Posted on 01/12/2008 7:45:31 PM PST by trumandogz
The Rev. Michael Dowd gave up a permanent home to travel the country spreading his gospel in the hope of reconciling disparate beliefs. But the former pastor's gospel may shock many Christians.
Dowd preaches "evolution theology," a view that promotes evolutionary science and God as the ultimate reality. In Dowd's mind, you can have Darwin and the divine.
Dowd is so committed to spreading his message that he offers his book — "Thank God for Evolution! How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World" — as a free download on his Web site.
The presentations that he and his wife give at churches and other venues are also free. But DVD and book sales help finance their ministry.
For more than five years, Dowd, 49, and his wife, Connie Barlow, a science writer, have traveled the country in a high-top van that they named Angel and asked audiences from many backgroundsto consider evolution theology.
Their work has drawn praise from Nobel Prize-winning scientists.
The couple will speak at 9:45 a.m., 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover Ave.
"We don't try to show evangelicals or young earth creationists or intelligent design people that we're right and they're wrong," Dowd said. "Evolution gives me a bigger God, an undeniably real God."
Dowd believes that God's revelations didn't stop in biblical times but continued in the form of scientific discovery, a worldview that he thinks is important as public schools grapple with how to teach evolution, Americans choose a new president, and the world faces environmental threats.
"If somebody believes that Jesus, the cosmic janitor, is going to return on a cloud and clean up the mess we made, they're more likely to have a less responsible way of thinking about the future and handing on a healthy, sustainable world," Dowd said.
Dowd said that booking his talks at Unitarian churches is easier because of the denomination's liberal theology but that he wants to spend more time this year talking to evangelical Christians who either grudgingly accept evolution or aggressively try to dismiss it as incompatible with Scripture.
Dowd said he understands the fear of allowing science to trump faith because he was once a biblical literalist who believed that the Earth was 6,000 years old
Over the years, though, he said, a Passionist priest led him to find a more powerful narrative of God and discover a "God-glorifying, Christ-edifying view of evolution."
For more information on Dowd's work, go to www.thank
godforevolution.com.
Finally some common sense. Evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. God’s great plan is evident all around us.
Lying for Darwin ping!
That’s what Yul Brynner said in “The King and I.” It’s kind of dualistic thinking. Something can’t be true over here and false over there.
To believe the basic doctrines of evolution, one must deny the literal interpretation of Genesis chapter one. You can’t have it both ways.
Preachers should be preaching the Word of God, not their own psuedo religion.
Idiocy.
NOT possible to be a biblical literalist and believe this earth is a mere 6,000 years old. So no surprise he would slip into evolution.
The Big Lie being taught in the disguise of religion.
I disagree, does God make anything imperfectly Marie2?
Genesis 1 is completely in step with Science, though not all science can claim to be in step with Faith.
Keep in mind, the first use of the term “Yom” for “day” occurs in Genesis 1, what would the reference point be for Yom to mean only 1 day?
If somebody believes that Jesus is not coming again, and that there will not be a new heaven and a new earth, they aren't really preaching Christianity.
So whatever it is he is "merging", it isn't Christianity.
But he's not the first person to assert that somehow believing that the world will come to an end means that Christians are looking to mess up the planet, even though there is no evidence of it.
On the other hand, if you believe in evolution, then it makes little sense to try to preserve the world for your offspring, because humanity will be replaced sooner or later anyway.
Odd how evolutionists never bother to talk about how humans will have to dissappear for their theory to make any sense. Maybe they are afraid that the truth will turn people off to their religion.
This is the first I’ve heard of this guy. Two of the best Freepers ever to grace this website, Alamo-girl and Betty Boop, wrote a good book on evolution. I wonder what their take is on this guy?
Don’t Let Science Get You Down, Timothy: A Light-hearted (but Deadly Serious) Dialogue on Science, Faith, and Culture (Paperback)
Creation/Evolution, 2008.
“The more things change, the more....”
I could never understand why some want to limit God’s power by forcing Him into human like creation processes. The fact that God set all the necessary conditions for the universe and life in the first Planck second makes Him all the more aw awesome.
His beliefs were halfbaked then, and halfbaked now.
No. Evolution and religion are synonymous. God’s great plan is found in Scripture and is neither common nor according to man’s sense.
