opting instead for the briefest treatment on the question of Creation (not even 2 full pages) and the dismissal of the material with these words:
No objection to a theory of evolution can be drawn from the two Creation narratives in Gen. i and ii., since it is generally agreed among educated Christians that these are mythological in origin, and that their value for us is symbolic rather than historical.
Besides the tone of superiority, one notes that the Church of England was quite ready, ahead of the facts, to embrace evolutionary theory although the binary distinctions evident in Genesis do not permit the view that one species can change into another. Instead, Genesis presents a worldview in which the boundaries between all created "kinds" are fixed. Genetics has in fact shown this to be true. Further, there is no physical evidence to support the macro-evolutionary theory, especially as this touches on human origins.
It is time for Christians on both sides of the Atlantic to set aside assumptions and look more closely at what Genesis tells us about our world.
Related reading: Anglicanism on the Doctrine of Creation; Genesis and Genetics; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; John Walton's Lost World of Genesis One; Hierarchy in Creation: The Biblical View; Rightly Reading Genesis 1-3; The United Religions Initiative, A Bridge Back to Gnosticism; Russian Church Seeks End to Darwinian Monopoly in Education; The Oldest Human Fossils; Q and A on Creation and Evolution
9 comments:
Alice, there is absolutely no such things as "macro evolution" in the sense that you are implying. All of evolutionary change is cumulative. Lots and lots of non-randomly selected changes add up to big differences. All of microbiology and especially genetics supports gradualism and speciation, without exception. You decide to believe something else, but for goodness sake, let's not try to suggest that genetics counters evolutionary theory: its the ultimate confirmation of evolution.
Have you read "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"? It's a particularly pertinent essay as it was written by an Orthodox Christian.
The idea that humans emerge from sub-human beings has no material support. The oldest human fossils show the same anatomical range as modern humans and these are 3.4 million years. Humans appear suddenly and unheralded on the surface of the earth.
Just because someone is Orthodox doesn't mean that he/she is correct in their understanding of what Genesis reveals about the fixed order in creation.
The idea of gradual cumulative change is true only within the kinds.
To treat the written accounts of creation in Genesis as anything less than a beautifully woven tapestry of the divine encounter is to miss the point entirely. Genesis is true because it points to the God who stands (with us) yet remains entirely beyond time and limitation.
Thank you for posting this Alice :)
I agree, Andrew. For Wright it is more convenient to blame the Americans for interpretative problems than to face the fact that his Church of England has a vacuous understanding of Creation.
N.T. Wright also supports women bishops in the C of E.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUIgVHScayo&feature=player_embedded
Indeed he does support female bishops in the C of E. http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Women_Service_Church.htm
However, I don't find his arguments persuasive.
I see more historical reconstruction (some of which may be questionable) and less exegesis in his words, and I don't just mean this essay. Am I alone in this?
No, Gary. Others have seen it also. As I mentioned to a Anglican priest friend recently: Wright has never confronted the heterodoxy and heresy in Anglicanism. With his considerable prestige were he to do so, it would carry weight, but he has failed in this.
I'm not impressed with his exegesis either. As you note, there is a strong accomodation of the text to 20th century Western culture.
Ugh. Again, there is no such thing as evolution in kind as a categorical - No such thing in an evolutionary time scale. You are inventing something that has absolutely no meaning.
Genesis is only understandable in Christologic terms. All those Orthodox such as Kallistos Ware that affirm the fact of evolutionary development for all species could be speaking outside what the Tradition addresses - nonetheless they are correct.
Anonymous, Please identify yourself.
You speak so generally of evolution that what you say is nearly meaningless. Please give specific details and material evidence.
Kallistos Ware is not a spokesman for Orthodoxy. In fact, He is regarded with some suspicion as he entertains the possibility of women's ordination.
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