Eugenics

On a trip to Salt Lake City several years ago I took my children to see where I lived and where I went to school. To my surprise the school had been replaced with a grocery store and Forest Elementary was but a nastalgic memory. Last year the middle school that Dominic attended didn’t vanish but was renamed from Goethe (pronounced – Gay-tee) to Rosa Parks Middle School. Charles M. Goethe was the primary founder of Sacramento State College, a local banker, philanthropist, naturalist, land developer and eugenicist. Goethe’s social impact in education, the state park system and development of the Sacramento region landed his name on a park, a street, a garden and a middle school. Recent local protest has slowly removed his place of honor. Why? Well, it seems Mr. Goethe as a eugenicist advocated sterilization of certain social outcasts, as well as praising Nazi doctors for their work in genetic selection. Yes, it seems Goethe cloaked his racism in pseudo-science. He was part of a movement that borrowed from the Greek and created the title eugenics (literally –well born) then sprinkled in some Darwin natural selection and a dash of Aryan supremacy and presto justified academic based racism. It’s still back of the bus prejudice so move over Goethe and move to the front Rosa Parks!

So how does this blatant kind of bigotry slip under the radar for so long? “Money talks!” -is too easy of an answer. It is more than the power of the dollar. I believe it is the mechanization of mankind. The intellectual sterilization of the populace was perpetrated by the worship of the god, Science, convincing the masses that God was their invention… life was biology… existence was a serendipity in the midst of cosmic chaos! The postmodern era has passive aggressively reclaimed spirituality and the transcendence of the human soul. God has patiently watched over us all and longs for all His creation to celebrate how man is made in His image with such wondrous and imaginative variety! Through Jesus God broke down the hostile walls (Ephesians 2:14-18) proclaiming He’s got the whole world in His hands. Such is more than a refrain from a spiritual but rich theology declaring that we all are in God’s hands and plans. You see, one is truly “well born” when He is born from above (John 3:3), born of the Spirit and the water. Now, that’s real eugenics! -DAN