Sounds like the Emerging Church’s heresy of “kingdom now”—man creating the kingdom here on earth, rather than Jesus coming on a cloud (like he said he would) and bringing his kingdom himself.
Check out this site: www.understandthetimes.org
Perhaps the most ridiculous statement you've ever made at this forum. Maybe I missed some.
Must be a temperature control problem ... global warming got to him.
Evolution and any sort of decent religion are totally incompatible. Aside from the fact of evolution being junk science, there's still the little problem of the corollary doctrines (communism, naziism etc.) and the 200,000,000 dead bodies lying around on account of them
As Movementconservative said "Evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive." As a geologist I agree and do not find that believing the earth is a billion plus years old is at variance with my belief in God and the truths of the Bible. And I believe that many other scientists are also able to reconcile their scientific knowledge and religious faith.
Thank you so much for remembering our book and for pinging us to this article! I’m not familiar with his book, and his website was not particularly helpful. It reads like he has come up with a science based theology which sees God as the “whole” - not really that different from Eastern mysticism (except for giving the whole a name.)
Dowd preaches “evolution theology,”
God and evolution go together like night and day.
Dowd preaches “evolution theology,”
Now, there’s a preacher that don’t believe in his own Bible.
To paraphrase Santayana: Newspapers ignorant of history are condemned to reprint it. How else should we interpret the recent headline, describing Pope John Paul II's address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, "Pope Says Evolution Compatible with Faith"?
There's not much "news" there. Fifty years ago Pope Pius XII said almost the same thing in the encyclical Humani generis: "The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter."
While not exactly canonizing Darwin, Pius XII did imply that the theory of evolution isn't necessarily inimical to Christianity. Certainly he didn't reject evolution altogether. How then do we explain the big headlines when John Paul II says basically the same thing in 1996?
Some people will sell their souls to make a name for themselves. And perhaps, cause thousands who might have picked up a Bible and read the truth for themselves, to believe the lies.
Satan uses his people to make his lies sound right. He's in a hurry now to win as many as he can to his pit of hell. His time is short and he's not happy about it. He's going to get less happy still.
On a more personal level, a sacred evolutionary worldview restores hope because it offers a deeper, truer understanding of human nature than non-evolutionary approaches possibly can. It’s no longer a mystery why we (and our loved ones) are tempted by the things that we’re tempted by, why we struggle with the things we do, and why staying in integrity for any length of time typically requires growing in humility, authenticity, responsibility, and serving a larger purpose, with the support of others. Understanding the religious implications of evolutionary brain science and evolutionary psychology is truly empowering. Evolutionary spirituality, which is informed by these disciplines, offers lasting freedom from troublesome habits and addictive thoughts and behaviors. And it does so not by rejecting earlier ways of speaking about ‘our inherited proclivities,’ or ‘our unchosen nature,’ (such as ‘original sin’) but by validating such traditional language and reinterpreting ancient insights in light of what has been, and is still being, revealed through the empirical sciences.
And they think we're a lttle touched in the head....
No, God does not make anything imperfectly. All His ways are perfect.
We can either accept His creation account, or reject it.
From an evolutionary perspective, nothing is more important than putting into place laws, taxes, and moral incentives at all levels—locally, regionally, nationally, and globally—that make it easy and virtually effortless for individuals and groups to do the right, just, ecological thing, and also make it easy and effortless for them to not do the unjust, un-ecological thing. And the only reason it will be ‘easy and effortless’ is because it will be in their self-interest to benefit the whole (they’ll profit by doing so) and it will also be in their self-interest to not harm the whole (because they’ll be disadvantaged in some way if they do)In addition to ‘the nested emergent nature of reality’ and ‘the holy trajectory of evolution’, I also introduce a number of other bridge-building concepts and terms that have proven ideal for finding common ground and for helping those on both sides of the science and religion debate move beyond their entrenched positions. The distinctions between ‘private revelation’ and ‘public revelation’, and between ‘day language’ and ‘night language’, have proven especially helpful in this regard. So too have the distinctions between ‘religious believers’ and ‘religious knowers’, and between ‘flat-earth faith’ and 'evolutionary faith’. And almost everyone finds the concept of ‘facts as God’s native tongue’ provocative. Most find that this idea—of facts being ‘God’s native tongue’—opens up whole new ways of seeing and appreciating divine communication, though some—especially those on the more conservative end of the theological spectrum—initially resist expanding their traditional ways of thinking about ‘God’s word’.
