A New Creationism

For many decades, creationists have defended the special creation of humans uniquely in the image of God and that animals, while also specially created, are not in the image of God. Recent creationists have considered “human” to be the same as what scientists call Homo sapiens.

This has not always been the case. The “polygenists” of the nineteenth century believed that white people were the descendants of Adam and Eve, but that dark people, while also specially created, were one or more species of animal. As you can imagine, this view was very popular in the United States, mostly but not only in the South.

It has been many years since creationists considered dark people to be animals. But it looks like they are going to have to do so again. The most fundamentalist Christians believe every word that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth. Many of them even believe that God put Trump in the White House. And Donald Trump has had a couple of things to say about the boundaries of the human species.

• In January of this year, Trump said that Haitians and Africans were from “shithole countries”. While this does not necessarily mean that Trump has kicked them out of Homo sapiens, it certainly means that he has placed them at an inferior level. Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson would be proud.
• In May of this year, Trump said that undocumented immigrants (nearly all Hispanic) were not humans, but animals. This was an exact quote.

It appears that creationists either have to distance themselves from Donald Trump or else redefine the human species along the lines that He has drawn.