Irony is the word for this out-of-sorts time where the anti-Darwinian creationists are the proponents of the survival of the fittest. Think net neutrality. Think tax policy that favors the strongest. Think disregard for the weak, those less able to survive if left to the forces of a survival of the fittest free market. Think selective readings of the Bible.
Think rabbits and owls. Not the way we usually think of them, but the way I thought of them the other night after hearing what I thought was a child screaming. It was a blood-curdling cry from the sidewalk just outside our home.
Going outside to see what had happened, what did I see but a large bird (an owl) flying from the tree overhead, dropping the rabbit it had just attacked for dinner. The rabbit never had a chance. Aside from its kin somewhere in a nearby briar patch and the “superior species” who heard the screams, the rabbit’s disappearance was without consequence. It’s nature doing its thing.
Like the economy of Darwinian creationists. There is a mindset beneath the surface of the socio-economic policies being enacted into law by Congress. Creation versus science when it comes to climate change. Creation versus compassion when it comes to the human equivalents of rabbits and owls, hawks and field mice, coyotes and puppies. The strongest will survive. The weak will not. And it’s all part of God’s plan. It must be. Or it wouldn’t be. And, as for the Hebrew prophets who say otherwise — Amos, who thundered divine judgment of the rich who slept of beds of ivory made from the tusks of slaughtered elephants while they trampled on the poor; Micah, who summarized good religion as doing justice, loving kindness/mercy, and walking humbly; and Jesus of Nazareth, who gathered 5,000 hungry people for a free lunch, lifted up the poor, reached out to the maimed, the sick, the leper, the foreigner, and declared “Woe to you are rich!”and ““Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” — their cries on behalf of the rabbits fall on the deaf ears of the Darwinian creationists.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569) – Greed
“Let those with ears hear,” said Jesus. Who among us has ears to hear and eyes to see?
“Pieter Bruegel Bruegel . . . castigated human weakness . . . with avarice and greed as the main targets of his criticism that was ingeniously expressed in the engraving The Battle Between the Money Bags and Strong Boxes” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
The great irony of the theological creationist-economic Darwinians is that the human species has developed talons but lost our ears as the strong who are meant to have dominion over the weak and over nature itself.
So long as we avoid the faith issue here, the rabbit will lose. It fall to those of us who espouse the Judeo-Christian faith and biblical tradition, to do in our time what Pieter Bruegel the Elder did in his: engage the discussion with those within the same tradition whose hearing seems impaired.
Without that discussion, the rabbits in America and around the globe will be left to predators whose ironic Darwinian economics have nothing to do with informed biblical faith, the survival of anything worth saving, or reality itself. All will be left to the battle between empty money bags and rusted strong boxes.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Battle of the Money Bags and the Strong Box
— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 15, 2017.
Reblogged this on From Sandy Knob and commented:
Enjoyed this.
So I will stay my course, not pile up riches that I would (not) guard., ignore the poor and downtrodden, . I would not want to be always looking over my shoulder to keep something that is so inert. but then, again, I would defend the underdog.
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As you know, liberation theology speaks of God’s “preferential option for the poor” — which is what today’s Gospel reading (Song of Mary) expresses.
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I just unfriended someone on FB because there were too many racist and ugly and hateful and disrespectful memes. When I asked a question or respectfully and honestly expressed a different view, there was usually no answer. At the same time, this person posted many memes about love and respect and Christianity. She was not really a friend that I could call and discuss this with, so for the sake of my mental health, I unfriended her. FB is not the place to have a discussion with a “friend” about racism, but I doubt that it would be any better in person. But maybe I should read Will Campbell again.
Cynthiia
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I have folks I’ve known since high school whose post offend me almost without exception. I tried several times, as you did, but it only led to poison. I just stay away. In one case I just unfriended them. Love Will Campbell, but he sat on front porches, not FB. On a front porch you can see eyes, frowns, smiles, etc. you can’t see or feel over the internet.
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Yup, it was a big difference.
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We need more front porches, Cynthia.
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I was amazed last week when I read about British & Western imperialism being eliminated by the Chinese when they saw it was all about social Darwinist principals.
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😂 Ah, the Chinese. Those people who send us only “the worst of the worst”, like physicians and physicists (Trump remark today to FBI grads). 😳
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Snort!!!
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😀
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And the deepest irony of all is that these are the same people who completely reject Darwin’s theories, yet they live by them. I am so hating these people and I know I should not hate, yet I do. I can’t seem to stop myself.
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Maybe hate isn’t the opposite of love, Marilyn. Maybe indifference is love’s opposite. When a child is molested, we hate the molestation, despise the molester, and do what we can to stop him. (Almost always a him.) The opposite of loving the child would be indifference. In the case of the systematic dismantling of so much of the good achieved over decades, it feels the same. You “got” it — the scientific Darwinians are better at following the Way of compassion than those whose Darwinian economics is without compassion.
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I find these people LITERALLY incomprehensible. I come from a world where compassion is a normal human emotion and the absence of it is alarming and frightening. I can’t imagine how these people can look in a mirror and not be filled with horror. I think THAT is the worse part for me, that I can’t find any way to understand how people can grow up so utterly heartless. I think Garry hates them even more with every fiber of his good Lutheran heart.
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Marilyn, there’s a screw loose and it’s very identifiable. It’s called exceptionalism. “There’s only one sin: exceptionalism” (Kosuke Koyama). It turns hearts to stone.
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