As Texas debates creationism in the classroom, here's a different question: Should evolution be in the pulpit? Absolutely, say hundreds of clergy who will observe Evolution Sunday today. If there were more discussion of evolution in the pulpit, they believe, creationism would rightly recede from science classrooms. "Evolution Sunday offers an opportunity to educate our congregations that science is a gift," said the Rev. Timothy McLemore, senior pastor at Kessler Park United Methodist Church in Oak Cliff. "If we believe God is truth, we don't need to shrink from truth in whatever way it presents itself. We don't have to be threatened."
I think that if more clergy were willing to stand up and actually address the issue of evolution, rather than hiding their heads in the sand, like the church did in the early 1900s, progress might yet be made in this arena. The article finishes thus:
Evolution Sunday is an outgrowth of The Clergy Letter Project. Dr. McLemore is among more than 11,000 clergy who have signed an open letter calling for evolution to be taught in schools as settled science. The letter says in part: "We believe 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." Must evolution push God from the picture? Far from it, Dr. McLemore said. For him, it only exalts God higher. "As I understand the complexities and intricacies of what has been produced through human evolution, not only does it not make me want to run away from God, it strikes a chord of wonder and awe that I can only describe as worship," he said. It is always reassuring to know there are other people out there who think the way I do. Here is the address for the Clergy Letter Project. There are currently over 11 thousand signatures on it.
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