Posts Tagged ‘christianity’

Hillerman introduces his Catholicism early in his book; it was an important part of his life from childhood to when he wrote the book. His primary early learning of Christianity came from Father Bernard, the Priest of the one church in the tiny town of Sacred Heart, Oklahoma. These days there has been lots of press about Creationism, and the loud movement that supports it. As a Christian myself, I have at times been asked questions such as: “So you think the Earth was built in seven days?” or “Isn’t the Bible just a big lie since it starts out with such an obviously wrong account of creation?” I have always felt that my answers were a hastily put together hodge podge of not all that coherent claptrap. Hillerman’s Father Bernard however provides a coherent answer (to the inquisitive sixth grader Hillerman was) on the question:

“Darwin’s theories, said he, didn’t conflict with our biblical Genesis stories because we understood that in these God taught in poetic metaphor. The biblical “days” of creation represented eons of time. Humanity separated us from the other primates when God touched the first of us with self-knowledge of Him and of life, death, good, and evil. The evolution theory was simply a brilliant scientist’s attempt to help us understand the dazzling complexity of God’s creation – from the amazing strength of a grasshopper’s legs to the way our brains translated the signals delivered by our optic nerves.”

Father Bernard continues with a primer on the Gospels and the foundation of Christianity:

“He made the Gospels equally simple. Christ tried to teach us that happiness lay in helping others, selfishness was the road to damnation. His bottom line always boiled down to God loves us. He gave us free will, permission to go to hell if we wanted, rules to follow if we preferred both a happy life and heaven, and a conscience to advise us along the way.”

Nothing as complex as Christianity, or a persons faith, can be encompassed by so short a passage, but I find it helpful to try on sentences like these. They help me see the foundations of my beliefs, and they help me in casual conversations with people who don’t know anything about my faith.