Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
334. Darwin and Scripture: Beyond the Taboo with Dr. Dru Johnson
Dr. Dru Johnson, author of What Hath Darwin To Do With Scripture? challenges our understanding of creation, evolution, and faith through an intellectually curious exploration of Darwin's observations and biblical narratives. This conversation bridges seemingly opposing worldviews by examining how Genesis might be the most Darwinian text of the ancient world.
• Creation stories in Genesis focus on habitats and inhabitants with concern for proper fit to the environment.
• Biblical authors call us beyond simplistic views of creation to understand our moral connection to the land.
• Darwin's observations about natural selection aren't inherently incompatible with biblical thinking.
• The Bible doesn't claim "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be" but rather envisions a future reorientation of creation.
• Procreation in Scripture isn't just about making babies but about great-great-grandchildren we'll never meet.
• Parents and grandparents should create "fields with clear fences" where children can explore ideas freely, rather than following intellectual ruts.
• Christians are called to "do the work" of understanding for themselves rather than uncritically accepting what others say.
Get to know Dr. Dru Johnson: Meet Dr. Dru
Intellectually and Spiritually Curious? Order Dr. Dru's book
Learn more about The Institute of Creation Research
Creation Kids Magazine and Fabulous Resources
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme, here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Hello, heartlifters, I'm Janelle and I'm so glad to be with you today to bring you this intellectually curious conversation with Dr Drew Johnson. He writes the book of Genesis might be the most Darwinian text of the ancient world. Can the ideas of scripture and evolutionary science be mutually illuminating? In his book, what Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture? Dr Drew, who is a biblical scholar, calls us, beyond creation versus evolution debates, to explore the continuities and discontinuities between biblical themes and those of Darwin and modern science.
Speaker 1:Now, as promised, this year 2025, I am dedicating to mothering. Well, you might be saying, janelle, I have no idea what Darwin has to do with mothering. Well, I'll tell you. You'll hear Dr Drew Johnson and I talking about my experiences as a homeschooling mom back in the day, back in the day, and how, in that day, you really didn't mention Charles Darwin. It was a bit taboo. That might be really hard for you to wrap your mind around in today's culture, but Darwin was something that was avoided. Evolution yeah, avoided is really the proper word, and I just don't want that to be the case in my life with my grandchildren anymore, or with anyone.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to have an intelligent, well-informed conversation about these topics that were once taboo. Conversation about these topics that were once taboo. Last week, I spoke to marine biologist Rachel G Jordan with such curiosity If the ocean had a soul. She helped us really pursue the truths between deep waters of faith and science. And so I'm just continuing this intellectually curious dive into the depths here as we move through the latter parts of summer and into the fall here in North America. I desperately want us, as women of faith, to be intellectually curious and mentally stable and emotionally healthy and have strong communication skills. I just want us to be the absolute best we can be. So these conversations sounded interesting to me and the books really sounded interesting, and I hope that you find them interesting as well. We'll continue these conversations over on Heart Lift Central, which is on Substack, and over on Instagram at Janelle Reardon. Let's widen our perspectives and our worldviews and be able to just hold really beautiful conversations with the people that we meet along our life's pathway.
Speaker 1:Okay, welcome Drew to the show. Oh, my goodness, my goodness, heartlifters welcome. I want you to welcome Dr Drew Johnson. Okay, to the show today. And Drew and I have been already chatting and laughing because I have no idea how to have this conversation Because, as I have said, drew wrote the book what Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture. So welcome, welcome, drew.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I love the pregnant pause between Dr Drew Johnson.
Speaker 1:Johnson, we were laughing about that too.
Speaker 1:Most of my community will understand that hesitation to call you Dr Drew, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:But I was completely intrigued and, as I said to you prior to our hitting record, the shift I am wanting to make in my conversations here on the podcast is we're all about emotional intelligence, we're all about bridging the gap between faith and mental health, and yet I want to become more intelligent in my intellect, if that even is the right sentence, because I do believe that there was some maybe little t trauma in my parenting back in the day, because now I'm old enough to know that Darwin was a bad word, a bad name, it was to be feared and it was to be completely neglected. I didn't even teach my children anything. I was homeschooling, homeschooling community, so everything was the Creation Institute and it was beautiful and lovely. But I have three thinkers that I now know and they're in their 30s and now they're raising children, my grandchildren, and I want to be an intelligent grandmother. How did this journey to this book? You've written many things, writing many books, and you have many podcasts, and you've been a professor everywhere around the world.
Speaker 2:And why this book? Why now? Yeah, I was fairly ignorant on Darwin when I started this project as well. It started with kind of a question that was just burning, that kept on. You know, a niggling question that keeps coming back to you. And so I'm not a scientist. I did have a few scientist colleagues who read the manuscript and told me what to fix and where to you know where to reinforce some ideas and they were happy with the final product, so that was good.
Speaker 1:That's good. I mean you're with Ivy Press and I respect Ivy Press so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great, fantastic press and you know I always you know that what's the old Hillary Clintonism takes a village to raise a book. Right, it really every book really is lots of conversations with lots of people, lots of help along the way, including, you know, my own internal dialogue with Charles Darwin. I read a little bit of him in college, but then I went back and, you know, as an adult, as a, you know, almost 50 year old, I'm reading him again.
Speaker 1:Okay, and.
