This diary is dedicated to Teilhard de Chardin (d. 1955), whose writings were banned by the Pope as "Evolution Worship". Get this going in your liberal church!
Churches to mark Darwin's birthday
Hundreds to join `Evolution Sunday,' organized by a Wisconsin academic
By Lisa Anderson
Chicago Tribune
national correspondent
Published February 11, 2006
NEW YORK -- Nearly 450 Christian churches around the country plan to celebrate the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin on Sunday with programs and sermons intended to emphasize that his theory of biological 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.
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Darwin's theory holds that 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 many 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 non-denominational churches, including Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of
Christ, Baptist and a host of community churches, including at least 16 congregations in Illinois.
The event grew out of Zimmerman's The Clergy Letter Project, another effort to dispel the perception among many Christians that faith and evolution are
mutually exclusive.
Clerics' affirmation
Since its inception in 2004, the project has drawn 10,000 Christian clerics 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 said the letter project and the Sunday 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," he said.
"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." .
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"I find deep spirituality in the truths of evolution."
Rev. Brett McCleneghan, senior minister of the Park Ridge Community Church in Park Ridge, Ill., already has preached sermons on evolution and creationism, he said. He also noted that the adult education group at his
church just completed a five-week series of lectures and discussions on evolution, creationism and intelligent design.
Although, he said, most of his members express no incompatibility between evolution and faith, he understands why many Christians find evolutionary theory threatening.
I think it might be a part of the larger issue of how do we find certainty in the modern context, where all meaning is up for grabs," he said. "I think it's a brave effort by folks . . . a way of saying no to secularization."