Plenty of religious people support sound science and see no conflict between faith and evolution.
Yesterday my colleague Joe Conn noted that some people in Louisiana are having problems with the teaching of evolution in public schools. Ben Nevers, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives there, is pushing legislation to allow the use of “supplemental materials” that question evolution in the classroom.
This is just another crusade to bring “intelligent design” and other forms of creationism in through the back door. It’s tiresome. In response, Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn wondered if those “supplemental materials” might be old “Flintstones” cartoons relabeled as documentaries.
Creationists often portray this as a battle between the godly and the godless. In fact, it is nothing of the sort. Plenty of religious people support sound science and see no conflict between faith and evolution.
Among them is the United Methodist Church (UMC), the very denomination of President George W. Bush. During the church’s General Conference, held in Fort Worth from April 22 to May 2, the church passed not just one but three resolutions expressing its support for evolutionary science.
Our friends at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) note that the first resolution expresses to “the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools,” noting that “the United Methodist Church has for many years supported the separation of church and [s]tate” and that “[t]he promotion of religion or any particular religion in the public schools is contrary to the First Amendment.”
The second resolution is a statement on science and technology. It says the UMC holds that “science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology….We find that as science expands human understanding of the natural world, our understanding of the mysteries of God’s creation and word are enhanced.”
Finally, the UMC revised an earlier resolution titled “God’s Creation and the Church,” to endorse a project called the Clergy Letter Project. The Project, founded by Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis, urges clergy to hold annual “Evolution Sunday” events where the intersection of faith and science is discussed.
A few years ago, the NCSE updated its excellent book Voices for Evolution, which compiles statements from various groups that back evolution and oppose creationism. The book contains an entire section of statements by religious groups and leaders.
Here’s one of my favorites: “New scientific knowledge has led us to realize that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”
What anti-God, fanatical secularist said that? Pope John Paul II.
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