Speaker 2:I'm realizing like, oh, there's a reason why this guy is so widely read, there's a reason why everybody points to this guy. He's a reason why everybody points this guy. He's a very intelligent, caring, thoughtful individual, and I mean caring in the sense of in the same way, you know, uh, I like that you kind of can say like maybe I didn't do everything right and focusing on creation, but you know, I would say like it's not a bad start to give kids a really healthy, deep respect for the beauty of creation. That god's hand is in all of this, of course, and that he allows bad things to happen but that doesn't deteriorate his love for creation, and that he's going to redeem creation.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is.
Speaker 2:So there's goods to be had there, thank you.
Speaker 1:Appreciate that encouragement.
Speaker 2:I think I kind of mailed it in with my own kids too. We always talked about all of these things. I I didn't really go into any detail about it. I I think what I wanted to do in this book is say, look, darwin, saw some things and in fact that my working title.
Speaker 1:As you probably know, authors, you don't have any say what the final title is no marketing department um, not till you're a big guru, I think, but yeah, until you're really big, till you really are a million dollars in the bank for them, right? So my?
Speaker 2:working title was and, and, and. There I will say almost all my books. I have preferred their title over my title yes that's true, including this one.
Speaker 2:Mine was what does what did darwin and scripture notice? As I wanted to draw attention that they're both looking at creation and they're trying to explain why things are the way they are, and this is the kind of scientific task In general, I have lots of other books arguing that many of the conceptual ideas of what we call modern science actually come uniquely from the Hebrew Bible, not from the Greeks or Romans. So if you have really nerdy listeners who want to check that out, I do have nerdy listeners.
Speaker 1:I do, I do. They're intellectually Super nerdy.
Speaker 2:And I don't mean because I'm smart, I mean just because it's like it's you gotta slug through a lot of pages to get to the, to the meat. But, um, so darwin is noticing, he's just, you know, he's traveling around around the um, the horn of south america, and he's seeing all of these different creatures in these different environments and he's trying to figure out, uh, what a lot of people are asking his day. He wasn't the only person asking, like, what makes these things fit to their environment?
Speaker 2:In fact, this is a big question with humans about what we now call racial theory is did God make races for places? So did he make different races and then put them in different places, or did he make different places and the places made the races right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a huge question for a great another conversation. We're going to have you back.
Speaker 2:And so that one is already floating around in his day and he just kind of brings that down to like well, I'm on the Galapagos Island. We have this small chain of islands and you have these birds that are all the same kind of bird but their beaks are shaped differently depending on which island they live on. Right, fascinating. Now, any good Christian is going to look at that and go, huh, isn't that like kind of Columbo? Wait, there's this one thing I don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yes, like you're telling me they're all the same birds but they have different beaks and he's trying to puzzle out what forces over time could have created this, this oddity that he sees in lots of different places and lots of different expressions. So I want to highlight with darwin, basically like he's not dumb he's actually is. He's a little mysterianist. He's like he's not trying to sell a story of evolution that we hear today.
Speaker 2:That's another thing that's clarified when we talk about darwin talking about natural selection we're not talking about later ideas that he will come up with, that he'll start seeing the descent of man from alongside other species. So those are later developments. Certainly, what we think of evolutionary theory today is not what Darwin was necessarily selling in his natural selection. He's just really talking about things that we can say are true to any Christian.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter whether you're a seven-day literal creationist or a long creationist or, if you believe in evolution, that god uses some way we can all say natural selection uh works. We can show experimentally that it that it actually happens. In fact it happens in some species a lot quicker than they used to think. I mean, there's been experiments that have done in the last hundred, or actually I guess the last 75 years, 80 years, where they're showing natural selection with foxes in Russia where they thought things that would have taken hundreds and thousands of years ended up taking like 30 years Wow.
Speaker 1:Why is it quicker? Well, there were just assumptions baked into the system that everything is slow and low, okay.
Speaker 2:And then it turns out some things. It's not Same thing with geology. It's like everything you see is like water dripping over millions of years. Well, it turns out. A generation ago, geologists had a change of mind and said maybe some of this is from catastrophic events, maybe it's not low and slow, not all of it, but some of it's catastrophic, some of it's low and slow.
Speaker 1:So we could say the evolution of even the scientist's brain, like you, know what we have in our hands. The way we're thinking the resources, we have the right Okay.
Speaker 2:And I think what you see just following this discussion out from the 1860s all the way up to the present, I try to highlight. Here's what Darwin basically said. Here's how evolutionary science today has modified that or debated that or says they no longer agree with Darwin. And then here's what the biblical text, in direct conversation with what Darwin and evolutionary science, are trying to say about how things started. Everybody's telling an origin story. Everybody's trying to explain why things are the way they are and how they got from the beginning to now. So whether you're doing that through an evolutionary story or whether you want to do that through a literal seven-day creation, we're all trying to tell that story. Or whether you want to do that through a literal seven-day creation, we're all trying to tell that story. And I try to show in the book people are also telling that story in order to tell people so this is how we should live today.
Speaker 2:Right, this is how we should think about things, right. So I give the example of a recent evolutionary theory on friendliness, where one of the people who writes the book says okay, so this is basically what we know about the evolutionary trait of friendliness and how it was selected. So therefore, here's how we should vote in a democratic republic.
Speaker 1:And I was like whoa, okay, wow, do tell.
Speaker 2:Went straight to Joe. Biden right.
Speaker 1:And do take me there, because this is where we're living, if you don't mind, yeah, no.
Speaker 2:And you mean, how did they work it out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, living, if you don't mind. Yeah, no, and you mean, how did they work it out? Yeah, like, how did?
Speaker 2:they work that out.
Speaker 1:How did they go from? That to biden I.
Speaker 2:I was interested in the fact that they just thought that was an obvious move, that if you go, from the beginning of humankind and humans are getting.
