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What follows is the new preface...

As we observe the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his landmark book, On the Origin of Species, evolution has become firmly established as the central organizing principle of the biological sciences. Natural explanations for the growth of complexity through time ground all the other sciences, as well, from cosmology and chemistry to neuroscience and psychology. That everything within this universe has emerged through natural processes operating over vast spans of time is now well beyond dispute among scientists and the educated public. Yet even today, families and public school systems remain divided and the evolutionary worldview is still shunned by millions, perhaps billions, of religious believers around the world. Why?

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by Corey deVos

Michael Dowd, celebrated author of the book Thank God for Evolution, talks with Stuart Davis about his own journey from religious fundamentalism to evolutionary spirituality, the contours of his evolutionary approach, his relationship with his wife and teaching partner Connie, his response to the New Atheist movement, and his hopes about the future of evolution on this planet. He and Stuart also discuss the secret to Michael's conciliatory approach to teaching, which has enabled him to speak amicably with both religious fundamentalists and scientific materialists alike, while helping to build conceptual and relational bridges to cross the gap between science and spirituality.

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Corey deVos

by Jon Cleland-Host

The Clergy Letter Project was started in 2004 by Dr. Michael Zimmerman (photo left) in response to creationist successes at the local (Wisconsin) school board.  Working with local Christian clergy, a letter was drafted confirming the compatibility between Christian religion and evolution.  The letter was signed by 200 Christian clergy and delivered to the local school board, contributing to their reversal of the creationist polices.  After this initial success, the Clergy Letter Project went nationwide, quickly gathering thousands of signatures from Christian clergy.  As the movement has grown, “Evolution Weekend” was introduced (the weekend closest to Darwin’s Birthday February 12th) as a focal time for congregations to address the need for understanding evolution.  The website (Google it) has expanded to include over 200 sorted example sermons, free scientific consultants, news releases, and articles.  The next article is a report on Evolution Weekend 2009 by Dr. Zimmerman.

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Jon Cleland-Host

by Michael Zimmerman

The fourth annual Evolution Weekend was a resounding success by any measure used to evaluate it. Evolution Weekend is sponsored by The Clergy Letter Project and it is designed to provide an opportunity for individual congregations around the world to discuss the compatibility of religion and science while elevating the quality of the discussion on this important topic. Although each congregation acts independently and designs its own activities, each is connected thematically to every other participating congregation. In this way, congregations around the world are linked together and, collectively, all make a unified and powerful statement about the compatibility of religion and science.

This year 1,049 congregations representing each of the 50 United States as well as 15 separate countries participated. In this, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, participation soared by almost 30 percent over last year. Indeed, participation has increased every year by this impressive percentage!

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Michael Zimmerman

by Michael Dowd

Few things are more antiquated than the debate over the existence of God.  Prior to an evolutionary worldview, such debates made sense.  In an evolutionary context, however—in light of what Ursula Goodenough and Terry Deacon call "The Sacred Emergence of Nature"—such arguments are outdated at best.  (I discuss this at length in chapters 4-7 of my book, Thank God for Evolution, the section titled "Reality is Speaking".) Here's how I begin Chapter 7, titled "What Do We Mean by the Word 'God'"?

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Michael Dowd

by Connie Barlow

Texas is always a big presence in the ongoing challenges to the teaching of evolutionary science in public schools. Not surprisingly, then, television news stations, radio talk show hosts, and newspaper editors in Texas found our evolutionary evangelism worthy of coverage.

Michael Dowd and I were in Texas for most of the month of February, traveling from Houston to San Antonio to Austin and Waco, delivering Sunday morning sermons, illustrated slide talks, and children’s programs in 18 events hosted by a dozen churches and one yoga center. For example, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (February 12), Michael delivered an evening talk provocatively titled, “Thank God for Evolution.” Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Huntsville, the program attracted 105 area residents to the venue location: Sam Houston Memorial Museum (pictured above).

