The Reverend Michael Dowd is one of the most inspiring speakers in America today. He is the author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World, which has been endorsed by 5 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and dozens of other scientific and religious luminaries across the spectrum. Since April 2002, he and his wife, Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer, have lived permanently on the road sharing a sacred view of evolution with religious and secular audiences of all ages, as America’s evolutionary evangelists. At home in both conservative and liberal settings, and uniquely gifted at building bridges between religious and nonreligious people, Michael is passionate about sharing the 14-billion-year epic of evolution in ways that uplift and expand heart, mind, and soul.
The Making of an Evolutionary Evangelist
Michael graduated summa cum laude from Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri (affiliated with the Assemblies of God), where he received a B.A. in biblical studies and philosophy. He also graduated with honors from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Seminary) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (affiliated with the American Baptist Church), where he earned a Master of Divinity degree. Rev. Dowd served as a congregational minister for nine years, pastoring churches in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. His 1991 book, EarthSpirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity (Twenty-Third Publications) was one of the first attempts to look appreciatively at biblical Christianity from the perspective of a modern cosmology.
In 1995 Rev. Dowd began working with Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Unitarian Universalist, and New Thought leaders across America on social and environmental issues that were coming up for a vote in Congress, as Religious Organizer for the Washington D.C.--based National Environmental Trust. From 1997 to 2000 he headed the first government-funded program designed to produce large-scale voluntary citizen behavior change along stewardship lines in the United States: The Portland Sustainable Lifestyle Campaign, in Portland, Oregon. In 2000 and 2001 he served as Campaign Manager of Global Action Plan's EcoTeam and Livable Neighborhood Programs in Rockland County, New York. Both programs helped neighbors build trust and a greater sense of community by supporting each other in living more Creation care, stewardship-based lifestyles and developing healthier, friendlier, safer neighborhoods.
Rev. Dowd has served on the boards of the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology; the Ohio Conference United Church of Christ (UCC) Integrity of Creation, Justice, and Peace task force; and the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network. He has also served on the steering committees of the International Network of Biblical Storytellers and the UCC Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility. Michael’s great joy in life is telling the history of everyone and everything in ways that inspire and empower people of all ages and theological orientations to know real freedom, to live in deepest integrity, and to fulfill their evolutionary mission.
Michael and Connie are co-creators of the leading educational and community building website in the sacred evolution movement: www.TheGreatStory.org