You take everything in the Bible literally?
So if you see something that offends you, you pluck out your eyes?
Show me where it says you will go to Hell if you don’t believe literally in Genesis.
We need to take the figurative parts of the Bible figuratively, and the literal parts literally. Any sane look at the Bible shows it to be incompatible with current Darwinian evolution. You can pick the Bible or Darwin, but you just can’t have both!!
“You take everything in the Bible literally?
So if you see something that offends you, you pluck out your eyes?”
If you had disobedient kids, would you stone them to death?
You eat a totally strictly kosher diet right? And keep the Sabbath.... on Friday night and Saturday?
What? no? SO I guess only part is meant to be taken literally.
I get to say it again!! Finger prints and belief in the bible are bothers and sisters, Never will you see an identical set of finger prints and never will you see an identical set of beliefs in the bible.
Me, I am an intelligent designer!! I can see What God Designed and Created.
In less than a flash of the eye, God created the heavens and earth, comsic inflation, not the big bang, I can not tell you that God is Matter, Jesus was flesh only for a short time and he did say “ When you pray, the father will hear you”
cosmic inflation
edit is my friend
Basically, every halfway honest person with any brains and talent who has taken any sort of a hard look at evolution in the past 60 years has given up on it and many have denounced it. A listing of fifty or sixty such statements makes for an overwhelming indictment of that part of the scientific community which goes on trying to defend evolution and they (the evolutionites) have a favorite term ( "quote mining") which they use to describe that sort of argument.
My own response to that is to note what I view as the ultimate evolution quote by the noted evolutionist (actually, FORMER evolutionist) Jeffrey Dahmer:
"If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing."
Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.
Dahmer converted to Christianity before he died. The basic tenets of true religion appear to be inprinted upon most of us biologically which is the only reason that Islammic societies and "secular humanist" societies like Britain and Canada function at all. A psychopath like Dahmer is basically somebody on whom that imprint did not take. For those guys, it has to be written down somewhere, and it has to be written down accurately; the bible does that. Telling somebody like Dahmer that we all evolved from "lucky dust" is a formula for getting people killed.
Evolution was the basic philosophical cornerstone of communism, naziism, the various eugenics programs, the out of control arms races which led to WW-I and WW-II, and all of the grief of the last 150 years. Starting from 1913, Europe had gone for a hundred years without a major war. They didn't even have to think. All they needed to do was act cool, go to church, have parades, formal balls, attend board meetings, and they'd still be running the world today; they'd be so fat and happy they'd not know what to do with themselves. Instead, they all got to reading about Darwinism, fang and claw, survival of the fittest and all the rest of that nonsense, and the rest as they say is history.
The most interesting analysis of that sad tale is probably Sir Arthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics"
Keith apparently viewed belief in evolution as some sort of duty of the English educated classes, nonetheless he had a very clear vision of the problems inherent in it and laid it out in no uncertain terms:
From Sir Srthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics:
Chapter 3
The Behavior of Germany Considered from an Evolutionary Point of View in 1942
....It is worth noting that Hitler uses a double designation for his tribal doctrine National Socialism: Socialism standing for the good side of the tribal spirit (that which works within the Reich); aud Nationalism for the ethically vicious part, which dominates policy at and outside the German frontiers.
The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national "front" of Europe is also the evolutionary "front"; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people....
... "Humanitarianism is an evil . . . a creeping poison." "The most cruel methods are humane if they give a speedy victory" is Hitler's echo of a maxim attributed to Moltke. Such are the ways of evolution when applied to human affairs.
...I have said nothing about the methods employed by the Nazi leaders to secure tribal unity in Germany methods of brutal compulsion, bloody force, and the concentration camp. Such methods cannot be brought within even a Machiavellian system of ethics, and yet may be justified by their evolutionary result.
12.
....No aspect of Hitler's policy proclaims the antagonism between evolution and ethics so forcibly as his treatment of the Jewish people in Germany.... ...Hitler is an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his actions....