Speaker 2:There are certain features that we would now call friendliness that are getting naturally, biologically selected just through. Again they have to tell a fictional story, like you have to imagine dogs around the camp, humans are doing, certain hominids, or you know, are doing certain things, humans begin acting in certain ways that causes this trait to be selected in this environment. Again, they're not actually describing anything real that ever happened. They're creating a creation story, trying to explain how something, an origin story from the past.
Speaker 2:That explains why we are the way we are today. And then the interesting thing for me is they feel like this gives you the impulse to then say well, therefore, we're going against our evolutionary function, this natural selection function, if we don't have friendliness as a basis of society or something like that, which you can argue yes or no on all of these things, which people do.
Speaker 1:I know you're in that realm of the world that I'm not in, and that's why I? Wanted you here because there are arguments going on on different levels and it gets dicey. It's getting really dicey.
Speaker 2:Especially the chapters on sex. So I just basically said look, here's the niggling question. I was having conversations with people about this idea of natural selection and I teach the Old Testament every semester.
Speaker 2:And so I read through it every semester with students, semester with students, and it just hit me like wait, scarcity of resource, sexual propagation of a particular line of species, and then like fit to environment. This is exactly what Genesis 1 through 11 is about, and as I did more research, I was a little surprised to find out it's Genesis 1 through 11. The Hebrew account is the only place in human history where anybody is talking about these things. So, genetic propagation or, sorry, sexual propagation a lot of people talk about creating children and ancestors, but nobody's putting these things in direct correspondence with each other. That scarcity creates violence, which Genesis 1 through 11 has a very clear scarcity and violence association that having children is important, and not just having children.
Speaker 2:This is the thing that I think is really interesting about Genesis 1 through 11. We think, in terms of procreation, making babies we do. Actually, when you follow that line of thought out through Scripture, it's actually not about making babies. It's about making great, great grandchildren that you're never going to meet, and how should you act today for them? I knew that's why I had you here. I knew that you're never going to meet.
Speaker 1:And how should you act today for them, right? I knew that's why.
Speaker 2:I had you here, I knew it, I just knew it. Nobody feel guilty, I know.
Speaker 1:I know Every time I teach that in any type of mothering or parenting, you know moms are like my kids are so screwed. Excuse my language.
Speaker 2:No, you have to have forgiveness right as well. You know grace and forgiveness right as well. You've got to live in a practice of self-forgiveness. The stover talk, yeah, yes, I don't mean to talk over you, but you just hit a really big alarm.
Speaker 1:Okay, so coming back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a central concern.
Speaker 1:No, tell me why though, why that the sexual propagation isn't about procreation, it's about our great, great great grandchildren. Because I have been preaching that and my first book was on parenting, when I should have never written a book on parenting, you know, I should. I'm not going to write it till I'm probably 90 now.
Speaker 2:Lord willing.
Speaker 1:You know who did. I think I was Okay, so we're getting real talk now. Yeah, I like real talk. This is good. Yeah, no, me too. So we're getting real talk now.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I like real talk. This is good. Yeah, no, me too. So I think what's interesting in the Hebrew Bible and you can find this in all kinds of people's thinking but the Hebrew Bible lays it down as part and parcel about what it means to be the children of God. He blessed them to be fruitful and multiply, but he blessed the animals to do that as well. That's not a unique human trait. Okay, good, so right, but he blessed the animals to do that as well.
Speaker 1:That's not a unique human trade right okay, so that.
Speaker 2:So that is about filling the earth. But what you see coming up, and I and when I say the hebrew I mean the old testament, and whatever I say about the old testament I mean it carries on into the new testament. There's not some wall between them where everything stops and we start with something new. It's all continued on love. And part of that thinking is what life means is they call it life, long life in the land. He lived long in the land.
Speaker 2:The fear of the psalmist and others, do not let my face be cut off from the land. And you're like what do you mean? Your face be cut off from the land? Well, you just look at the context. What they're saying is don't let me die childless right Genesis, the book of. Genesis is all about barren women right. And opening and closing wombs and making sure certain lines are going forward.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So I feel now I may be wrong, but I feel, okay, I learned from counselors, yes, that I feel that we generally are not ever concerned about like these propagational or generational concerns unless, like fertility problems arise, yes, and all of a sudden we're like, oh, then you start thinking down the line.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We adopted two children and then had two accidental biological children which we couldn't pull any more. Accidents after two.
Speaker 1:Always the case. I know it's crazy so we go through.
Speaker 2:We went through a period of thinking about, like it just forces you to think about all kinds of things your own bodies and the future of your name, etc.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:So I think this concern, you know, like in China, it's not, you know, for orphan parents in China, china, or as they call them, people who had one child. The child grew up, parents, mom went through menopause, child dies of an accident or cancer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was their only hope for their name being carried forward for their lives being carried forward and you know, as a parent you feel like you pour everything into your kids, that they're going to sure do kids that they're going to pour into their kids, that they're going to you sure do Good, bad, good and ill, yep.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. This is a constant concern in the scriptures Um, and, and they want a certain type of life. And again, it's not like I know we talked about the land flowing with milk and honey, but when you look at what they actually mean by that, they just mean like you can survive here, you can get by and you can cut. You can cause righteousness and justice and beneficence for non-hebrews around.
Speaker 2:You can extend yeah justice, the goods of justice. I know a lot of people think people justice means like punishment, but that's it actually means a good and fair life that cares for the vulnerable um I love this so much I want to take your class oh my gosh, that's gotta be. This is everything I know right here. So you're getting there's no.