The reception was overwhelmingly supportive. Media reports, including VIDEO of an ABC News interview broadcast nationally, can be accessed at the “Texas Photo-Essay” link below.

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Connie Barlow

by Michael Dowd

"A mistake about Creation will necessarily result in a mistake about God." —Saint Thomas Aquinas

One of the most important truths revealed in recent centuries is this: everything—the entire Universe—is in an ongoing process of deep-time transformation.  Galaxies and star systems evolve.  Planets evolve.  Life evolves.  Human cultures evolve.  Individuals and groups of all sizes evolve.  And our personal and collective thinking about life's big questions (including our concepts/stories of Ultimacy, God, or Undeniable Reality) evolve, too.  Reflecting on this is, I suspect, what led Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to write:

"Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis?  It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, and all systems must bow and satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true.  Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow."

Over the next few weeks, I will elaborate on The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion, taking them one at a time.  I will show that there are 7 profoundly negative consequences of religious resistance to a measurable understanding of reality, and deep-time view of grace.  Specifically, I will reveal how, from a religious naturalism point of view, a pre-evolutionary worldview frozen within scriptural literalism necessarily...

1. Trivializes God, guidance, and good news;
2. Balkanizes religion and bastardizes science;
3. Desacralizes nature;
4. Blasphemes death;
5. Fails our children in three tragic, unnecessary ways;
6. Denies individuals and families access to the most important saving wisdom for overcoming personal and relational challenges; and
7. Blinds us from seeing the true nature of the current global integrity crisis.

Everything must evolve in order to remain viable.  Three billion years ago, life (bacteria and archaea) thrived in a context of 2% oxygen.  Today, anything less than 15% oxygen would wipe out all mammals.  In an ever-emerging, ever-developing Cosmos, conditions that were once healthy and lifegiving can later become dangerous or even deadly—which is, of course, why life must be so adaptive.

Traditional religions will either evolve like everything else or, paradoxically, they will destroy nearly everything they stand for, or perhaps just go extinct.  I'm betting my life that they will evolve, and will become more lifegiving then ever—not just for their own members but for the entire Earth community.  This is, indeed, why I wrote Thank God for Evolution, and why Connie and I have been living on the road for 7 years, sharing a sacred, meaningful view of cosmic, Earth, life, and human history with religious and secular audiences across America. 

The boldest creedal assertions are in the future, not the past.  I foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when churches and other religious organizations preach and teach the science-based epic of evolution as our common creation story, and when this story is seen as foundational for moral instruction and teaching values to the next generations.  Widespread awareness of The 7 Deadly Sins of Old-Time Religion will, I pray, significantly further this process.

Michael Dowd

by Michael Dowd

Yesterday I was interviewed on radio by an 'intelligent design' creationist who kept insisting, "There is absolutely no evidence for evolution!" I was amazed that this person was either unaware or dismissive of our collective best understandings of cosmic, Earth, geological, biological, and human history. Before the interview ended, I determined to write this blog post that offers links to some of the best and most highly regarded web pages and books on the creation-evolution debate. The first set below (mostly wikipedia pages) should be considered essential reading. The second set identifies some of the top books in the field. Beneath that, I have also included my favorite resources that show:

1. How factual knowledge gained through the full range of evolutionary sciences can legitimately and easily be interpreted as religiously inspiring—and why, at this time in history, it is so urgent and fruitful to do so;

2. How the arrow of cosmic complexity upon which the vast majority of the world's scientists agree can be viewed in spiritually nourishing and deeply empowering ways (teleologically or non-teleologically); and

3. Why it is wildly erroneous to believe that ancient mythic texts, an unnatural judge, or otherworldly carrots and sticks are necessary (or even helpful) for superior moral development and healthy societies.

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Michael Dowd

by Joshua Gorman

The EVOLUTIONARY TIMES is thrilled to now be featuring a new section called Evolutionary Youth: the Great Story and the Next Generation.  This section will be supporting the emerging youth ministry and youth movement connected to this work by featuring stories and voices from the next generation, along with providing creative "evolutionary education" resources for children and youth. This issue we feature Great Story Stuff for Kids by Connie Barlow and my own primer on Generation Waking Up: Coming of Age at the Crossroads of Civilization.

