You Say You Want An Evolution...

Darwin Day approaches. "Evolution Sunday." February 12th is the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, a name that can still inspire a range of emotions from worshipful adoration of a fearless man of science to angry rejection of an irreverent and arrogant atheist who sought to replace a vision of life as purposeful and divinely created with a vision of a random, meaningless existence ruled by the uncaring hand of chance. The overwhelming majority of scientists point to Darwin as foundational to our understanding of life, while the majority of "average" (whatever that is) Americans seem to think that Darwin's ideas are unproven speculation, standing alongside other unnamed "possibilities," (though the great unnamed elephantine "possibility" in the room is the Biblical creation story...the only problem with that being that there are quite obviously two creation stories in Genesis, and I always have to wonder which one the creationists would point to as the truth.)

But scientists, students, ministers, and those who accept evolution and the writings of Darwin as (generally) a descriptive and accurate depiction of the world around us will be celebrating on Sunday as a way of increasing understanding of what Darwin wrote and its impact on the scientific understanding of today. There will be Darwin carols sung at the University of Victoria, written by member of the Philosophy Students' Union; badminton at the University of Pennsylvania (purportedly a favorite game of Darwin, which makes for a wonderful mental picture of this scientific giant whisking a birdie over the net, or missing completely in a great whoosh of batted air); and birthday cakes for Chuck scattered all across the country.

Michael Zimmerman, biology professor and dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, has organized "Evolution Sunday," getting over 400 churches of many denominations to give a sermon, hold a class, or sponsor some sort of discussion on how science and religion interact. I will be taking part in this by giving a sermon on the subject at my congregation.

However, I don't wish to rush to agree with Zimmerman's statement (which I'm sure was set in a context that didn't appear in the article, so I'm not necessarily disagreeing with him) that there is "no reason that people have to choose between religion and science." That may be true in the widest context. However, some forms of religion are, obviously, threatened by the findings of science, and some scientists (like Richard Dawkins, perhaps) are quite clear that science and religion cannot easily coexist. Religion can remain open to science, but it is, by nature, a specific form of theology that is open to new revelation. If you are a follower of a faith that believe the book of revelation was closed some centuries before, with no room for edits, additions, or modifications in the face of new experience and understandings...it's harder to imagine a healthy collaboration of religion and science, or even a peaceful coexistence (if one imagines them to be separate realms that can somehow be kept from overlapping...good luck on that!)

There are many interesting conversations that can come out of looking at the implications that religion and science hold for how we live our lives...but only if we can lose our strident tones and stop trying to protect God (I didn't really think God needed our protection) from being offended by our sincere curiosity and struggle to find meaning in this existence.

Happy Birthday, CD!