It must not be thought that in seeking to explain Hitler's actions I am seeking to justify them. The opposite is the case. I have made this brief survey of public policy in modern Germany with a definite object: to show that Dr. Waddington is in error when he seeks to place ethics on a scientific basis by a knowledge of evolutionary tendencies and practice.
Chapter 4
Human Life: Its Purpose or Ultimate End
IN THE COURSE OF GATHERING INFORMATION concerning man's morality and the part it has played and is playing in his evolution, I found it necessary to provide space for slips which were labeled "Life: Its Ultimate and Proximate Purposes." Only those who have devoted some special attention to this matter are aware of the multitude of reasons given for the appearance of man on earth. Here I shall touch on only a few of them; to deal with all would require a big book. The reader may exclaim: Why deal with any of them! What has ultimate purpose got to do with ethics and evolution! Let a man with a clearer head and a nimbler pen than mine reply. He is Edward Carpenter, who wrote Civilization: Its Cause and Cure (1889).
14.
It is from the sixteenth edition (1923) I am to quote, p. 249:
If we have decided what the final purpose or Life of Man is, then we may say that what is good for that purpose is finally "good" and what is bad for that purpose is finally "evil."
...If the final purpose of our existence is that which has been and is being worked out under the discipline of evolutionary law, then, although we are quite unconscious of the end result, we ought, as Dr. Waddington has urged, to help on "that which tends to promote the ultimate course of evolution." If we do so, then we have to abandon the hope of ever attaining a universal system of ethics; for, as we have just seen, the ways of national evolution, both in the past and in the present, are cruel, brutal, ruthless, and without mercy. Dr. Waddington has not grasped the implications of Nature's method of evolution, for in his summing up (Nature, 1941, 150, p. 535) he writes "that the ethical principles formulated by Christ . . . are those which have tended towards the further evolution of mankind, and that they will continue to do so." Here a question of the highest interest is raised: the relationship which exists between evolution and Christianity; so important, it seems to me, that I shall devote to it a separate chapter. Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this:
the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.
All of that, of course, deals only with the question of ethics and the logical consequences of evolutionism. The fact that evolution is junk science argues against it as well.
“You take everything in the Bible literally?
So if you see something that offends you, you pluck out your eyes?”
I will not be disingenuous with the word of God.
The Bible is a written document. It contains historical narrative, poetry, allegory, parabolic, prophetic, and instructive language.
Genesis is a fine example of historical narrative. All is written in chronological order, writing a simple history of the people of the world and the people of God. Real names, real places, real dates, real times are used.
Psalms are a good example of poetry, written in poetic form.
Allegories are frequent in the gospels. Jesus often, as He said, taught in allegory. He said, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” to us. That does not mean He is a stick. He was using a metaphor. That’s allowed.
Of course He also taught in parables, as the Bible itself states. “A sower went out to sow some seed. . .”
There are lots of prophetic, revelatory portions of Scripture. Revelation is a good example. It, like the rest of the Bible, is all true. It is however a prophecy. Prophecies, as demonstrated by old testament prophecies concerning Christ and the church that have already been fulfilled, use metaphors and similes as well as straightforward predictions. “And this shall be a sign to you, a virgin shall be with child. . .” The prophets said Elijah would come - Jesus said John the Baptist was the Elijah.
Straight instruction, we find mostly in the epistles, like in 1 Timothy: “ALL SCRIPTURE (emphasis mine) is inspired by God” (2nd Timothy 3:16)
In answer to your question, if it were necessary, yes, if MY EYE CAUSED ME TO SIN, yes, I’d pluck it out. But my eye does not cause me to sin. The point of that passage, which you probably know but want to pretend that you don’t, is: do whatever you need to do to avoid sinning against God.
“If you had disobedient kids, would you stone them to death?
You eat a totally strictly kosher diet right? And keep the Sabbath.... on Friday night and Saturday?
What? no? SO I guess only part is meant to be taken literally.”
