I share the Great News of the science-based history of the Universe as passionately and as inspiringly as I know how (which is what I mean when I say I “evangelize evolution”) for several reasons. When I speak to evangelicals, what I’m hoping to accomplish is not exactly the same as when I speak in a non-Christian or non-religious context.

WHEN I SPEAK TO ALL AUDIENCES, I STRESS THE FOLLOWING:

• Without a meaningful evolutionary worldview it’s impossible to understand yourself, your world, or what’s needed for humanity to survive and thrive in the coming decades. (When I say “impossible”, I don’t mean difficult, I mean truly impossible—like trying to understand infection without microscopes or the structure of the Universe without telescopes.) Without a holy deep-time worldview it’s also impossible to accurately understand religious differences or appreciate why the only way we’ll ever move into a just and sustainably life-giving future is if billions of religious people are committed to doing so.

• I evangelize the history of the Universe to help people of all backgrounds and beliefs know A) how to enjoy evolutionarily meaningful and deeply fulfilling lives, B) how humanity can cooperate across ethnic and religious divides to co-create a healthy world together, and C) how we can experience our differences as a blessing rather than a problem.

• Until we learn to see through sacred evolutionary eyes, atheists and fundamentalists will continue to blame each other for the world’s ills, liberals and conservatives will keep trashing one another, and, collectively, we’ll fail to see that enormous global challenges are divine evolutionary drivers guiding us to greatness.

WHEN I SPEAK TO CHRISTIAN AUDIENCES, I ALSO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING POINTS:

• Without a meaningful evolutionary worldview it’s nearly impossible not to trivialize God’s Word, misinterpret God’s promises, misunderstand God’s way, or miss utterly what God’s will is for humanity and for the body of life as a whole.

• God’s Word is not just the Bible. Facts are God’s native tongue. Scripture—divine guidance, God’s self revelation—extends much farther back in time and is far more magnificent than the biblical writers, or even Jesus himself, could have possibly known.

• God’s promises are not just about back then, up there, or someday. They are for your life, my life, and all our relations, here and now and into the future. God’s promises are not unnatural and otherworldly; they are experiential and undeniably real.

• Christ truly is God’s “one and only way” to salvation. But this is about being in Christlike integrity, not being right or having the right beliefs. God is mocked when we claim redemption is merely about believing literally in unnatural things. Beliefs are a booby prize if you’re not growing in humility, authenticity, responsibility, and service — that is, growing “in Christ.” The reason so many born-again believers struggle so with their sinful nature—their instincts, their inherited proclivities—is because they fail to appreciate that the promise of redemption is for this life. It’s not merely, or even primarily, about what happens after we die.

• Any supposed “faith in God” that doesn’t include trusting that whatever happens on the other side of death is just fine is really no faith at all. Fear of a terrifying, hellish after-death scenario or hope of a blissful, heavenly after-death scenario are just that: fear or hope – not faith, not trust.

• God’s will is not difficult to discern. From a sacred deep-time perspective, God’s will for us, as individuals and as a species, is practically a no-brainer. In the day language of science, it’s “evolutionary integrity”. In the night language of religion, it’s “abiding in Christ” or “getting right with God”. Both are legitimate ways of seeing and saying it.

• Only by embracing evolution religiously—by having a “God-glorifying, Christ-edifying, scripture-honoring” way of valuing the entire history of Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity—are we able to appreciate how ever-present is God’s Word, how undeniably real are God’s promises, how this-world salvific is God’s way, and how obvious and universal is God’s will.

Thank God for evolution!

Until we recognize billions of years — not just thousands of years — of grace and guidance, we will remain stuck with abstract and trivial concepts of God, morally confusing and divisive notions of scripture, and unnatural and competitive understandings of religion.

It matters what we think about evolution!

God didn’t stop revealing truth vital to human wellbeing back when people believed the world was flat and religious insights were recorded on animal skins. God is still communicating faithfully today, publicly, through the worldwide, self-correcting scientific enterprise. Facts are God’s native tongue.

Thank God for evolution!

