I was recently interviewed by Catholic YouTuber and commentator Robert Nugent (Decrevi Determined to be Catholic) about 'Inspired and Inerrant' my book on the Old Testament. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, but I did spot the following (unedited) remark in the comment section only a few hours after the video was published:
"Thank you for the book. The title is perfect truth. Just can't get the globe in your room. It is completelly contradictive/opposing..."
The viewer was referring to the terrestrial globe that stood on the shelf behind me, peaking out from behind my brass statue of St Barbara. Needless to say, I was a bit baffled over this unexpected critique that was not only unrelated to the topic at hand but also had an accusatory tone to it, that I just had to say something in response.
Trying to remain as concise and diplomatic as possible, I responded as follows:
"It's a family heirloom that belonged to my late grandfather. Besides, globes as room decorations existed long before NASA and their dubious space program. As for being "contradictive/opposing", Isaiah 40:22 states that God "sits upon the circle (also translated as 'globe') of the earth..." which is a plausible shape considering that the Lord "hangs the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7). But I'm glad you like the book's title, so thanks for your kind words."
Although not about the flat-earth theory, the next song from Heaven's Magic/The Family International that I'll be reviewing today does focus on another highly contentious theory that continues to divide the wider Christian community. As always, I'll leave my own personal thoughts about the topic at hand until the end. So, let's take a look at another one of The Family's 'big hits': Did Charlie Make a Monkey out of you? taken from the album, New Worlds to Conquer.
Song Analysis
Moving on from the business setting of S.O.S. and the dry disco of Moments, the setting of this next TFI earworm is a high school classroom. Making a 'grand entrance', the teacher (let's just call her Ms Darwin because... why not?), pushes her way through the double doors, slams her books on the table and without wasting any time, reaches straight for her rod and points at the blackboard. Queue the music and try not to laugh! (No, seriously. I dare you not to smile or grin through the entire video. Are you up for the challenge? Don't worry, I failed the first time too.)
Well they say about sixty billion years ago / a little fish changed to a tadpole,
Sprouted legs and grew some hands / then it crawled out on the land,
Changed from reptile to a monkey then a man
Okay, so now there's no room left for doubt as to what this song is about and who this 'Charlie' guy is. But I must say, despite the creepy shape of that tadpole creature, the play-dough stop-motion effect here is worth a mention. Those few seconds would have taken ages to make (just ask the creators of Wallace & Gromit!)
So today I took the Bible to my school
But the teacher said that was against the rules...
Remember, this is an American public school. No Bibles or Crosses or praying allowed! I guess Jeremy (again, we'll just name him after the lead singer), needs to learn the hard way...
She said my grandpa's a gorilla / my dad's a chimpanzee,
And my little baby brother's a baboon!
Now, don't quote me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that saying things like that about someone's family, especially by a teacher to a student, constitutes a clear case of verbal abuse. Even if she's trying to make a point relevant to her subject. Time to get the school board involved!
And now, it's the moment we've all been waiting for: one of the most catchy and memorable chorus lines that TFI has to offer. So buckle up, and try not to laugh OR sing along!
Did Charlie make a monkey out of you?
Do you think you should be living in a zoo?
Don't you know that it's a lie?
When it comes your turn to die,
You'll find out you're not a monkey but a fool!
This catchy chorus, takes us to two locations. First, we're shown an enclosure in a zoo marked 'Homo Sapiens' containing a grown man wearing a fancy suit and being offered a banana (which he eats while hopping around like a monkey). Then, we see Ms Darwin (without her glasses for some reason) arriving in a classroom in heaven, possibly at some in the future after she passed into eternity. The other children look rather shocked to see her and the angel teacher invites her to have a seat. "What? Me?" Future Ms Darwin appears to say with over-exaggerated surprise. But you have to admit, that angel costume is pretty neat. Definitely a step up from the ones used in SOS...
Well I've heard some far-fetched stories in my day
But the one I heard this morning takes the cake.
In the second verse, Jeremy is (on the toilet??) reading a newspaper. 'Scientists recreate missing link from small bone fragment!' says the headline. We then get a close up of the drawing accompanying the article. Clearly, not as much work went into this one as with the play-dough tadpole... Jeremy, who chucks the newspaper in the bin, also seems to agree.
Well I'm looking in the mirror
Just checking out my rear
It's obviously too late to point this out now, but couldn't they have used "Just checking all around" or "Just checking up and down" instead? "Checking out my rear" just seems a little... inappropriate.
But I can't find a tail growing any place!
No wonder, you've still got your pants on! But good thing he did, because ironically, just at that very moment, Ms Darwin opens the door and walks in on him. In the bathroom! First of all, why didn't he lock the door? And why does he look more embarrassed than the teacher who (if done intentionally) just committed another offense against a minor? Or was he perhaps using the staff toilets and was caught red-handed? Questions upon questions!
