One of the most divisive battles in our country has been the debate between Evolution and Creationism. Most often this debate is posed between two extreme positions, fundamentalist Christianity versus fundamentalist scientism. The fundamentalist Christian argues that life on earth and all of the species were created all at once as part by a transcendent anthropomorphic God in a seven day creation miracle. The fundamentalist science story argues that life emerged by blind chance for dead matter and that evolution was a violent process of random mutations and natural selection. If I argue and I do: that intelligence and creativity were and are involved in the ongoing process of creation. the fundamentalist scientist will assume that you are trying to sneak in a transcendent designer, and see this view as theism by another name. And the fundamentalist Christian will assume that I am just a godless Darwinist who is fancying up my heathen evolutionism with a little New Age spirituality. Yet I would argue that most religious people and most scientists are not fundamentalists and take a position that embraces both divine creativity and evolution. The view that the cosmos is self conscious, creative and self organizing was a common belief among the indigenous people of this hemisphere and the bed rock understanding of process theology.
I believe that Unitarian Universalists can play a positive role in the divisive Evolution versus Creationism debate. We can show that religious communities are not all stubborn fundamentalists that deny the that life forms evolved over time, and we can show that Unitarian Universalists have theological and spiritual understandings of cosmic significance.
In 2004 Micheal Zimmerman initiated The Clergy Letter Project to reach out to clergy and urge them to support the teaching of science. So far over 14000 clergy have signed the letter. And in subsequent years congregations have held worship services on the same Sunday to show their support for Evolution within the religious community. At first, many Unitarian Universalists hesitated to sign because it was "Christian clergy" letter, although many of us signed and wrote Micheal Zimmerman to expand the work to include all clergy. As a result there was a Jewish Letter, and today the Evolution Sunday projects are inclusive and interfaith. I urge all Unitarian Universalist congregations to consider standing with others in the faith community in this important initiative.
An interesting evolution cartoon on vadlo!