No doubt you have seen the above diagrams….well at least the last one, if not the first two adaptations!
That same story that was taught to me over 40 years ago in a Western schoolroom is also taught in the schoolrooms here.
Although almost all African's believe in God in some way and have various styles of 'creation stories' of one version or another, what is taught at school is put in the compartmentalised box of what one is supposed to believe in regard to 'Western Science'.
However, the teaching of evolution has tried to take on African roots as well.
It is supposed to be the site of the first humans in the process of evolution.
And Africa is meant to be 'proud' that it is the source of all humanity. It is supposed to be an honour to be the ones from whom all the rest of humanity evolved.
However, it is far from being a position of honour. I find it so sad, to see Africans tricked into believing something is their honour when it is actually their shame, and keeping them 'lower' than the rest of the world, in people's thinking.
You see, if one is to believe in evolution and the diagrams above, that man evolved from apes/monkeys/baboons, then African's are the 'type' of human that is the least advanced, the least intelligent and the least developed and the least capable of 'modern' life.
If evolution is about progressing from the least developed and advanced creatures to ever advancing creatures and 'humanity' which started in South Africa, and continued to 'progress' to 'higher' levels of humanity across the globe, then evolution puts Africans in a 'least human/almost monkey' category.
We have even heard Westerners make comment here that Africans are just not 'capable' of certain things mentality speaking! How, derogatory!
African are just as much humans as any other human being on the planet. They may not have had the same opportunities as others on the planet, the cultural worldviews may have placed certain boundaries that determined what was allowed and permitted to occur in life, but an African is no less intelligent or able. If Ben Carson can become a world renowned Neurosurgeon, doesn't that tell us something about the fact that skin colour makes no difference to potential inherent ability?
Evolution is full of conundrums.
The latest is that supposedly a newly discovered type of dinosaur (Ingentia Prima, in Argentina) which is being debated whether it walked on two legs or four. Some are saying it started out walking on two legs (a biped), and the other two front 'legs' were more like hands….a bit like a kangaroo. However unlike the human evolution, the scientists are having trouble working out how it seems these dinosaurs 'evolved' from two-leg walkers to later become four-leg walkers. Why I ask, would dinosaurs want to 'evolve' in the opposite direction to other supposed evolution which was pressing toward the humans 'progressing' to be two leg walkers from four leg monkey walkers?
God's word tells us that he made each animal for it to reproduce according to its kind. He made the first human as fully human. There was no gradual process. He made humans as uniquely human - the only creature to have God's life breathed into him. Every human being - no matter the skin shade - is made in the image of God, and equal in value in the sight of God.
Africans are fully human, fully able to do what any other skin colour human can do, fully able to know God through Jesus Christ and serve God to the full capacity of a human being indwelt by Christ.
The gospel is the truth that sets Africa free from the place of shame - and being seen as 'less than' - in which the evolutionary tree has said they should be placed.
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