Little Rock, AR -- At Holy Moses Hospital yesterday, Martha and Izzy Goldberg became the proud parents of a baby boy. Their joy was soon tempered, however, when they discovered that the child is a Southern Baptist. The Goldbergs are Jewish.
"We're just happy he's healthy," said Martha. "Obviously, we're concerned about his faith, but we will raise him as a Jew and teach him our religion. He'll recover. It's just something we need to work out together as a family."
The child, who will be named during the Jewish circumcision ritual next week, was recognized as a Southern Baptist by a natal care nurse shortly after birth. The Goldbergs could tell something about their son was different, but they weren't sure what it was.
"I've never seen a Baptist baby, so I didn't know," said Izzy. "They look pretty much like Jewish babies, and it's hard to tell. I guess I just always thought Jews have Jewish babies, and Baptists have Baptist babies. You know, like it's hereditary. Genetic."
In the Jewish tradition of theological science religion is a maternally inherited trait. If a woman is Jewish, her children will be Jewish regardless of any attempts to convert or recover later in life. Similarly, a Jew's social caste is paternally inherited. Judaism is genetic.
Some scholars disagree, viewing a person's religion as a historical memetic accident, like a first language. In their view, most followers of one religion would follow another religion if they had been born into different cultural circumstances. Jewish geneticists scoff and insist it is part of an individual's immutable biological inheritance. They point to the evidence: children share their parents' religion.
Sporadic Southern Baptism to Blame
Exactly what caused the newest addition to the Goldberg family to be Southern Baptist was a cause of much concern, and a rabbinical committee investigated Martha's maternal lineage to determine whether her Jewish genetic heritage is unbroken.
"Her ancestry is Jewish, so far as we can determine," said Rabbi Michael Miller. "The child's disorder must have a different cause."
Dr. Susan Shackleford supplied the answer: sporadic Southern Baptism. "Usually, Southern Baptism is seen in its hereditary form, as an extremely deviant memetic mutation characterized by idiocy and lunacy," she explained. "But the Goldberg baby is proof that the condition can also appear sporadically, without a memetic heritage.
"Luckily, we caught it early enough to cure," she added. "But we can't prevent his parents from transmitting to him another memetic disorder, unfortunately."
Leaders of the local Southern Baptist community were horrified by Dr. Shackleford's comments and pledged to take legal action against the Goldbergs to prevent their son's circumcision. They will seek a court-ordered baptism instead.
"God granted us this child in answer to our prayers for the unsaved Jewish heathens," said Don Kammerdiener, executive vice president of the International Mission Board. "It is a sign that our campaign to convert Jews has heavenly approval. We can't permit the blasphemy of raising this child Jewish."
Jewish leaders were offended by the "theological arrogance" of the Southern Baptists. "We follow the One True God," said Rabbi Miller. "It is our right to do with our children what he commands, whether they're born Jewish or not."
Moderates on both sides urged cooperative effort to find a solution to the problem of "unnatural faith at birth" because it poses an equal threat to all religions. One voiced their shared fear: "What if suddenly all babies are born atheist and free to develop their own beliefs?"