As the chorus line is repeated, we get another glimpse of the monkey-man in the zoo, swinging back and forth on a tyre swing and scratching his chest. And then we see the angel teacher pointing at a projector screen that shows a pair of hands creating the world which then begins to spin. (So there you have it. Even TFI believes that the world is round!)
Back in the high school classroom, Ms Darwin stands in front of the blackboard while the skeleton beside her is showing off its crazy dance moves.
So I stood up to the teach' and told the class,
'I can't swallow this baloney about our past!
Evolution really stinks / there's too many missing links,
To believe all this is just too much to ask!'
As Jeremy stands up and instigates a student rebellion, we get some hilarious close up shots of Ms Darwin who is not at all amused. As the chorus is repeated (twice this time), we get some more montages of students acting like monkeys (and some lackluster camera effects), monkey-man singing in a tree and angel teacher pointing at, what I assume are meant to be, Adam and Eve. Now put in her place by her angelic counterpart, Future Ms Darwin (minus spectacles) turns to the camera with a look of sorrowful defeat.
And then, the whole classroom breaks out into song and dance. But despite all the silliness (and outdated 90s fashion), the choreography is fairly decent - a consistent trend in these TFI music videos. Even the moving skeleton chimes in while a flabbergasted Ms Darwin just looks on helplessly.
But to give even the cynical teacher a happy ending, Jeremy and one of his classmates run up to either side of her and kiss their teacher on the cheeks. Clearly flattered, Ms Darwin breaks out into a hearty smile (and possibly earns herself a suspension for committing yet another offense at school...)
Don't let Charlie make a monkey out of you!
And so ends the third song on the SOS VHS tape. Now try getting it out of your head again!
Final Thoughts
Rather than going too deep into the whole creation vs evolution debate (for an excellent defence of the Church's traditional position on this topic please visit the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation), let's just take a quick look at whether this song is convincing and provides a strong case for the creationist position. As is the case in any debate, regardless of the topic or objective truth, a good debater should engage with and refute what their opponent actually said and should always avoid strawmen and ad hominem attacks.
So, is it convincing? Once again, I'll let you decide that for yourself, but if you think that goofy country music, exaggerated facial expressions, fuzzy monkey costumes, a playdough tadpole and a man eating a banana in a zoo enclosure are an authentic, articulate and intelligent way to prove a point, then... good for you! But as for me, apart from providing a good laugh, this song in all honesty does more harm than good to the Christian faith which the TFI supposedly tries to represent in the post-modern world.
The same goes for The Family's supposed defence of the creationist position. The song itself begins with a strawman claiming that "they say about sixty billion years ago a little fish turned into a tadpole..." No one, not even the most hardcore of atheist evolutionary biologists claims that evolution of living organisms began 60 billion years ago. I believe the theory is more around the 4.5 billion years marker for the beginning of the universe and something like 100 million years for the first living organisms. (I could be way off there, so please excuse my ignorance if that's the case). Changing the lyrics from 60 billion to 100 million really isn't that big a deal and would have made practically no difference to the song's rhythm or its core message. No need to insult the intelligence of your listeners, regardless of whether they already accept or reject your position.
As for the tadpole sprouting legs and growing hands and then crawling out onto land, this seems to imply that this all happened in the span of a single lifetime for a single creature, going from fish to reptile to monkey and then to man. Even Mr Garrison, the eccentric teacher from the irreverent (but extremely well-written) show South Park, did a better job at debunking... sorry, explaining the theory of evolution within less than a minute! (Scene contains explicit language, so viewer discretion is advised)
When Jeremy stands up to the teacher and voices his opinion, he gives two main reasons for rejecting Darwin's theory. The first reason: "Evolution really stinks" which is just plain childish. The second reason: "There's too many missing links" which is in fact a very strong argument against evolution, but in this instance it's completely useless as a stand-alone statement. By making a truth claim such as this, the burden of proof immediately falls on the one who made the claim and must therefore be backed up with some examples. In the context of this song, a verse listing out some of these missing links or calling out some of the bogus "evidence" (Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man for instance) could have added some much needed factual ammo to a song that seeks to provide an alternative view to an almost universally accepted theory; but yet cannot take itself seriously enough to do so.
In conclusion, this song is good for some quick laughs and a great sing-along tune for those long boring car journeys but not for much else. Better and indeed much stronger arguments for the direct and immediate creation of Adam's body from the dust of the earth exist out there (*cough* Kolbe Center *cough*) but this song sure ain't one of them! In the end, the only ones Charlie made a monkey out of were the writers, producers and (in a more literal sense) actors of this TFI hilarity. How ironic!