Speaker 1:I don't have to go to Hope College. This is fantastic, but I really love Holland, michigan. Okay, we digress.
Speaker 2:This is yeah. No, this is our, this is you know. In many ways I have to talk. It was actually a very depressing uh set of chapters to write, because I I think I first. It was the first time I had to wrestle with the the fact that most evolutionary biologists just assume that what they call forced copulation or sexual assault is what we would call. It is the main means of reproduction throughout evolutionary history. Oh, oh gosh. And it's typically the women who are doing.
Speaker 2:It is the main means of reproduction throughout evolutionary history, oh gosh. And it's typically the women who are doing it to the men, because in almost all species, women are bigger and stronger than them. But amongst humans, we're the rare species where, uh, men are bigger and stronger than, uh, the women, and so we have a, we have a special case of male and female sexual violence, impominence, apes, humans, humans, etc. Okay, and so I really get nervous when I hear Christians who are kind of just trying to to quickly relate evolution to the Bible and say, well, god used evolution as some kind of shaping tool.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I don't think you're wrestling with what people think actually happened in evolution, or you have to tell a really weird story where you're like, no, they didn't compete violently, they just cooperated the whole way through, and I'm like I don't know, I have a personal experience that tells me that probably did not happen in such a cooperative way there may be. I think there are areas in which you can see cooperation at like, the cell level, even up to, like, bonobo. Chimpanzees are infamous or famous for uh, not hunting and killing other. They're only, um, they're the only apes that don't hunt and kill other monkeys and apes. Wow, so they're peaceable apes right, peaceable, okay, but they also live in a jungle that's full of food. They're like the only ones that don't really have to go far to get fed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't have to scavenge Okay.
Speaker 2:So all of these little, these kind of little facts and pictures being drawn by evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, they actually have very dark dimensions that I don't think people are fully wrestled with. I haven't fully wrestled, I haven't worked any of this out my book I'm not trying to convince people of an evolutionary view or anything. I'm just trying to say if we could pull the biblical authors into the 21st century, kind of explain to them what people think is going on yeah, would they react?
Speaker 2:where would they critique? Where would they say yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that or would they say no, no, no, you're missing. You know this big thing, and so I try to put them in direct conversation rather than doing the kind of thing that you know. A lot of times the book comes because you're frustrated with all the other books on it. Um, of course, and yeah, and you're teaching it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I now you can say students here, you know, it's your thesis.
Speaker 2:Genesis 1 through 11. Oh, I don't assign my books, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh no, no, no, I know you don't, but they do know you are an author and it is a great resource for them if they want additional.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can take it on if they want. But that kind of move where you just say, yeah, evolution happened, God used it, and then at some point he takes on humans as his image, or maybe his humans grew into his image or something, and then history in Genesis starts at chapter 12 with Abraham getting a call, and that's where the real story starts. And I've written quite a bit on Genesis and I agree Genesis 1 through 11 is different than Genesis 12 through 36. Very much so 37 through the end.
Speaker 1:Right, I will point all of my heartlifters to that Is that in one particular book I have a book called Genesis, 1 through 11, the. Universal Story yeah, you do. Okay, perfect that was.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's like a moses era thing or something later, right, um, they clearly expected genesis 1 through 11 to be read in coordination with 12 through through the end, right they? They believe, and, and you know I, I'm a pentateuch, uh, torah books of moses scholar, that's where I spend most of my time. Okay, um, those books keep coming back to creation narrative over and over again, in very subtle ways that it's difficult in the English to pick up, but the Hebrew, it's like, slaps you in the face.
Speaker 1:I wish I could do that.
Speaker 2:So Deuteronomy 4 says you shall make no graven images of anything male or female. And now people will start to recognize the language no images of anything male or female, no creeping things that creep along the ground, no winged birds of the air, no fish under the sea, nor the sun, moon or stars. Now most people will go like I haven't heard that list before. That sounds a lot like Genesis 1. In fact, it's the only place in the entire Bible where that list of things shows up is in Genesis 1 and Deuteronomy 4.
Speaker 2:And so we go okay, they're calling out, it's a hook, right, Calling back to Genesis 1. And it says the reason you shouldn't make these images is because God has appointed them to all humans. And you're like wait, I thought he was going to say God created these things, right, yeah? And so it says don't worship these things. And then you go back to Genesis 1, it doesn't say anything about worship. It says what God created. So what they've done is kind of zippered these texts together using that very special list of created objects.
Speaker 2:And Paul later in Romans refers back to this by just saying don't worship the created things, worship the creator right.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, kind of dumbs it down, I don't know Makes it accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're paying attention, you should have picked up what they're laying down. But notice they didn't say that out loud. They actually let you do the work by drawing upon the creation narrative in order to make this point. Jesus, when asked about marriage and divorce, which I think is clearly some older men who want to write their women off so they can go to a young lady. He says it was not so from the beginning. What God has put together, you know the, the marriage line what god has put together.
Speaker 2:And let nobody tear us under, right, uh, they. And that she cling to each other sexually, right? So they're asking about divorce? And he goes to sex in genesis 2. He's like I know what you're thinking about, right, oh?
Speaker 1:my gosh.
Speaker 2:the scriptures are constantly calling back to genesis, the creation, all the way up through, I think, noah as well, including the idea that there is coming judgment and there is a place of refuge for a sure and coming judgment From the ark, to the blood-stained houses of Egypt, to Rahab's house in Jericho. It just keeps going on and on.
Speaker 1:And now Jesus is blood. Yeah, this kind of thing, and Jericho right.
