Reading About Fossils



I just finished meandering through the neatest little book on fossils -- "Fossils: Evidence of Vanished Worlds". Written by the French science researcher Yvette Gayrard-Valy, translated by I. Mark Paris, and apparently last published in 1994 (but still available on amazon.com through used listings), it's not the picture book of fossils it appears. Instead, it is a compact history of paleontology packed into 192 pages of very readable text and amazing illustrations. Sort of a secular equivalent of the IVP Histories I referenced earlier, but this time about the history of the study of fossils.

The history of paleontology may sound less than fascinating to the uninitiated, but that is just not the case. Paleontology got started early enough (several hundred years ago, at least three hundred years ago in earnest) that devoted amateurs, many of them churchmen, were able to get the enterprise moving and shape its early developments. It also requires digging in the rocks in unlikely and hard-to-reach places, meaning that many of this science's most successful practitioners made Indiana Jones look more or less commonplace.

Alas, it's a modern scientific book, so it swallows whole all of modern science's assumptions about the age of the Earth, evolution and fossil creation. But it does a great service by being honest about the history of the development of these theories and approaches with real sympathy and balance the enthusiasm of early fossil experts for Biblically-based explanations of these strange creatures in the rocks. It even reproduces a beautiful cross section of the earth's crust from the Rev. William Buckland's Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation, which included a treatise entitled "Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology". While the author dismisses Buckland's theories as "simplistic", at least Buckland's work receives considerable notice here.

Two special treats: First, the discussion of "glossopetrae" -- what we now know to be discarded sharks' teeth. But Pliny the Elder (who perished while watching Vesuvius erupt after taking a boat toward the volcano to observe and possibly rescue the perishing) thought they were petrified tongues that fell from the sky during lunar eclipses. The same pharmacists who ground up "horn of unicorn" (often narwhal horn) pulverized shark teeth to make a medicine for snakebite, vomiting, fever and spells. "Or a whole tooth could be worn as an amulet. Tongue-stones' reputed power to neutralize poison earned little tree-shaped tongue-stone holders a place of honor on European dining tables from the Middle Ages to the 18th century." I wonder if I can find one of those on ebay . . . .

Second is a two-page reproduction of "The Exhumation of the Mastadon" by Charles Wilson Peale, the famous colonial American artist. In the early 1800;s, after farmer John Masten found gigantic bones on his farm in Orange County, New York, Peale leased the peat bog where Masten had found the bones and found his own mastodon skeleton after draining the bog using the apparatus shown in the painting. What better way to celebrate the find than with this painting, which hangs today in The Peale Museum in Baltimore?

OK, so I like fossils. I even have a foot bone from a mammoth that I found in Texas. No, really, I do. I'll have to post a picture or something.

Stylish Repentance

Without a doubt, the call of the Christian Gospel is a call to REPENT -- to turn away from one's sin and pursue holiness through a changed heart. To be sure, the flesh remains and no one should expect complete victory over sin this side of the grave, but belief without repentance is no belief at all, and "faith without works is dead".

In different denominations and traditions, different sins are characteried as particularly henious and come in for condemnation, while other sins are, if not exactly ignored, underemphasized and played down or "spiritualized" to the point or irrelevance. Critics of evangelicalism from within the camp in recent years have pointed out, often with pinpoint accuracy, evangelicalism's sometime overemphasis on sins of personal morality, such as adultery, fornication, theft and murder, along with a heavy "word" ministry where conversion of new believers is prized above all, and simultaneous underemphasis on "deed" ministries, preeminently the care of the poor.

Fair enough. There's certainly plenty for evangelicals to answer for, and lack of concrete deeds to back up the claim of love for the poor -- at least in the twentieth century -- is an easy target. But there is a trend among some evangelical enthusiasts for the "rediscovery" of solidarity with the poor to realign the priorities of sin along lines every bit as unbiblical as the worst of evangelicalism ever did. Not surprisingly, this new ordering of sin tends to mesh rather well with our predominant cultural norms, if not full-blown political correctness. So, the trendy evangelical says, the church has forgotten how to love one another, the very heart of the gospel. Caring for the poor ought to be preeminent in the life of the Christian.

