In McManus "latest" entry of his Soul Cravings book, he brings up "Becoming The Change." It's very similar to the call of David Crowder Band's recent album, urging us to "be the remedy."
He talks about how lions and gazelles are not driven to pursue a better life. They don't contemplate their personal destiny. He suggests that our altruism is "not very Darwinian." I see the point and ultimately agree with it, but I can also hear the protests of Evolutionists in my head...
Did I just say, "I'm a schizophrenic, and so am I?"
Sorry, my taste for humor has lousy timing and is sometimes insensitive to those with difficult problems.
Anyway, I hear the retort of, "Well, yeah, making the world a better place is an example of our evolving state making mental choices to improve our conditions, which will -- in the long run -- help our species continue on and survive." I mean, it's not like the argument that caring for others flying in the face of survival of the fittest is going to cause an evolutionist to go, "You know what? You're right. There is something more to this life than our meat and bones and the struggle to survive. I'm going to check this out."
So, even though it doesn't settle the evolutionary debate once and for all with a deathblow to its logic, McManus still brings up a great point about our uniqueness as creatures made in God's image. He told a story about how his church felt compelled to rise up and "be the church" in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "This is the time for Christians to stand up and help." When the teams returned after serving in Houston (where a lot of evacuees were sent), one person mentioned how this even changed them. They could no longer just sit by and act like the world was okay. The author put his finger on that very conflict: Why?
"What is it inside the human spirit that tells us something must be done?"
Why do we care about other people? Why are we compelled to do something? Why do we feel guilty if we don't? An evolutionist might argue that it's a result of our societal conditioning; and this argument is hard to debate because this "conditioning" is so ingrained in us; which is why I choose the "divine side" of the argument -- that compassion is ingrained in us innately, that it's part of our God-given DNA.
Not caring or not feeling guilty could correctly be labelled as being "jaded." It'd be an interesting study to look at why people would get numb, jaded, and uncaring. I bet it'd largely be an accumulated effect of pain, self-awareness, and a defensive mechanism to block out the pain. Getting hurt can be a powerful agent of change.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 5, 2007 06:40 AM