Speaker 2:It just keeps going on and on. And now Jesus is blood, right, yeah, this kind of thing. So this is not text in Genesis 1 through 11 where you can just go like, oh, that's like their weird origins, functional metaphysical view of the universe. You can kind of set that aside and pick up the story of Genesis 12.
Speaker 1:I'm like.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not how the biblical authors view that text. Maybe it's integral to all of their thinking.
Speaker 1:I love that you say that, because I think that's just completely vital to where we are today the integration.
Speaker 2:And I will say it is a lot easier to see that in the Hebrew than.
Speaker 1:English.
Speaker 2:English translations often look, our English translations are fantastic, but they can't do everything.
Speaker 1:What's your?
Speaker 2:favorite, I would say my favorite is if you took the NIV, the King James, esv and NASB and kind of compared them, you can do some NRSV as well. Comparing three English translations will get you really far into understanding even stuff that's tricky.
Speaker 1:I have done that personally yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, we're like drowning in a supermarket of good English. Oh, my word yes we are Exactly, and I memorized the King James obviously in my day.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's, I keep going back.
Speaker 2:I used to kind of like, like, a lot of people kind of make fun of I hate to admit this. I used to make fun of the King James because of it's. You know it's got a weird history, but as a biblical scholar I have found that sometimes it nails the translation better than any of the modern translations.
Speaker 1:I feel like that personally, but I'm not a biblical scholar.
Speaker 2:It's paying attention to the literature of Hebrew and Greek more than just saying like, hey, let me reword this so you can understand it in Czech or Greek or English. Oh no, I want to know what it means.
Speaker 1:I maybe would have the wherewithal to study Hebrew at this age, but I certainly didn't back in the day. I probably couldn't. But anyway, I'll just call on my physical scholars.
Speaker 2:Our brains don't work the same. No.
Speaker 1:I will call on you. I want to bring this into something that you said, Drew. I'm not quoting it directly, but let us do the work. I think that's why I wanted you here. Is you're like, I want you to tell me what to think I know, I do, I'm like okay.
Speaker 1:So when my sweet little inquisitive already presenting intelligence grandchildren, you know ask me did I come from an ape? I mean, that's where I'm at, but I love that you said and I'll have to listen back and really get the quote right You're making me do the work. Do the work, janelle. Do the work, follower of Christ, and know for yourself what you think. I think that's my biggest pounding. The table is that I just celebrated 44 years of turning my life towards Christ as a senior in college. 44 years. Where did that go? And second, I just let pastors and this is my story tell me what to think, tell me who to marry, like very unhealthy systems. Or just say you shouldn't marry outside of this stream we called them of churches, and I mean you didn't do it.
Speaker 1:You were there Sunday, sunday night, wednesday night. I remember asking one time can I go to a different church? They have a really great. I have a lot of friends. No, you have to be here on Sunday nights and I listened, and so I think that's just the biggest reason. I love what you do and I wanted you here just to help all of us be able to think for ourselves, talk for ourselves, know who we are. And so if someone says the friendliness trait you know was this and that and the other, and it's now showing up in the Biden administration or whatever you were saying that, I have an answer that is my own. Does that make any sense? Do you have students that say this to you?
Speaker 2:I can hear your teaching and counseling, because in counseling you get this too right. Just tell me what yes, absolutely. In trauma, maybe I will In a crisis.
Speaker 1:maybe I will for today to get you through the crisis. Yeah, I just need something.
Speaker 2:but thank you, but we're not in crisis right, we're not in this kind of like this is a low-crawling problem that we can feel like we don't know what's going on here. I don't care about selling books. As you know, I'm not making any money on books and I hope I can write a popular version of this someday, version of this someday. Oh, I have a very I have a very nerdy book in which I argue the. The biblical literature is like a philosophical system and I don't mean that in some kind of anyway that it actually.
Speaker 2:I've been surprised again as I've read it and I became a christian when I was 20 in the military oh, okay um and had a day and night like I was 20 version, yeah so um, the more I read it, the more I realized like oh, god holds children, women, foreigners, grown men, old people all personally accountable to be able to discern whether a prophet who comes in gives signs and wonders given to him by God or her, depending on the prophet, shows signs and wonders given them by God but then misleads Israel.
Speaker 2:Because God says in chapter 13 of Deuteronomy I'm going to send prophets, I'm going to authenticate them with signs and wonders and then I'm going to cause them to mislead you, to test you to know whether you truly love me with all your mind and body, and I think that to me, I realized and this is in Deuteronomy, where it's like love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul and strength, and when you talk about him, when you go along the way with your children, when you rise up, when you lie down right. This is training for all of us.
Speaker 1:It actually has a pretty, you know average.
Speaker 2:You know, joseph McHebrew has to actually live and practice and understand the instruction of God well enough that he can smell the bull stank of a prophet who has just given a sign of wonder, right?
Speaker 1:So I mean this is really high demands.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's cognitive dissonance in the highest, at the highest, and so they should be able to say as belonging to this community, they should be able to go we saw the signs and wonder. So we're listening to what you say, but what you say doesn't fit with what Moses instructed us, what God instructed us through Moses. Thank you, drew. Jesus himself submits himself to the same testing. He knows doing signs and wonders is not sufficient, according to the Torah, that they should listen to him, that everything he says must also extend from the instruction of God through Moses as well. And so he says I did not come to abolish the Torah of Moses, I came to fulfill it, to bring it to fullness. Right? So that requires us all to think yeah, and we all want to be lazy.
Speaker 2:Every single one of my students, minus a few, correct.
