The sociology and theology of creationist objections to evolution: How blood marks the bounds of the christian body

Abstract

The staying power of creationist objections to evolution needs explanation. It depends on the use of "blood" language. Both William Jennings Bryan and, a century later, Ken Ham connect evolution with the blood of predation and the blood of apes, and both also connect evolution with the blood of atonement. Drawing on Mary Douglas and Bettina Bildhauer, I suggest that blood becomes important to societies that image the social body on the human body. Blood reveals the body as porous and vulnerable and therefore needing social work to be constructed as whole and bounded. Blood is the place where society conducts this work. I conclude that blood language is ineliminable from Christian discourse and indeed from discourses that model the social on the individual body. The solution, I suggest, is not to avoid the language of blood, but to continue to use it in ways that broaden its focus from human sin to human and animal suffering. © 2014 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon.