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Difficulties on Theory

Lorna Wood

“On the . . . Development of Man from some Lower Form”
    Jace perched on his desk in the Youth Education office, jaw thrust forward thoughtfully, biceps bulging beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt. “You can read Darwin if you want to. But all’s you need to know is right here.” He tapped his copy of Intelligent Design Explained with a thick forefinger.
#
“Principles of Sexual Selection”
    “You think Jace is hot?” Chris asked Lindsey, his girlfriend. They were sitting across from each other at a table in the library. Lindsey was doing calculus. Chris was reading The Descent of Man.
    “I suppose so. He’s got a six-pack.”
    “Why don’t you see him, then?”
    She raised one eyebrow. “Somebody’s jealous.”
    Chris blushed. “It’s just, Darwin says females choose stronger, more vigorous males. I don’t have a six-pack.”
    She reached over and stroked his arm, right down to the hand holding the evil book. “You read Darwin, just for the heck of it.”
#
The Fall
    Jace spoke of wrestling with the devil, but Chris went over like the bowling pins on his dates with Lindsey.
    Partly, Darwin was like his father. Seeming to grant full reasonableness to his opponents, Darwin laid out one carefully researched observation after another until their cumulative pressure forced his reluctant reader to acknowledge the correctness of his views. Likewise Chris’ father, whether in the courtroom or in the domestic sphere, laid out the facts and let them work on you until you couldn’t help but see things his way.
    Recently, he had confronted Chris after a night of drinking. “You had yourself some fun last night.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Got Lindsey home safe?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Let’s go for a ride.”
    In his father’s truck it continued. “You went this way, am I right? On your way to Lindsey’s?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Around that curve with the two crosses there?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Let’s stop awhile. You know why these two crosses are here, boy?”
    “Someone died,” Chris mumbled.
    Three people had died. A friend of his father’s, the friend’s girlfriend, and Jesus. By the end of his father’s questions about what those deaths might mean to Chris, there was not one aspect of his conduct left unexplored. He felt lower than dirt.
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“Struggle for Existence”
    But Darwin also answered questions Chris had long harbored about evil and why bad things happened to innocent people. Unlike Chris’ pastor, Darwin did not claim that Chris’ stillborn baby brother and his grandmother eaten up by cancer were somehow good things. Instead, against all that evil Darwin counterpoised a glorious creative force, struggling and persisting, world without end.
#
“Love-Antics and Dances”
    When Lindsey said she loved Chris and her purity ring didn’t matter, he confessed his love for Darwin, even though he knew they might never accept him in their tribe again.
    But Lindsey said she loved him no matter what. Only a great sacrifice like this, she knew, could bring him back to Christ.

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