Speaker 1:Always is the universal.
Speaker 2:Tell me the data, just tell me what I'm supposed to know, right and.
Speaker 1:I the universal, tell me the data.
Speaker 2:Just tell me what I'm supposed to know, right, or the test. No, I'm trying to get you to see something. Okay, there's nothing I can tell you. That is what you can know. I'm trying to get you to read text differently. I'm trying to get you to understand yourself and your relationship to God differently. There's no fact I can tell you that will help you get there. Okay, unless I have to slap you in the face with some facts to get you off of you. Know, get you off.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So that's a difficult task and this is why I think I appreciate what Darwin is doing, even if I think like, okay, I'm you know plus minus on how it all works out. But what Darwin is doing is saying everybody, evolutionists 70, we're all looking at the same data. It's not like people have secret information somewhere. They're just saying how do we understand this? How do we interpret what's going on? How do we explain how this thing came to be the way it is today? And there aren't right and wrong explanations, but there are certainly better and worse.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I think, the biblical literature including Jesus, is trying to get us towards.
Speaker 2:We don't even have to get to right. Let's just get to what makes the better ones better and do that stuff, and let's avoid the obvious traps of what makes for worse interpretations, and worse interpretations are almost always going to be. I relied uncritically on someone who told me something was true and I just went with it for the rest of my life. You have to. When you start out as a child, when you start learning something, you have to rely uncritically on somebody. But the goal? I think Paul says something about this. Like you know, I fed you milk, but you're supposed to grow up and eat solid food, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what I want. That's why you're here. Yes, I'll say this also.
Speaker 2:I was a pastor for eight years in a non-denominational charismatic church and there wasn't a doctor or lawyer in that church, it was mainly blue collar and some of the most biblically literate wise people I've ever met theologically were in that church.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:They had great theology because they knew scripture and they put it into practice. Wow. So I'm not talking about some highfalutin, oh, I'm an intellectual so everybody should be. I'm talking brass tacks down to earth. I had the old lady squad, after I would preach with my seminary degree, would come up and point out I don't think you were paying attention in your sermon to what happens four chapters later to David.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I love that old lady squad term Young man with my identity issues.
Speaker 2:Can I trademark that? The old lady?
Speaker 1:squad term Young man with my identity issues. Can I trademark that the old lady squad that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, they were very polite and they were very encouraging and they were very loving, but they knew scripture better than I did and they were trying to help me understand that I had missed something. Oh my gosh, we've been talking about growing experience. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Invisible. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1:I think you wrote it. Yeah, okay, I'm going to read something. The culture wars of evolution have set our minds on two paths, more like two ruts. Our creation theologies can ride or die with the Jesus fish or the Darwin fish on their bumpers. Ironically, a devout Christian driving that Jesus fish car, a vehicle that resulted from centuries of applied science, poo-poos those scientists for promoting an anti-Christian agenda Elsewhere in the world. A theoretical physicist naively dismisses religion as blind faith and invisible spirits. I do not want to contribute to the supposed conflict between science and faith. I want to do something much more disruptive. I want us to read Scripture for its own views on natural selection. Thank you.
Speaker 2:That was so good that I'm convinced the editor must have touched that up.
Speaker 1:Bro, I know it's so true. I'll read it.
Speaker 2:I'll reread my…. There's no way I wrote a sentence that up, Bro. I know it's so true, I'll read it.
Speaker 1:I'll reread my-. No way I wrote a sentence that good. I know what do you call them when they your galleys, and I'm like oh, I know, I didn't write that Shout out to editors.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, john Boyd, thank you for that. Thank you for that copy edit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really really well done.
Speaker 2:I taught writing forever and I love a good sentence like when I think with children you, I was a children's pastor was my main job for eight years, and so again, they, they, really they taught me a lot as well. Um, and I think what I realize is children are a. They can read adults often better than adults can Without a doubt. Because they don't really have an agenda. They're just like you, seem really uncomfortable with what you're saying.
Speaker 1:And they're very. They just came out of liminal space. I mean they just came out of. We're going to get that language. They just came out of it. They just came from heaven to earth and they're still there. They're.
Speaker 2:I love them, so yeah and they're great, and they're, they're great. I mean, like you can't hide. Uh, there's nowhere to hide when you're in a room full, of like, second graders, right.
Speaker 1:There isn't and they are you're done.
Speaker 2:You're done.
Speaker 1:You're cooked at six? Yeah. And then I taught high school as well, woo, yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine. But, um, I think the other thing that was, I started reading all kinds of elementary education stuff. I think what most people want is they don't want to think for themselves, but you can push them to think a little bit. What they really need is they need a field within which they can play with some very clear fences, where you say, look, you cross these fences, you're going to be dealing with some other issues, or it can go sideways on you.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 2:But you can work with this in the field and I think as long as they have that field, the ruts, you know, if you give children a field to play in, you won't come back 10 years later and find a bunch, two deep ruts going through the middle of the field. You'll find paths all over the place, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, and they're reading and they're studying. Yes, they're open and they sense that fear. Right, they do sense fear, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:yes, I know lots of people your age that homeschooled children and have said the same thing.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of fear-based things going on. I'm glad to hear that I now see it right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I don't want to perpetuate that to my great-great-grandchildren. As you were saying before, you have a therapeutic spirit. So you know kids also at 30 or 40, when they see their parents change, they warmly welcome the change. They can go like hey, you're a different person.
