It's curious when people point out that they have a black friend. If ethnicity isn't an issue, why then the need to justify yourself by bringing it up? This is a joke between Gilbert and I, and we exchanged glances and smirks while yet another customer pointed out his own disregard for so-called racial barriers in an attempt to, I suppose, make Gilbert feel more welcome. This customer was a retired high school teacher and college professor who favored math and science, and Gilbert and I were changing some glass on his house. "When we die," he asked, "what color will our souls be?" This was what he confronted racist people with to help them see past their shallowness. While I expect, based on the prophet Daniel and much of the NT, that one day God will resurrect our physical bodies and we won't be disembodied souls for long, and furthermore while I don't think God made a mistake in designing the spectrum of pigment variations displayed in the human race, I felt that the man's point was mostly rhetorical and generally good, so I didn't dispute the technicalities with him. I think I did, however, ask him what colors our souls were, just for fun. I asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ, and he said he did, that "It's only logical," but then went almost directly into an espousal of evolution, insisting that the bible didn't contradict the theory. "There is no reason that any educated person shouldn't accept evolution." I wasn't being much help to Gilbert at this point. With the customer's permission, I pointed out that we understand from Genesis and Romans that death is the resulting curse of sin, specifically Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden. So how, I asked, do we account for the generations upon generations of death, killing and suffering through natural selection which evolutionary theory demands to have occurred before Adam and Eve could have existed as they are presented in the creation account? At this, the professor embarked on a two or three minute recounting of Jesus' parable about the men who'd received varying amounts of money or talents, at the end of which he asked, "What was the question?" I reminded him, and he concluded his monologue with the explanation that Genesis is a parable not unlike the one he'd just rephrased, and finally ending with the connection between the differing talents of the parable and the differing levels of scientific prowess and educational opportunities of people today. I sensed that I was being patronized. He asked me what I believe about creation and evolution. "I believe God," I said, "and I believe that what He said in His word is true." I expect that when I stand before Holy God, it will really be better for me to have given Him the benefit of the doubt on world history. Surely He won't chastise me with something like, "Why didn't you believe what your teachers told you? You should have known the Bible wasn't literal." "Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:6