Evolution Weekend -- a Press Release

-- Press Release --

The Clergy Letter Project Announces Evolution Weekend

13-15 February 2009

Central Woodward Christian Church of Troy will join with

More than 790 Congregations Worldwide and Discuss the Compatibility of Religion and Science



Local Contact: Dr. Robert Cornwall

Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

3955 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, MI 48084

248-644-0512

cwccpastor@sbcglobal.net

http://www.centralwoodward.org


National Contact: Dr. Michael Zimmerman, Founder

Clergy Letter Project

317.940.6644

mz@butler.edu

Web address: www.evolutionweekend.org


Central Woodward Christian Church will be one of more than 790 congregations from across the country and around the world to participate in Evolution Weekend, Feb. 8-10, a period designed to recognize that religion and science, two fields of critical importance to humans, should be seen as complementary rather than confrontational.


Nine countries on five continents as well as all 50 states will be represented. A list of participants can be found at www.evolutionweekend.org. Scientists on six continents, representing 29 countries, have signed on as consultants.


During Evolution Weekend, Central Woodward Christian Church, in its 10:30 A.M. worship service, will honor the profound relationship of science and faith. Believing that all truth is God’s truth, we will lift up God’s creative presence in hymns, prayers, and sermon, while all recognizing that science has offered a compelling description of this process – which also must be honored. Charles Darwin may have presented a challenge to faith, but Charles Darwin, who turns 200 on February 12th, is not an enemy of faith.


Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Weekend and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis, praised the participants.


“In the current climate, when Chris Comer, the longtime director of science curriculum for the Texas Education Agency, was forced to resign after circulating information about a presentation critical of intelligent design, clergy are showing real courage by participating in Evolution Weekend,” said Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Weekend and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University. “Make no mistake about it – courage is needed. Indeed, Rev. Ron Francey was fired from his parish in Michigan after he participated in last year’s activities.”

Hundreds of clergy are demonstrating exactly that sort of courage because they believe deeply in the importance of what they are doing, Zimmerman said. And recent actions suggest that they have created a movement that will permanently transform the nature of the evolution-creation debate.


Evolution Weekend is an offshoot of the Clergy Letter Project, which Zimmerman started in 2004 after the Grantsburg, Wis., school board passed a series of anti-evolution policies. The letter, written in 2004, has been signed by more than 11,100 Christian clergypersons who agree that “religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.”


The letter urges 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. It asks “that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”



“With clergy members and scientists banding together to proclaim that their two fields have much to teach us about the world and the people in it, with the two groups demonstrating that they can work collaboratively, there is now hope that we can put the divisiveness that has been the hallmark of this struggle behind us,” said Zimmerman, a biologist by training. “We can look to a future in which it is no longer controversial to teach our children the best science has to offer. We can create a future in which experts in different fields respect one another and the ideas each has to offer.”

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