Speaker 1:Or they're like who are you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:And they lose a little bit of that comfort caricature they had of you from as a child. But they can respect the change and I saw it with my own mother who died of Alzheimer's, and even in her Alzheimer's I saw that change going through with her, my father as well, and I think it's so. It gives me hope that anything that I've screwed up is actually still reconcilable as long as I stay plastic and I keep an honest conversation going right.
Speaker 1:Oh, you just said it. My heart leapt to say Janelle, stop interrupting. But I get so darn excited. I get so excited and you just said it stay plastic, which means neuroplasticity, you guys know and also to stay honest and have honest conversations. And now we're into parenting and I love it so much. I could talk to you for so, so long.
Speaker 2:Drew.
Speaker 1:I could. You are helping in so many ways, but I don't want to leave. Okay, I really do want to know, selfishly, how to create a little yard and clear fences. I love that picture. A white picket fence would be beautiful, or something for my grandchildren and then my great-grandchildren. Now, in this conversation, because it is bothering me, yeah, yeah, like how can I speak intelligently and guide them, which I know? The one answer is well, I don't know. I learned this in my pageant world. This is how you answer a question you don't know. Well, I don't know the answer to that right now, but I'll find out and I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2:That's pastor training as well.
Speaker 1:Oh is it.
Speaker 2:It should be Well great. I'm ready to be a pastor.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. But yeah, how can I? You know what do I say when they say to me honestly, did I come from an ape? I really want to know.
Speaker 2:I know that's five hours of conversation, but do I just say well, we can say some basic things like okay, nobody believes, like literally, nobody believes humans came from apes really no evolutionaries believe that they believe humans co-evolved and some broke out and became hominids, like Neanderthals and Homo naledi and these other ones, australopithecus, and some became eventually what we call modern humans about 150,000 years ago, 200,000 years ago. The timelines shift when they find new things.
Speaker 1:The timeline was always the bane of my fear, because it was 13,000 years in the school of creation. And I'm trying to tell my kids well then, what about dinosaurs and what about the ice?
Speaker 2:age and.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of, and I think it's when people ask me like well, what do you think? So you think evolution is true, I'm like I don't. I actually don't know. I've become more agnostic on kind of every front. So what I try to do in the book is at the beginning and the end I tried to tie very carefully. You know focus on what the biblical authors focus on.
Speaker 1:There's two chapters for the creation of the universe.
Speaker 2:There's lots of chapters. I mean there's, you know, like 40 chapters on the creation of the tabernacle, which is mostly about like fasteners and goat skin, and you know right.
Speaker 2:So, the thing about making things the making of the universe does not get a lot of coverage, and I think that's intentional because I think it was a little bit mysterious to ancient Hebrews as well, like they knew that God had created it. They knew that he put everything together. But the mechanical side they seem to be a little bit like off hands. They actually are more restrictive than other cultures. Other cultures will go into a lot more detail. The Egyptians, obviously, mesopotamians, even the Romans and Greeks have kind of longer stories. You get the sense when you read those, like okay, we know God did it, we know he had a structure, we know it's all about creating habitats and inhabitants for those habitats. So he cares very much about fit to environment and proper fit to environment, to environment.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I love that so much so the, but what they really focus on over the course of scripture. You could get this from the old testament, but it's even more so in the new testament. I call it the taking the gloria patria as as it was in the beginning, it now is and evermore shall be. Um changing that to the biblical authors don't believe that. About the nature of the universe, they say as it was in the beginning, now is and evermore shall be. Changing that to the biblical authors don't believe that. About the nature of the universe, they say as it was in the beginning. It's not that way right now, but will one day return to be.
Speaker 1:They do.
Speaker 2:That's what I've been taught for sure, yeah, the reorientation of the universe, that the universe became disoriented, misoriented, you could say it lots of different ways, is cancerous, corrupt, fractured, broken in lots of different ways. But they and they, so they envision. Anything you know about the present universe is helpful and continuous. It goes into the new heavens and new earth, the age of resurrection, but it's not identical with that. Things are going to be reoriented.
Speaker 1:I've absolutely been taught that yeah.
Speaker 2:So, so I think in many ways I could say like, yeah, if you're, darwin, looking at the universe, then absolutely you're right that this is how the universe works right now. They just want to make sure that you know this is not how the universe is always going to work, that there's going to be, uh, not a completely new law, not an absolute overturning of the old ways, um, and not even a rupture of the physical universe, but a reorientation to the way it's supposed to be. Things will operate beneficently and flourishingly.
Speaker 1:Free fall right.
Speaker 2:There's all kinds of very standard metaphors that people use here. I like to use the example that I heard in seminary, I think which is cancer cells are not cells that invade the body. There are merely good body cells that have turned against the body and convinced other cells to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:That's what cancer is and that kills you, right, which is really like shocking when you think about it at that level um, which means that the creation, the human body cell, the creation that we call the human body cell um, is a good thing, but it can be misoriented and that can cause death and corruption and decay, and tears apart families and does all the horrible things trauma, etc so many things. So it's a little hint, a little physical indicator that there could be a way in which the world exists where human body cells never turn against the body where they are always flourishing towards the way human and extend that out and kind of to the dirt steel beams under my feet right now like put it all
Speaker 2:out right. So I think that's where the biblical authors spend most of their focus, but it's built upon this. But they have a long discussion of well, what's it like in between those times? And what's it like is when everything gets twisted. Food becomes scarce. That creates violence. Violence means you're not fit for the environment God wants you to be in, which means you've got to be kicked out, exiled, sent somewhere else that is so.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's sorry, I think the biblical author.