I have had disobedient kids. In Israel, one of the civil laws was, by the time they reached adulthood, if they were rebellious against their parents (rather than respecting and providing for them as necessary, rather, letting them rot) they were to be killed. I support that law. Anyone who lets their parents rot to death while they go have a nice life, I have no interest in seeing their life protected. Historians say this law has no record of ever needing to be enforced, and good for Israel. Even today, the Jews have a wonderful history of providing for, loving, respecting and protecting their parents and grandparents. This law was not for minor children. There was never a death penalty for any minor children.
No, I don’t eat a kosher diet. If you read the whole Bible, you will see that we are instructed three times to abandon the temporary dietary laws and eat whatever God provides. Even food that’s been offered to idols, if it doesn’t offend a brother! “Rise Peter; kill and eat.” This all happens in Acts, chapter 10.
As for the Sabbath, in the New Testament we are told not to let anyone judge us in regard to keeping it. We are told that one man keeps one day holy, others keep all days alike. When Jesus rose from the dead, a LOT of stuff was fulfilled. I keep the Christian Sabbath by not forsaking the gathering together of the saints, as instructed in Hebrews.
No laws have been done away with. Some have been fulfilled.
And God still made the world and all that is in it, just the way He said He did.
“As for the Sabbath, in the New Testament we are told not to let anyone judge us in regard to keeping it. We are told that one man keeps one day holy, others keep all days alike. When Jesus rose from the dead, a LOT of stuff was fulfilled. I keep the Christian Sabbath by not forsaking the gathering together of the saints, as instructed in Hebrews.”
I’m a Jew. I prefer to call it the Eternal COvenant - not the “Old” as in deprecated Testament.
Why wouldn’t God have told us to eat pigs in the the first place? Why bother with all the kosher laws? Couldn’t He get it right the first time?
I responded with this link to Catholic.net, and an excerpt demonsrating the Catholic Church's position that evolution is not contrary to the Bible. And you counter that by quoting Jeffrey Dahmer? Wow.
Lurkers will no doubt be able to decide for themselves whether they want to accept your opinion about the Catholic church.
He's at least got that part right. He might as well finish the job and book a few big-$$$ at some ivy-league universities while he's at it.
Personally, I have no difficulty reconciling God's revelations in the Holy Scriptures with evolution theory. Catholic and Jewish thinkers alike (e.g., Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit anthropologist and Gerald Schroeder, a physicist, respectively) have made interesting proposals along these lines. But I would have a problem with any strictly "science-based theology," which to me is oxymoronic.
Our book Timothy is very largely about the complementarity of faith and reason. Neither should be "reduced" to the other, for both are necessary; though in our view faith is definitely the "senior partner," so to speak. A science-based theology inevitably would reduce the former to the latter.
We have many proofs of the existence of God from the great scholastic philosophers; but God's existence does not depend on such proofs. (Which is a very good thing, for many thinkers regard them as unpersuasive.) Neither does God's existence depend on "proofs" from science, nor is it challenged by lack of scientific corroboration.
God's Creation predates science by billions of years (assuming LeMaitre's and Guth's big bang/inflationary universe model is correct). The Creation is lawful, orderly, "rational"; that is the only reason it can be an object for science in the first place. Further, the Creation evidently was designed to manifest in a temporal process (as we finite humans would see it) -- i.e., it "evolves" -- from its beginning in the divine creative act, to its end in divine judgment; i.e., from Alpha to Omega, one of the Holy Names of the Son of God. I don't need a "science-based theology" to grasp this point.
Actually if I needed one, I've already got one: I could say I believe in Darwin's evolution theory whole-hog, even macroevolution, with the proviso that the Logos of God (another of the Holy Names associated with the Son of God) is the Common Ancestor. But that would not be a "scientific statement." :^) LOL!!!
The important thing, the truly vital thing, is to live in openness to God, not to seek some sort of "intellectual closure" by accepting a science-based doctrine or theory about Him and His Creation. More than likely, we frail human beings would end up worshipping the doctrine, and not God Himself.
Thank you so much for writing, dearest sister in Christ! And thank you ever so much dear Kevmo for your kind mention of our little book!
The basic reality is simple enough and easy enough to grasp; an evolutionist has no logical basis for morality. If the pope doesn’t comprehend that, he’s in the wrong line of work.
The rind was sundered allowing the brilliant light of rational thought to permeate his mind and to cause the scales to fall away
Why is this shocking? Because it makes a good sentence in an opening paragraph?
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