Faith

From an AP article by Rachel Zoll "Disagreements over global warming hinder evangelical movement to confront climate change" in The Detroit News:

A top environmental advocate called it "a historic tipping point" when the Rev. Rick Warren and other prominent evangelicals joined a new drive to get their community to fight global warming. But activists banking on a quick shift in President Bush's environmental policies will be disappointed -- support from just any evangelical figure won't do. The movement is a diverse one, and some its most politically influential leaders still question the science behind climate change. Analysts agree that the new push, called the Evangelical Climate Initiative, is at least a noteworthy development. Years of activism culminated in the release Wednesday of the statement, "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action," which was signed by many leading conservative Christians including Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," the president of evangelical Wheaton College, the national commander for The Salvation Army and heads of seminaries and megachurches nationwide. Several prominent black and Hispanic pastors were among the signers. The statement frames environmental protection as a Christian imperative, fulfilling a biblical command to care for God's creation. It urges federal lawmakers to approve mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, but to do so in a way that doesn't hurt businesses. Among the funders of the initiative, which includes TV and print ads, is the Pew Charitable Charitable Trusts. However, Christian leaders with close ties to the Bush administration have expressed skepticism about the initiative through their own group, called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. They said in a statement that "the science is not settled on global warming," and argued that most U.S. evangelicals do not back the call for regulating greenhouse emissions. Among the religious leaders who support the Stewardship Alliance are James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries and the Rev. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant group.

On the Net:

Evangelical Climate Initiative

Interfaith Stewardship Alliance

Get ready for the next controversy. "The Da Vinci Code" film is set to be released May 19th starring Tom Hanks. An article by Mark I. Pinsky from The Orlando Sentinel describes the preparation of various evangelicals to provide a response.

From an article by Stephanie Simon in the LA TImes:

Those who believe in creationism -- children and adults -- are being taught to challenge evolution's tenets in an in-your-face way.

"Boys and girls," Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, "you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"

The children roared their assent.

"Sometimes people will answer, 'No, but you weren't there either,' " Ham told them. "Then you say, 'No, I wasn't, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.' " He waved his Bible in the air.

"Who's the only one who's always been there?" Ham asked.

"God!" the boys and girls shouted.

"Who's the only one who knows everything?"

"God!"

"So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?"

The children answered with a thundering: "God!"

A former high-school biology teacher, Ham travels the nation training children as young as 5 to challenge science orthodoxy. He doesn't engage in the political and legal fights that have erupted over the teaching of evolution. His strategy is more subtle: He aims to give people who trust the biblical account of creation the confidence to defend their views - aggressively.

He urges students to offer creationist critiques of their textbooks, parents to take on science museum docents, professionals to raise the subject with colleagues. If Ham has done his job well, his acolytes will ask enough pointed questions - and set forth enough persuasive arguments - to shake the doctrine of Darwin.

The science Ham finds so dangerous holds that the first primitive scraps of genetic material appeared on Earth nearly 4 billion years ago. From these humble beginnings, a huge diversity of species evolved over the eons, through lucky mutations and natural selection.

The vast majority of scientists find no credible evidence to dispute this account and a tremendous amount to support it. They've identified thousands of transitional fossils, such as a whale that lumbered on land; a bird with reptilian features; and "Lucy," a remote cousin of modern man who walked on two legs but swung from trees like a chimp.

Still, millions of Americans find evolution preposterous. Polls consistently show that roughly half of Americans believe the biblical account instead.

An article in the NY TImes by Neela Baneerje titled "At Religious Universities, Disputes Over Faith and Academic Freedom" describes recent conflicts at Notre Dame:

A gay film festival opened at the University of Notre Dame last week with a sold-out showing of "Brokeback Mountain." On Valentine's Day, Notre Dame students staged a production of "The Vagina Monologues." Though the events have been held for the past few years, it may have been their last time on campus. In speeches and interviews recently, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame's new president, has said that staging the events on campus implies an endorsement of values that conflict with Roman Catholicism. The film festival had to change its name, and "The Vagina Monologues" was performed in a classroom, not a theater, by a group that was not allowed to sell tickets to raise money for women's groups as it once had. "Precisely because academic freedom is such a sacred value, we must be clear about its appropriate limits," Father Jenkins said last month in a speech before faculty members and students. "I do not believe that freedom of expression has absolute priority in every circumstance." The controversies at Notre Dame are the latest and most high profile among disputes at many other religiously affiliated universities about how to promote open inquiry and critical thinking while adhering to the tenets of a given faith. Tensions seem most acute at some Catholic and Baptist universities, in large part because student bodies and faculties have grown more diverse and secular over the years, some theologians and historians said.

The Sunday before last was "Evolution Sunday." From this link:

On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.

I've got to agree that people shouldn't have to choose between religion and modern science. To pose the situation as an either/or is a false dichotomy. I certainly haven't fully resolved in my own mind the apparent contradictions between what the Bible says and what modern science says about the origins of the universe.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem reasonable to believe the universe in all its glory, that my child's body and all its wonder, is simply the result of random processes and natural selection, no matter how many billions of years that Mr. Random has been wreaking his randomness. To me, if you choose to believe in a God or if you choose to believe in 13 billion years of random processes, either way you're placing your faith in something you can't possibly fathom.

On the other hand, I don't think the scientific observations underlying modern science's view should be lightly dismissed.

The task of reconciling the two is not a trivial one.

The open letter associated with Evolution Sunday makes the statement "While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook." In a sense I agree with it. In a sense I don't. I "...don't read the Bible [as I] would a science textbook." It's not a science textbook and was not intended to be. I don't read everything in the Bible literally because, like any means of communication, it includes content that wasn't intended to be taken literally. However, in general I do read the Bible literally.