Note that, while completely true, this sentiment (if not its actual implementation) is fully consistent with cultural pressures brought to bear in the twenty-first century United States. No one can deny that's it's cool to care for the poor, and that generally speaking, it's easy to gain admiration for one's caring, tolerant attitudes concerning the poor. And who doesn't enjoy the approval of others? Opposition to gay marriage, on the other hand, while exceedingly popular (Alabama's constitutional amendment against it just passed with a staggering 81% of the vote, and Alabama was the twentieth state to pass such an amendment), not to mention the "puritanical" condemnation of homosexual acts and fornication and the "oppresive" and "burdensome" opposition to abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and euthanasia, clash rather directly with the reigning ethos of publicly respectable opinion.

Want to test whether your views on a particular subject are consistent with the reigning culture? Imagine yourself appearing on a late-night talk show or Oprah and saying what you think on that subject. What is the audience's response? Applause and cheers or boos and jeers? That's the difference between "speaking truth to power" and "oppressive hate speech." Of course, the biblical position may be generally consistent with the culture's currently fashionable values, such as with the question of whether to care for the poor. But where culture embraces what God's law negates, Christians are still called to repent, even if it's unfashionable. Those who wish to open eyes within evangelicalism to sins of omission over the last century -- and those eyes do need opening -- would do well to appreciate evangelicals' willingness to face the harsh rebuke of the culture for taking some tough stands.

The Immigration Debate (en francais)

The BBC reports tonight that both houses of the French parliament have passed a "tough new immigration bill." So, after the riots of the last few months and the growing realization of the very real potential for the Islamification of Europe, have the French given up on multiculturalism and embraced xenophobic nationalism? Take a look at the BBC's summary of the bill's major provisions and judge for yourself:

--Only the qualified get "skills and talents" residency permit
--Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits
--Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards
--Migrants must agree to learn French
--Migrants must sign 'contract' respecting French way of life
--Scraps law on workers [BBC speak for illegal immigrants] getting citizenship after 10 years

The first two and the last entries are so unobjectionable and reasonable they almost appear as if they were included just to demonstrate the absurdity of the bill's critics, who have predictably labeled the bill "racist" and have accused French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy of "pandering to the far right". As for making immigrants learn French and requiring them to sign a "contract" "respecting the French way of life," Americans can identify with the sentiment -- encouraging immigrants to learn the language of their new country and assimilate to its ways and culture -- but only the French would make these steps mandatory. It's a symbolic gesture at best; can anyone seriously imagine that France will deport someone because he can't determine whether to use "tu" or "vous"? Or worse, for "disrespecting" the French way of life? I wonder if burning cars counts. Assimilation and language adoption are critical steps for an immigrant looking to put down roots in a new land, but they are hardly the kind of thing to mandate by law. An official policy of encouragement through limiting government publications to the national language, ending "bilingual education" programs, and using the state's educational system to build up, rather than tear down, the nation's heritage and traditions makes good sense, would be much more effective than these blunt legal requirements without curbing liberty to such an extraordinary degree.

Remarkably, I'm beginning to admire the reasonableness and thoughtfulness of our own nation's immigration policy debate.

Montgomery and Montgomery

Here's an interesting bit of trivia for the Alabama readers: Montgomery, the state capitol of Alabama, was named for Richard Montgomery, an American general in the Revolutionary War who was killed in 1775 while attempting to capture Quebec City, Canada. But Montgomery County, the county in which the city of Montgomery is located, was named for Lemuel P. Montgomery, a major who was killed in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814.

You can visit Major Montgomery's grave, like I did today, which is marked by a small white marble monument stone at the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park in southeastern Alabama, just off Highway 280. The Daughters of the American Revolution erected the monument in 1933 to honor Montgomery, who led the charge of General Andrew Jackson's roughly 2,000 infantry directly into a man-high barricade built of large timbers behind which were hidden 1,000 angry Creek Indians. (General Jackson's victory was decisive.) Major Montgomery was apparently close to General Jackson and was a fellow Tennessean. He was also a lawyer, and 28 years old at the time of his death. You can see a picture of his gun at http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/collection/object.asp?ID=524.

I wonder if schoolchildren in Montgomery learn about the difference between the two Montgomerys.

