Christianity and Culture, Part Two: Our Genetic Interests and the Imperative of Reproduction and Survival
These posts are going to take a while, so I am going to break them up into 1.5 page sections.
In the previous post, I proposed that Christians (or people in general) owe a higher duty to their own people and nation, analogous to the duty they owe to their own families:
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 1 Timothy 5:8
Recent studies in genetics have measured the genetic distance between family members and nations. These studies indicate that we are as related to our nationality relative to the rest of humanity as we are to our own families relative to our nations. Therefore, our nation deserves our loyalty over the rest of the world to exactly the same extent that our families deserve our loyalty over other families.
For example, there is a very small genetic distance between siblings, who on average share 50% of genes from a common pool between mother and father. However, this 50% is not quite accurate- usually the shared genetic interest is much higher. This is because most marriages are between people who are fairly closely related, i.e. of the same nationality (this should not surprise us, given the challenges of marriage, that seeking common biocultural ground with one’s spouse is a desired and healthy way to prevent potential problems). Thus, a marriage between two Chinese people (a husband and wife that share many of the same genes) would result in a family with a much greater common genetic interest than a random pairing. Similarly, in my family, my wife and I have a really hard time determining who our children most resemble, because our own baby pictures look so similar- and our genetic backgrounds are very similar as well. People of the same nationality or very closely related nationalities share more of a common interest because they share a common genetic origin in their ancestors.
So what? Why do measures of genetic interest matter in our families?
First of all, there is some scriptural justification for such a position. The Bible in many places speaks of a blessing associated with one’s physical seed, in the promises to Abraham. Children also, and number of descendents, are spoken of as blessings from God. “Seed”, as used in this context, refers specifically to one’s genetic line. We may infer from the great genealogies given of Christ in the gospels that heritage, genetics, one’s ancestors and one’s line of descendents are legitimate topics of concern and discussion. Abraham, likewise, speaks very passionately about the genetic qualities of a wife for Isaac:
“I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac” Genesis 24:2-4
Remember, at this time Abraham’s servants were circumcised, sort of proto-Jews before the Law had been fully revealed. Thus, Abraham’s command was not merely a warning to find a wife of spiritual purity (as any of the servant girls would have sufficed, or a Canaanite convert), but also a command to find Isaac a wife of his own people, something he wanted so strongly that he made them swear an oath to God.
Second, we may appeal to natural law. A tautology of nature is that the current inhabitants of the Earth are those who have survived and whose ancestors have successfully reproduced themselves. The instinct of survival, of seeing one’s own kind continue to inhabit the Earth, is so strong that its absence is necessarily pathological, but again we see many Christian leaders (SBC leader Al Mohler excepted: www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2006-03-01 and
www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-09-021-v and www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9812/articles/contraception.html#mohler) who are apathetic about the fertility rates among Westerners, but who instead blather about “the emerging church” and get excited about the multicultural ruin of our nation. This is deeply pathological of contemporary Western peoples, as even single-celled organisms such as an amoeba have a basic instinct to reproduce and survive.
I should mention that this tautology (i.e. something that is self-evidently true) of survival is used as the basis of the theory of evolution, and this kernel of truth is what makes the logical errors of macro-evolutionary thinking (i.e. the magical faith that structures such as the eye or whale sonar could have occurred from natural selection) possible. Remember my meta-hypothesis that all lies and evil are based on a twisting of the truth.
Legitimate Christian criticisms of evolution center around the idea of macro-evolution, which is the now-discredited idea that structures of irreducible complexity (e.g. the eye, whale sonar, the flagellum, etc) that are clearly marvels of engineering (thus creating uncomfortable questions of who that engineer could be for agnostics and atheists) could spontaneously result from natural selection alone. The usual macro-evolutionist response to these arguments is to trot out the old standby of the peppered moth, the famous moth whose camouflage coloring changed in response to the deposits of soot on trees during the Industrial Revolution.
This macro-evolutionist argument is a straw-man argument, as no serious Creationist disputes what is quite obviously a micro-evolutionary process- the fact that random mutation and natural selection could lead to moths changing pigmentation does nothing to explain how irreducibly complex mechanical structures could have evolved.
We are also subjected to reverse-straw-man arguments forwarded by some “Christians” who use Christian distaste for macroevolutionary pseudoscience as a way to front their left-wing agenda. Some practitioners and advocates of the heretical, extra-Scriptural, globalist (and Communist) “social gospel” have now come into the Church and told us that because evolution is untrue, genetics do not matter. That concern over genetics is in fact an indication of spiritual darkness and evil, because evil Nazis cared about genetics as well. Generally, if someone brings up Nazism (or any of the other “isms” liberals use to push conservatives around), you can be pretty sure they’re “pounding the table” rhetorically to make up for their lack of valid arguments. I’m sure Hitler brushed his teeth, but this doesn’t make a case against oral hygiene.
This argument is invalid because its premise (that evolution as applied to human groups is a lie) is incorrect. All genetic variation in humans is due to micro-evolution, a phenomenon that is real and serious Creationists acknowledge. And it can happen fairly quickly, well within the 6000-year timeframe of Young Earth Creationists (I myself lean toward the Old Earth view for practical reasons, but that’s another article). If you doubt the rapidity and effectiveness of micro-evolution to produce such changes, I remind you that a single natural source (the wolf) led to all of the variations we see in breeds of dogs- the difference in temperament, intelligence and size between a Great Dane and Chihuahua are all the results of a relatively short period of selective breeding, merely an artificially guided process of micro-evolution.
When we consider sociobiological variation in human groups, we are discussing micro-evolution. All human groups share the same basic anatomical structures, with variation of degree, not irreducibly complex changes. For example, the sub-Saharan African disease sickle-cell anemia is a microevolved adaptation to protect against malaria; of course, absent the threat of malaria it is maladapative. This is but one example of minor microevolved differences among human groups. In any case, it matters little whether they are microevolved or God-created, as they are measurable facts.
While these differences are minor genetically, they can have a great outcome on the ability of some of these groups to meet the relatively unstable high threshold for Western-style civilizations (for example, the rolling back of traditional Western liberties with the passage of the PATRIOT Act is one of the necessary consequences of allowing hostile Middle Eastern aliens, who have never had the self-restraint to enjoy Western-style liberties, to live in our midst). These differences, of course, are inconvenient truths for all Marxists (who live in an imaginary make-believe world where equality is the default state of nature, and inequality is always an artificial result of oppression), including those of the “social gospel” variety who call themselves Christians.
Thus, concern for one’s genetic interests has at least some Scriptural support, is not contrary to biological realities or the result of macro-evolutionary pseudoscientific thinking. And since it is real, it is not evil, and is a valid area of Christian concern and analysis, as all truth is God’s truth.
In the next post I will seek to illuminate who exactly constitutes the American nationality that should command our loyalty. And I promise I will get to the point with practical advice in helping our families recover their lost cultural identity and rich Western heritage.