Chrystalwuzhere
02-24-2006, 05:28 PM
This article was written last weekend. So, this has already happened...still, I thought we should read it.
NEW YORK — Nearly 450 Christian churches around the country plan to celebrate the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin today with programs and sermons intended to emphasize that his theory of evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science.
"It's to demonstrate, by Christian leaders and members of the clergy, that you don't have to make that choice. You can have both," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, who organized the event.
Darwin's theory holds that all life on Earth, including humans, shares common ancestry and developed over millions of years through the mechanisms of natural selection and random mutation. The concept is repugnant to some conservative Christians because it conflicts with their belief that man was specially created in the image of God.
"Evolution Sunday" has drawn participation from a variety of denominational and nondenominational churches, including Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and other community churches.
"Evolution Sunday" is but one event worldwide that Darwin's defenders are holding.
"The people who believe in evolution ... really just sort of need to stand up and be counted," said Richard Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. "Evolution is the model that drives science. It's time to recognize that."
The museum's celebration will include birthday cake, badminton (reportedly a favorite game of Darwin's) and a reading from his "The Origin of the Species" by Penn junior Bill Wames, who volunteered to dress up as the 19th-century naturalist.
The church event grew out of Zimmerman's The Clergy Letter Project, another effort to dispel the growing perception among many Christians that faith and evolution are mutually exclusive.
Since its inception in 2004, the project has drawn 10,000 Christian clergy members to sign a letter that concludes, "We urge school-board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."
Zimmerman, a former biology professor, said the letter project and today's event were designed to educate Americans about two things. "The first part was to demonstrate to the American public that the shrill fundamentalist voices that were demanding that people had to choose between religion and science were simply wrong. The second part was to demonstrate that those fundamentalist leaders that keep standing up and shouting that you can't accept modern science were not speaking for the majority of Christian leaders in this country."
However, Evolution Sunday drew criticism from the Discovery Institute. The Seattle think tank pays for research into challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory, such as the concept of intelligent design, which claims that some complexities of life, yet unexplained by evolution, best are attributed to an unnamed and unseen intelligence.
In a statement titled "On Evolution Sunday It's Give Me That Old Time Darwinist Religion," Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman said, "Evolution Sunday is the height of hypocrisy."
"Our view is not that pastors should speak out against evolution," he added, "but that the Darwinists are hypocrites for claiming — falsely — that opposition to Darwinism is merely faith-based, and then turning around and trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith-based."
Intelligent-design proponents suffered legal setbacks last year in Pennsylvania and Georgia, but Kansas education officials have approved science standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory. The Rev. Mike Southcombe, pastor of St. John's United Church of Christ in Brighton, Ill., near St. Louis, said he joined Zimmerman's campaign over concern about what he perceives as the growing conflict between religion and science.
"We've become a very divided culture in this country and there are people out there who say people of faith should deny science. And I believe that, in the great tradition of the church, science is one more way that God reveals God's self and God's will for us. I think to ignore scientific findings and theories is simply unfaithful," Southcombe said.
Moreover, he said, "I find deep spirituality in the truths of evolution."
Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Read article - click here (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/faithvalues/2002800205_darwin12.html).
NEW YORK — Nearly 450 Christian churches around the country plan to celebrate the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin today with programs and sermons intended to emphasize that his theory of evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science.
"It's to demonstrate, by Christian leaders and members of the clergy, that you don't have to make that choice. You can have both," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, who organized the event.
Darwin's theory holds that all life on Earth, including humans, shares common ancestry and developed over millions of years through the mechanisms of natural selection and random mutation. The concept is repugnant to some conservative Christians because it conflicts with their belief that man was specially created in the image of God.
"Evolution Sunday" has drawn participation from a variety of denominational and nondenominational churches, including Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and other community churches.
"Evolution Sunday" is but one event worldwide that Darwin's defenders are holding.
"The people who believe in evolution ... really just sort of need to stand up and be counted," said Richard Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. "Evolution is the model that drives science. It's time to recognize that."
The museum's celebration will include birthday cake, badminton (reportedly a favorite game of Darwin's) and a reading from his "The Origin of the Species" by Penn junior Bill Wames, who volunteered to dress up as the 19th-century naturalist.
The church event grew out of Zimmerman's The Clergy Letter Project, another effort to dispel the growing perception among many Christians that faith and evolution are mutually exclusive.
Since its inception in 2004, the project has drawn 10,000 Christian clergy members to sign a letter that concludes, "We urge school-board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."
Zimmerman, a former biology professor, said the letter project and today's event were designed to educate Americans about two things. "The first part was to demonstrate to the American public that the shrill fundamentalist voices that were demanding that people had to choose between religion and science were simply wrong. The second part was to demonstrate that those fundamentalist leaders that keep standing up and shouting that you can't accept modern science were not speaking for the majority of Christian leaders in this country."
However, Evolution Sunday drew criticism from the Discovery Institute. The Seattle think tank pays for research into challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory, such as the concept of intelligent design, which claims that some complexities of life, yet unexplained by evolution, best are attributed to an unnamed and unseen intelligence.
In a statement titled "On Evolution Sunday It's Give Me That Old Time Darwinist Religion," Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman said, "Evolution Sunday is the height of hypocrisy."
"Our view is not that pastors should speak out against evolution," he added, "but that the Darwinists are hypocrites for claiming — falsely — that opposition to Darwinism is merely faith-based, and then turning around and trying to make the case that Darwinism itself is faith-based."
Intelligent-design proponents suffered legal setbacks last year in Pennsylvania and Georgia, but Kansas education officials have approved science standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory. The Rev. Mike Southcombe, pastor of St. John's United Church of Christ in Brighton, Ill., near St. Louis, said he joined Zimmerman's campaign over concern about what he perceives as the growing conflict between religion and science.
"We've become a very divided culture in this country and there are people out there who say people of faith should deny science. And I believe that, in the great tradition of the church, science is one more way that God reveals God's self and God's will for us. I think to ignore scientific findings and theories is simply unfaithful," Southcombe said.
Moreover, he said, "I find deep spirituality in the truths of evolution."
Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Read article - click here (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/faithvalues/2002800205_darwin12.html).