Work, Self and Self Expression

"Adolescents are workers bent on self-expression. The results are maudlin. Simpering songs. Sprawling poems. Banal letters. Bombastic reforms. Bursts of energy that run out of gas (the self tank doesn't hold that much fuel) and litter house and neighborhood with unfinished models, friendships, and projects. The adolescent, excited at finding the wonderful Self, supposes that life now consists in expressing it for the edification of all others. Most of us are bored.

"Real work, whether it involves making babies or poems, hamburger or holiness, is not self-expression, but its very opposite. Real workers, skilled workers, practice negative capability -- the suppression of self so that the work can take place on its own. St. John the Baptist's 'I must decrease, but he must increase' is embedded in all good work. When we work well, our tastes, experiences, and values are held in check so that the nature of the material or the person or the process or our God is as little adulterated or compromised by our ego as possible. The worker in the work is a self-effacing servant. If the worker shows off in his or her work, the work is ruined and becomes bad work -- a projection of ego, an indulence of self."

--Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor (emphasis added)

Now I've got to get back to work . . . .

And what does this say about blogs, anyway?

Hypocrisy, Tribute, Virtue and History

Flipping through the neatest little book called "Faith in the Age of Reason" by Jonathan Hill this weekend, I came across a discussion of Voltaire, the Enlightenment author of Candide and plenty of other things. The discussion mentioned that Voltaire was an early popularizer of the argument that Christianity (particularly Catholicism in Voltaire's view) is really bad because of all the terrible, awful things people have done in the name of Christianity throughout history. Think the Crusades, the European Wars of Religion, the forced conversion of Native Americans, etc., etc., etc.

Not that there isn't plenty of evil on the hands of those who claim the name of Christ throughout history. There's plenty of blame to go around. But I've always had a hard time understanding what's unique about Christianity in this respect. Plenty of evil has been committed in the name of pretty much every major religion, and most of the minor ones, too. And that shouldn't be surprising -- when men seek power and wealth, they tend to use powerful and effective tools to get it. Religion is one of those tools, sometimes a very powerful one in a very religious society. Is it surprising that ambitions of conquest, power and slaughter would be clothed in religion? The same thing happens with athiesm, secularism and humanism in societies where they dominate. "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue." --Duc de La Rouchefoucauld

So there's little if anything unique about Christianity when it comes to slaughter and wickedness. What about the hundreds of millions dead at the feet of athiestic Marxism? What about the Mongol conquest of China? Aztec human sacrifice? Japanese warlords? Tribal cannibalism in various parts of the world? Viking raids on Christian Britain?

It seems that the better view of the situation is that men are wicked, whatever their religious affiliation, and that a society's dominant religion will always be associated with its (and influence its choice of) wars, conquests and slaughters. Ironically, to single out Christianity for blame in this respect is really to maintain that Christians, as opposed to Muslims, athiests, assorted pagans and Hindus, ought to know better. Which amounts to a recognition that Christianity is somehow different, even superior in its message if not in its ability to thoroughly change everyone coming under its influence, to all those other religions. Maybe that's what Voltaire meant.


Addendum: Hill's book is part of a series of really neat little histories published by IVP. They are small (almost fit in your pocket), maybe 200 pages each, and printed on glossy paper with great collections of pictures and artwork fleshing out the content, which is excellent in every one I've sampled. As a book guy, I was slightly taken aback by the fact that these books look like paper versions of good web sites, with graphics, sidebars, etc., on EVERY page, but it really helps to have some pictures if you're reading about, for example, Faith in the Byzantine World and you haven't seen much of Byzantium yourself. Other titles in the series include The Expansion of Christianity, Jesus and His World, Augustine and His World, Luther and His World, Christianity and the Celts, Faith in the Medieval World, and Francis of Assisi and His World.

Just one more example from Hill's book to entice the would-be reader: a sidebar in the section discussing Peter the Great's reforms in Russia says that Peter outlawed the wearing of beards by men (a very strong tradition in the eastern church in Russia at that time) so the men would look more European. Apparently, the young men didn't mind, as the young ladies preferred the new style, but some older men actually cut off their beards and saved them in boxes (!) because they were afraid they could not attain heaven without them. This was the first I'd heard of the Facial Hairesy.