Speaker 2:no, no, I mean, this is all shocking to me. When I was kind of putting this together for the book, I was actually very surprised at what I was even finding, and that that what the biblical authors want you to know is there actually is a direct relationship between how you treat the vulnerable in your community, how you treat your children, how you build your house, how you treat your animals.
Speaker 2:All of this is part of the Torah of Moses build your house, how you treat your animals All of this is part of the Torah of Moses. There actually is a connection between that and whether you're fit to the land God has called you to live in, wherever. That is Wow, and that moral crimes are not separate from the physical universe that they're actually all enmeshed together. Based on the environment's scarcity, which leads to violence, which is so, oh my gosh, that is so. I think this is all connected together. I mean, it's the dirt that opened up to receive Abel's blood.
Speaker 1:Yes, it did.
Speaker 2:It's the dirt from which his blood cried to God as oppression. Noah is named Noah because he's going to bring relief from the curse of the dirt. At the end of the flood, god says I will never curse the dirt again, because the intention of man's heart is evil all the time, which that was the problem in the beginning. That doesn't get dealt away with, but the curse of the dirt gets dealt with, that God cares that much about the dirt. Noah, he makes a covenant, a treaty, with humans and animals in parallel and with the dirt. So I think naive notions like we're here to use and abuse this earth. We're going to go to heaven when we die. So that's the big eject handle at the end of life Right.
Speaker 2:They're not having it Like they actually think that our relation to the earth is very intimate, connected and that we have obligations to each other and everything around us.
Speaker 1:Is that why the promise of the land flowing with milk and honey was so profound?
Speaker 2:Right, okay.
Speaker 1:I know it's a whole other conversation. I know, but I want to but their connection to the earth.
Speaker 2:anybody who's been to Israel or Jordan or Syria, or maybe not Lebanon, but anybody who's been to Israel, jerusalem, that, judah, the Judean Hills, central hill country, knows that is not arable soil. There is not any natural water flowing through 99% of that land, and so their connection to the dirt actually becomes more intimate, because God has promised to bring the necessary water, not for them to have abundance but for them to have sufficiency. And they're going to have to work that dirt. They're going to have to remove all the rock, because it's very rocky soil if you've ever been to Israel?
Speaker 1:Okay, I have not.
Speaker 2:It actually puts them in a very tight connection with crop rotation and the need for God to supply the part that he has to supply. Okay, so dependence, so that their works, that the fruit of their labors actually comes to fruition.
Speaker 1:But he makes provision for sustainability with them. That's what I'm hearing you say so the ancient fertile crescent.
Speaker 2:There's only one really crappy part of the ancient fertile crescent that's not fertile, and that's the land of israel. Everywhere else is abundantly fertile, given the surrounding region, but judah and below even samaria and below the Jezreel Valley. It is not fertile. It actually was land where they could survive as long as God brought the rains, and they worked the land.
Speaker 1:So that's the integration we've been talking about this whole time Yep.
Speaker 2:So attitudes and quick dismissals and like, oh, that can't be right. None of that works in the world of the biblical literature right.
Speaker 1:Like the.
Speaker 2:Bible is constantly drawing you in and making it more. Always, I wouldn't say more complicated, but it's always making you more connected?
Speaker 1:I think so. I mean the older I get, the more I study, the more I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's an old cliche but it is so true. I read it every semester and learn new things from the students.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, as a teacher, yes, I know, and that's why I teach, because I have an insatiable need to learn.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So, Drew, I thank you for this amount of time that you have given to my community.
Speaker 2:Thanks for letting me blabber, Janelle.
Speaker 1:No, it's really holy blabber, is that a word?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's a phrase.
Speaker 1:It is an invitation for us to know more and I so appreciate it and honestly, I mean I'm not going to fear anymore. I'm just going to open a conversation with my children, my grandchildren and anyone else around me with my children, my grandchildren and anyone else around me. But I think you are a vehicle for us to agree to disagree, which is what I think Christ is calling us all to right now To agree to disagree and to be intelligent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if we're truly, you know, I think there's a sense in which God's calling us to truly and soberly understand the world around us, and that is never going to be a fool's errand.
Speaker 1:No, no, as long as it's done with openness, curiosity.
Speaker 1:Curiosity. Yeah, that's what you did to me immediately when I saw the book, I saw the title, I saw the beautiful artwork, I was just like, oh my gosh, I have to know more, I have to know more, I have to know more, and I want my community to know more, my family. So thank you for increasing our wisdom, because wisdom is what our end game is, and I just pray, nothing but blessing, over you and the work that you're doing. Please, dumbing it down for us, please. Thanks, janelle.
Speaker 2:The curse of knowledge, as one editor called it for me.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Janelle, you know.
Speaker 2:The curse of knowledge, as one editor called it for me. The curse of knowledge. You understand it, but you need to help other people understand it.
Speaker 1:I want you to help us. Drew Hear that that's very, very wise. So thank you, many blessings, and maybe we'll have you back if you ever have the time to go down.
Speaker 1:I don't know it would have the time to to go down that I don't know it'd be so great. This is so. You're just so amazing. Thank you so much and bless the work that you're doing with your students. They're very blessed to have you very blessed. Thanks to know. Okay, okay, heartlifters. Wow, that was a lot of intense information. This will be an episode. I will definitely want to download the transcript, which is available wherever the podcast is, wherever you listen to it, and please join me at Janelle Reardon on Instagram or at Heart Lift Central on Substack. Ask me questions. I'll ask Dr Drew and we will just continue enlarging our worldview and mastering tough subjects and just having an answer for those who come along our path. And sometimes we won't have that answer, and that'll be okay too, until next time.
