Creation, Darwin

I watched a good film last night: Creation, the story of Charles Darwin. It isn’t get the best of reviews but I don’t pay much attention to reviews anyway. I was moved by the story and it is a film worth watching. I want to highlight a few of the things that mattered to me.

I always appreciate it when some back story is supplied to a significant and important moment in history. It was never simply about a iconoclastic scientist who coldly denied his Christian faith and wrote a revolutionary book on evolution in order to topple the church. There were those who took that approach around Darwin, but he resisted those. There is always the human side. From what I’ve read of and about Darwin, he was a good man, a doting father and a loving husband. He was also an inquisitive, exacting and honest scientist. The film focuses on how he struggled with his integrity and how in the end his integrity required him to publish his critical work, On the Origin of Species. Even though he and Emma knew the ramifications, his commitment to what he theorized to be true compelled him to do his work.

The film also explored the issue of sickness in him and his children. He struggled with the fear that his ongoing illness and the illness of his children, some of whom died, were hereditary. He had married Emma, his first cousin. So he feared that he allowed this decision to bring disaster on his kids. Interesting, isn’t it, how the thing we study the most and understand the most can bring so much fear: if illness is hereditary, there is no escaping it. The will of God doesn’t even come to play. The creators of the film did a good job at exploring this aspect of Darwin’s life.

But the theme that moved me most was the relationship between he and his wife, Emma, who was a religious woman. Even though she foresaw the devastating impact his theories and works would have on established religion, her love for him demanded that he be free to think and write as he must. They were well known to be happily married for over 40 years. And as I’ve learned, a happy marriage is not accomplished by agreement ideologically, theologically or otherwise. A healthy and happy relationship is acquired by agreeing to love each other in spite of our differences. That’s what love is. A good partner allows the other to be curious, to explore, to discover, to experiment, and to express those things the other is thinking about. It is the graciousness of love that is the glue in a relationship.

Lisa and I have both changed, quite dramatically, since we married in 1980. It hasn’t been easy adjusting to each others’ changes. But it has well been worth it. For so many reasons.

My t-shirts are available again. Go HERE to see one with an evolution/ creation theme.

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