the rix mix

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm - one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism - once largely confined to the United States - has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

No matter how confused I become at the intersection of physical & metaphysical cosmology, it's not difficult for me accept that the Abrahamic Deity doesn't have to stretch to accomodate an infinite expanse of time & universe, or many universes. So what's the big deal about 14 billion years, give or take? Or that at the same time, according to scripture, this Singular Being is also infinitely intimate? I'm plenty impressed that the skies were once filled with flying reptiles (take a close look at any bird), with tiny warm blooded rodent creatures scurrying about trying not to be squashed or gobbled up by giant lizards, Especially that 1.5 million years ago some creatures resembling us & carrying our genes were walking out of Africa in search of new Gardens of Eden. Like Turkana Boy, who stood upright, lived & died long ago in what is now Kenya. An omniscient Deity who knows us as individuals in our time would also know this particular kid in his, why should any Christian have a problem with that? But many do have a big problem:

"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."

Many have a prose religion that regards their scripture as the most impartial & accurate available combination of news, science, history, & anthropology, a perception of the universe more narrow than the Gate of the Camel's Eye & astonishingly mundane to boot. This seems silly to me, because poetry - a poetry at the border where metaphor fades into awed silence - is the key to comprehending the deeper meanings of the Bible; a sensibility that wasn't confirmed for me by the grounded, practical teachings of the Methodist Church but rather by what I discovered next door, in the mainstream of Catholicism. The older I get the more I'm inclined to regard it as as an excellent place to stand, particularly since it's also evident in both Judaism & Islam. It feels ancient yet timeless.

But a universe only 12,000 years old at most? (Where in the Bible does it say 1 day = 1000 years, as Bishop Adayo believes?) Lift up the Rockies in a minute or two. Carve the Grand Canyon like a furrow in a corn field. Design continents as jigsaw puzzle pieces. Create a pair of humans but let us guess where Cain found a wife to beget Enoch. Scatter some "fossil" evidence here & there as false clues to trick, test & confound those dummy humans. Why should it be that easy? Who are we talking about here, Paul Bunyan? Or one of South Park's Super Best Friends? Turkana Boy actually existed. In cosmic time, he happened just a snap of the finger ago. Sadly, it doesn't please this particular African that his home was the home of humanity. Whether or not God intended it so.