Curran Jeffery, San Diego, CA
All ancient peoples had their "Great Story." It would be their explanation of how they and the world came into being. The creation story of Moses told in Genesis became the creation story of Jews, Christians and Muslims and thus of the Western and much of the Mid-Eastern world. It is a beautiful story, powerful, poetic and bold. For countless generations of believers, it answered the basic question of how the world came to be.
God created the world in six days and surrounded the firmament with water and He put the sky above and filled the earth with life. Then sailors and poets realized that the world was round and the sun circled the earth. The earth was not flat. Then Galileo with his telescope revealed that the earth was not the center of the universe but circled the sun in a great orbit. He was threatened with death by the Roman Church and silenced. But other scientists knew he was right. Then came the microscope and the discovery of invisible worlds that exist side by side with the visible world. The great story of science was emerging and could not be silenced by the church that feared what they perceived as a threat to the great story of their scriptures.
The separation of science and religion is the great tragedy of Western Civilization. There is nothing in the great story of science that says you can’t believe in the great story of faith. Faith is about meaning and science is about understanding. You can’t have one with out the other. Unless of course you’re stuck in the literal truth of scriptures that were written before humanity even had a compass. There is no way Moses and other ancient story tellers could know about planets and orbits, and molecules, atoms and dinosaurs. Those revelations all came later. And are no less true then the great revelations of Moses and Abraham. They are all part of our Great Story which is still revealing itself through science and faith. This is the gospel of the Rev. Michael Dowd, a born again Christian who was born even again into the great revelation of Evolutionary Spirituality that brings together faith and science.
Dowd’s newly published book THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION is an amazing romp through all the issues surrounding this very complex and vital topic. His message can speak to you wherever you are on the religious spectrum, from fundamentalist to secular humanist. You don’t have to give up your faith or your science; you just have to experience where it fits in the "Great Story." It is not your beliefs that ultimately matter, it is how you live and the legacy you leave. This book fills a gaping hole in American religious life; an honest popular dialogue between science and religion. This dialogue has been taking place in seminaries and universities for decades but seldom reaches down to the church pew on Main Street. Here it is. If you wish, you can download a free copy of the book in a pdf file from this website. Or if you're like me and must have a book on paper, you can order it from Amazon. There are also several videos of Rev. Dowd on YouTube. Punch in Thank God For Evolution and hit search. What an adventure life is!
