Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Fort Wayne Man Behind Methodists' Acceptance of Evolution

And even so, he said he is now at odds with his pastor and his bishop. The story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette relates the following:

Al Kuelling, 67, a retired engineer trained in physics, wrote two of three proposals on evolution adopted as church policy at the denomination’s 2008 quadrennial national conference this summer in Fort Worth, Texas.

The votes capped a yearslong quest by Kuelling to have the church explicitly recognize evolution as a legitimate foundation of science and acknowledge that it is not at odds with theology.

The votes on the two resolutions that passed weren't even close:

One of Kuelling’s proposals amends the Science and Technology section of the church’s Book of Discipline. It was approved by 80 percent of voting delegates.

It now states, in part: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.”

The second proposal, which passed with 96 percent of the vote, was added to the church’s Book of Resolutions. It endorses The Clergy Letter Project led by David Zimmerman, an ecologist and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis.

The Clergy Letter Project can be found here. A third proposal opposed the teaching of creationism and ID in the public schools. I have already mentioned that one here. Maybe other denominations will follow suit. One can only hope.

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