The greatest incongruity the Christ’s teaching has with Darwinian Theory is not about the origins of the universe. It is with this idea of “survival of the fittest.” Now, Darwin probably did not endorse this survival of the fittest idea as one by which to live your life (I don’t know if he did), but it stands in stark opposition to what the Christ teaches about how to get “life.” This idea of survival of the fittest would say that the members of a species who are the best will survive and carry on the species, always finding new ways to survive and carry on. Jesus would say the way to survive is to die.

I’m pretty sure that doesn’t fit into the whole evolutionary paradigm. My friend Bret sent me this video about animals demonstrating altruism with one another. So maybe things like empathy and fairness could be “evolved” traits, but Jesus goes even further. He says that you should not only sacrifice for those who are weaker or do not have as much, but you should also lay down your own life in general, and he will pick it up for you. Yes, Jesus teaches that you should sacrifice for others and give up things you have so that they can have, but he also says in general that you should die and that that is the way to life – not doing your best to survive. 

So maybe Jesus did not mean we should literally or physically die (although he and many of his followers have), but we sure do a lot of “trying to survive” – protecting our time and our stuff and our food and our money. Our greatest drive is the drive to stay alive and Jesus’ teaching seems clear that he wants us to give up those things.