The Bible Belt

Is it that important that we accept evolution? Surely we’re free to believe what we choose.  Yes, but what if those beliefs then lead to deleterious effects on society (as well as being demonstratively untrue)? 

In the United States the acceptance and teaching of evolution has often been opposed in the former slave states, the region which interestingly is also the most Christian region of America as measured by church attendance. One church in Houston, Texas claims a weekly attendance of 43,000, and several have their own radio and or TV station. Years ago this led the writer H. L. Mencken to coin the phrase the ‘Bible Belt’ - an area basically synonymous with the former slave states. 

Recently I finally got up the courage to see the movie “Twelve Years a Slave”. Not easy viewing. What was particularly appalling was seeing the slave owners justifying their beating of the people they ‘owned’ with quotes from the Bible.  Lynching – the mob murder of African Americans continued up into the 1960s! One of the major denominations in the Bible Belt are the Southern Baptists who strongly defended slavery as Biblical, and are today thoroughly anti-evolutionist. You see, if like this ‘science’ teacher in Louisiana, you believe that the Almighty created the entire universe six thousand years ago, (as Sam Harris says - about 1,500 years after the Babylonians started brewing beer J), then he could well have made white people to rule the earth and then ‘some lesser creatures’ to serve them. Sounds good eh? 

In earlier decades the teaching of evolution was banned by law in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Most of you will be familiar with the famous Skopes Trial in Dayton, TN when in 1925 a teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution.  But in Louisiana last year a sixth grader complained to his parents that his science teacher, in a public school, had told the class that evolution was a “stupid theory that stupid people made up because they don’t want to believe in God.”  The parents are suing. 

Besides the wrongness of this Louisiana teacher telling kids untruths, there are further disturbing comings together in the former slave states Bible Belt that should be faced up to. Here, before I say more, I must underline that much needs to change in the northern states as well. Slavery in America officially ended in 1865, almost 150 years ago. And yet, a recent study shows that in those same states there is still less social and economic mobility amongst African Americans compared with other parts of America.  And just last month in Ferguson, Missouri, a young African American, carrying no weapon, was shot to death by a white policeman. The nation learned that in this predominantly black suburb of St Louis the police force is almost all white. Sadly, similar stories abound. 

That’s not all. Because the Southern Baptist church and other similar churches, mostly in the Bible Belt, believe in biblical inerrancy, the preachers – all men of course by church law – point out that Adam was created before Eve, and then it was Eve’s fault that they got expelled from Paradise.  Women therefore should be subservient to men and kept an eye on in case they get up to something they shouldn’t again :-) One leading Southern Baptist commenting about the Equal Rights Amendment said: “Satan’s fib about women’s lib”; and on another occasion: “This unisex movement has been belched out of hell.” 

In most other parts of the world people with such views would be totally marginalized. Exceptions are conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia where women aren't allowed to drive cars. And heavens knows what horrors are being perpetrated against women in areas controlled by these ISIS maniacs. But in the rest of America it is mostly assumed that such men could not reach positions of political influence. Not so fast. Ronald Reagan spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention when he was running for president praising them to the hilt. Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist when president but has since left the church in protest. Good for him, but it took him a while. Texas Governor Rick Perry was a contender last time around and is clearly gearing up for another run.  

 It’s not as simple as whether you like chimps or not.