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Joshua Gorman

by Paul West

Public awareness about evolutionary spirituality is growing, and people everywhere are engaging in a new conversation about Creation. Rev. Dowd is regularly invited to speak to media across America and around the world about why he thanks God for evolution, and why he and Connie have committed their lives to teaching and preaching the ‘Gospel of Evolution.’

We would like to invite you to join the conversation and become one our movement’s media evolutionaries. Most major media outlets offer online opportunities to discuss personal views about the news. Reports regarding evolution are real conversation starters in many communities across the country, especially when they include the unorthodox perspective of an ordained, former fundamentalist who now evangelizes evolution as theology—and not just theory.

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Paul West

Welcome to the first issue of The EVOLUTIONARY TIMES! We're so pleased to have this new tool to help bring our ever-evolving story to you.

We are Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow, full-time itinerant evolutionary evangelists. Since April 2002 we have traveled North America non-stop, sharing in religiously inspiring ways the 14 billion year history of the Universe given by mainstream science. Some of you know us from one of our presentations or workshops. Others we’ve met thanks to my new book Thank GOD for EVOLUTION. To All, it's been an honor and a privilege to meet and become part of so many of your lives over the past six and a half years on the road.

This publication will now be our main means of communicating with the millions in the middle who, like us, find inspiration, comfort, and encouragement in our common creation myth—The Great Story of cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity told in meaningful and empowering ways. Here you will find key links to informative blog posts, news coverage, our itinerary, mention of what’s new on our websites, and suggestions for how you can join us and play an important part in furthering this movement.

OUR TWO-FOLD VISION: (1) By 2050, we see the majority of religious and non-religious people worldwide joyfully embracing an evolutionary, ecological worldview. (2) We also imagine, by mid-century, that humanity, in symbiotic partnership with our technologies and social structures, will have largely transitioned to a mutually enhancing relationship with the larger body of life of which we are part.

Michael Dowd, Connie Barlow

by Michael Dowd

1. A shared sacred story that honors both objective truth and subjective meaning: For the first time in human history we have a creation story that not only addresses life’s biggest questions—Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? How are we to live?—but helps us answer those questions in ways that are both religiously inspiring and scientifically accurate. No longer are subjective meaning and objective truth isolated from one another in separate domains. Both are conveyed through the same story.

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Michael Dowd

by Tom Atlee

We are clearly in crisis mode. How many times have you thought, we're on new ground? Things are not working the way they used to. We need to radically change the way we do things. We need to consciously evolve ourselves and our social systems.

The current crisis in our financial and governance systems is clearly revealing how these systems we've created now tie us all into invisible but extremely dense webs of interdependence. We are now fully bound to each other, by virtue of our own creations. This interdependence is both the problem and the solution to the crises we face. Furthermore, within the unfolding crises are the very energies we need to make the change. We just need to wake up to that fact.

Here are four vital truths to help us do that -- truths that are vividly obvious from a sacred, participatory evolutionary perspective.

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Tom Atlee

by Michael Dowd

Michael Zimmerman of the Clergy Letter Project alerted me yesterday to a newspaper article discussing John McCain's VP pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s, stance on the evolution/creation issue. The piece is from the Anchorage Daily News and ran during the last gubernatorial race.

I have previously written blog posts on the subject of intelligent design (ID) and young-earth creationism (YEC). The reason that well over 95% of the scientists of the world reject these approaches is because neither has offered a viable scientific theory to replace the evolutionary one. "Teach both sides of the controversy" is a rallying cry often heard in ID circles. But among scientists. there simply is no controversy. And this is a demonstrable fact (carefully look at and read the image above left. T-shirts with other humorous images on the subject of "Teach the Controversy" can be found HERE).

The following is excerpted from Chapter 4 of Thank GOD for EVOLUTION...

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Michael Dowd