Evolution Sunday Update

Just received a press release for Evolution Sunday -- which First Christian Church of Lompoc will observe again.


Congregations Around the World Prepare for
Second Annual Evolution Sunday

More than 535 congregations across the country and around the world will celebrate the second annual Evolution Sunday on Feb. 11, a day set aside to recognize that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science can comfortably coexist.

A list of participants can be found at http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun2007.htm
"For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science," said Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "People don't have to choose. You can have your faith. You can have religion. And you can also have science."

Zimmerman sees the Evolution Sunday movement staking out the middle ground between shrill fundamentalists and a small but vocal group of scientists who have been attacking religion of late.

He's obviously struck a chord, as Evolution Sunday continues to grow. Last year, 467 congregations from every state, the District of Columbia and five countries participated in Evolution Sunday by hearing sermons, having an adult education class or a children's Sunday school class, or joining in a lunch discussion group. The date of last year's events - Feb. 12 - commemorated the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. This year participation has increased more than 13 percent.

Evolution Sunday is an offshoot of the Clergy Letter Project. The letter has been signed by more than 10,500 Christian clergypersons who agree that "the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

Zimmerman started the Clergy Letter Project in 2004 after the Grantsburg, Wis., school board passed a series of anti-evolution policies. A biologist by training, Zimmerman's goal is to demonstrate "that science is very real and there's no reason to believe it conflicts with basic Christianity or any other religion."

"Science can't prove that God doesn't exist," he said. "Science is incredibly powerful, but it's self-limiting. There are so many areas that are of importance to the human condition that science simply cannot address - issues of religion, issues of morality, issues of aesthetics. Science has nothing to say about those. That doesn't mean scientists can't be religious or moral or have aesthetic views. But they can't prove the existence of aesthetics or morality scientifically."

That said, he thinks creation in all of its guises, including Intelligent Design, should not be taught in science class.

"If you want to talk about creation stories in religious studies classes and you want to deal with Native American stories, Hindu stories, Buddhist stories and Judeo-Christian stories, I have no problem with that," he said. "If you start teaching that in science classes, you're no longer teaching science.

"In America, we already are at the bottom of the spectrum of every standardized test of high school students with respect to their knowledge of math and science. If we do an ever poorer job of teaching our students what science is, we're going to have an even deeper crisis in this country."

Zimmerman said seven publishers have donated hundreds of copies of books about Darwin and the interface between science and religion for distribution to clergy preparing for Evolution Sunday. (Participating publishers include Abingdon Press, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Beacon Press, Free Press, Island Press, Oxford University Press, and Solon Press.)

"Participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries," Zimmerman said. "Evolution Sunday and The Clergy Letter represent a new kind of grassroots effort by members of the Christian leadership in America to reclaim Christianity from those using it for their narrow sectarian advantage."

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