Getting al-Zarqawi and Other Bad Guys

I was explaining to my seven year old yesterday about our nation's killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq by dropping bombs on top of him. (The conversation was prompted by a radio report we heard in the car.) She wanted to know if that was a good thing, if he was a "bad guy", and other stuff of that nature. It occurred to me that the real, thorough answers to her questions are deeply complex, having to do with just war theory and the appropriate use of force to "get the bad guys". I don't want to get in to that here, and I'm no expert on those questions. Suffice to say my daughter isn't worried that our nation did the wrong thing in this one particular instance.

Thinking about al-Zarqawi, though, made me think again about the orcs and the other nasty creatures fighting on Sauron's side in Lord of the Rings. Not that al-Zarqawi was an orc or anything else less than human (though he did seem as close to a monster as a human can become). Actually, that's what got me thinking -- al-Zarqawi was a human being created in God's image, and we had a duty to give him all the benefits of just war theory and other standards for appropriate treatment. The fact that appropriate treatment can involve having 500-pound bombs dropped on your head in certain circumstances doesn't lessen the significance or earnest morality behind just war theory and all the thinking that's gone into what's appropriate and not appropriate in warfare.

But in LOTR, the bad guys are really bad, and they deserve to die, period. End of discussion. The men of the West never had troubled consciences about whether they should be imposing sanctions on Mordor instead of destroying it; they didn't ever bother with taking orcs prisoner to hold until the cessation of hostilities. (And none ever surrendered that I recall.) This approach has undeniable advantages in warfare -- no Abu Graibs in Middle Earth! Or Andersonvilles, either. Of course, "take no prisoners" is barbaric and evil in human warfare, and since humans are the only sentient beings we're familiar with in reality, we've never been able to implement "take no prisoners" in warfare with a clean conscience (nor should we). About the only real-world equivalent to orcs would be if the Earth were invaded by aliens from another world. Think "War of the Worlds" and recall that it was biological warfare (intentional or no) that saved the day for humanity. Even then, I'm not too sure about the morality of the indiscriminate killing of sentient beings.

I think the pure evil of the enemy in LOTR is one reason (among very, very many excellent reasons) that the book is so popular and the war against Sauron is so heroic and even romantic. It's hard to reproduce that in real life when the people you have to kill are fellow image-bearers.

And I haven't even pointed out that there are no orc women and children in the book. See what I mean?

I Believe

National Public Radio has been running a series of commentaries by notable folks from various walks of life called "I Believe" or "This I Believe." The idea, which NPR picked up from something one of the radio networks did in the 1950s, is to have a person of some prominence in art, literature, politics, etc., give a 3-4 minute synopsis of his or her "creed" or philosophy of what's important in life. Lots of opportunity for "big picture" stuff here about the meaning of life and all that. I've only heard a few, but it seems like, at the least, a decent use of NPR's airtime since you really get to hear someone speak "from the heart" or at least in a context in which the person gets to define the terms of the discussion.

The last installment I heard was from a guy who believes "in barbecue". His tongue was implanted firmly in his cheek, of course, but it was a lighter side of the "I Believe" feature that was funny, interesting and still contained some truth. (Barbecue IS pretty important, after all.)

But it all got me to thinking. What would I say if I were asked to participate? Little danger of that, but it's good to be ready for these things just in case. Kind of like having your acceptance speech ready at the Oscars when the critics panned your film, I know, but still.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking that, trite as it might seem, a very appropriate response to the question, "What do you believe" would be the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

I know, I know. I wouldn't really say that if I were on "This I Believe". And if I did, NPR wouldn't air it. Not because NPR isn't a fan of the Apostle's Creed (though I don't really think they are), but because "This I Believe" is about something PERSONAL from the prominent folks they ask to participate. And yet . . . the beauty and the simplicity in that creed just can't be topped. And the confidence it breathes into the reciter is staggering -- no sensitive, nonjudgemental, pluralistic "this is what works for me" pablum here. Plus, when I say it (especially out loud), I get just a glimpse of how small I really am. That the most significant facts about me are contained in those words. Not in my opinions, not in my insight, not in my emotions, and not even in my relationships with others, though the truths of the creed's words should manifest themselves in the latter. In the end, "I believe in God the Father Almighty . . ." is really all I have.

Not a bad takeaway from listening to NPR, all things considered.