I flunked the quiz but learned a valuable lesson about which texts I needed to be studying to pass biology and geology at the Lord's University.
In the early decades of the last century, Mormonism, along with the rest of religious America, was grappling with Darwin's theory of natural selection. Things came to a head in 1925 with the Scopes Monkey Trial. A high school science teacher from Kansas had been hauled into court for teaching evolution, contrary to state law.
For fundamentalist Christians, the issue was simple. Darwin was wrong (as well as possibly being an instrument of the devil). The earth was 6,000 years old, period. Fossil evidence to the contrary was dismissed as the remnants of unlucky animals drowned in Noah's flood. There are Bible literalists today who argue that the neat fossil layering actually represents the ability of extinct animals to swim, with dinosaurs obviously being the least buoyant.
The LDS Church, instead of coming down foursquare against evolution, engaged in some thoughtful reflection. What did it believe about evolution? A special meeting of church leaders was called not long after the Scopes trial to examine the issue.
B.H. Roberts, a general authority and intellectual, argued that there was no conflict between faith and science. Couldn't God operate through natural processes, in this case evolution, to create our world?
In fact, he continued, wasn't the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression a kind of spiritual evolution? If it was the spiritual nature of things to progress from a lower to a higher form, then why not the physical as well?
Joseph Fielding Smith, an apostle who would become president of the church four decades later, was having none of it.
Evolution undercut the sanctity of scripture and demeaned man as God's crowning achievement. We are not the heirs of apes, he argued.
Neither Roberts nor Smith were shy about defending their stands. When the issue threatened to blow up into a public argument between general authorities, the church told the two to drop the matter.
On April 7, 1931, the church's governing First Presidency, headed by Heber J. Grant, addressed the general authorities: "Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church."
In practice, this has meant that the physical sciences curriculum at BYU has not been turned over to the religion department. Students troubled by the course work receive a packet containing all of the Church's official statements concerning evolution, as well as the chapter on evolution found in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism.
In short, beyond reaffirming that Adam was "the primal parent of our race," the official statements say that God hasn't made his mind known about evolution.
Despite the Smith-Roberts dust-up, the church has spent comparatively little time or trouble on evolution. It has never been a Mormon issue. The church has been quite happy to move on to the real business of religion while saying about evolution, "We don't know."
That hasn't stopped others who think they do know. Notions fueled by Bible literalists are being touted as alternative theories to evolution. "Creationism," they say, deserves equal time in the public classroom. While maybe worth pondering as an article of one's faith, creationism is not science.
In fairness, creationism is also taught at BYU. You just have to go to the religion department to hear it.