Interpreting the insights of evolutionary psychology and brain science religiously, we vitalize our appreciation of doctrines such as ‘The Fall’ and ‘Original Sin’. Now we can comprehend in a realistic way why it is that we and our loved ones struggle with unwanted habits, and why our most important relationships can be so challenging.

It matters what we think about evolution!

Until we see the entire history of the Universe as scripture, and create laws and incentives that align the self-interests of individuals, corporations, and nations with the wellbeing of life as a whole, we will continue to toxify the air, water, and soil, drive other species to extinction, and be hounded by religious, political, social, and economic crises.

Thank God for evolution!

We cannot trust our future to anyone who believes the world is but a few thousand years old and who interprets ancient apocalyptic writings as revealing God’s perfect will. With global warming and global warring on the horizon, the time has come for down-to-earth leaders with heavenly aspirations that include everyone, everywhere.

It matters what we think about evolution!

These are not the ‘End Times’ for humanity; they are just the beginning. We know this from the fossil record and from careful observation of the cosmos. Studying evolution is like following cosmic breadcrumbs home. Dinosaur bones and prehistoric artifacts, Hubble space photos and DNA are here to teach us faith, not test it.

Thank God for evolution!

Until we grasp that death plays a vital and necessary role in an evolving cosmos, medical technologies will continue to prolong physical and emotional suffering, medical choices will continue to provoke family discord, and the medical industry will continue to underwrite the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

It matters what we think about evolution!

Until churches in America preach evolution enthusiastically, sacredly, in ways that expand and enrich faith, the battle over teaching evolutionary science in public schools will never end.

Thank God for evolution!

Until we learn to see through sacred deep-time eyes, atheists and fundamentalists will continue to blame each other for the world’s ills, liberals and conservatives will keep trashing one another, and, collectively, we will fail to see that enormous global challenges are divine evolutionary drivers guiding us to greatness.

It matters what we think about evolution!

Thank God for evolution! … Amen?

NOTE: A PRINTABLE PDF OF THIS LITANY CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Connie and I are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I was interviewed twice, first by the religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News, next by a staff writer for Pegasus News. In both interviews I was asked about where, from an evolutionary perspective, I derive my sense of morality and ethics. In my replies I referenced Stephen Pinker’s fabulous article in the January 13th issue of The New York Times Magazine: “The Moral Instinct”.

Pinker’s essay on the evolutionary roots of morality is the latest in a brilliant and compelling lineage. One of my favorite quotations on this topic comes from the 2004 book by Michael Shermer: The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule. Shermer writes, “In an evolutionary theory of morality, asking ‘Why should we be moral?’ is like asking ‘Why should we be hungry?’ or ‘Why should we be horny?’ For that matter, we could ask, ‘Why should we be jealous?’ or ‘Why should we fall in love?’ The answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, horny, jealous, and in love.”

Another valuable resource on this subject (and one of the wisest books I’ve ever read) I mentioned a few months ago in my Evolutionary Religious Studies blog post. It is the book, The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “Height”). A short essay,“Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion” that Haidt originally posted in an online salon, “Edge”, was singled out by New York Times columnist David Brooks as one of the best articles of 2007. That essay powerfully bridges conservative and liberal religious sensibilities.

My own thoughts on this subject can be found throughout Thank God for Evolution!. The following is excerpted from Chapter 18: “Our Evolving Understanding of ‘God’s Will’”:

In America we often hear, especially in conservative settings, how the Bible is the only secure foundation for moral instruction and ethical guidance. Yet those of us who have actually read the entire Bible, and are clear-headed enough to see it as it actually is, know that it would be ludicrous (indeed, immoral) to advise a child, “Yes, dear. You should use as your own model for appropriate behavior whatever actions you read in the Bible that are attributed there to God or to what God commands us to do.”

Among those who are thrilled to encounter a holy view of evolution are parents yearning for inspiring ways to teach their children moral values — moral values grounded in science and commonsense, rather than based on ancient writings, which (in today’s world) offer an ambiguous moral compass at best. Yes, the Bible contains hundreds of wonderful and useful passages that can help us teach our children how to become good, happy, loving, on-purpose adults. The Bible also, however, contains many grotesque and morally repugnant passages that none of us would want our children to see, much less emulate.

As Michael Earl points out in Parts 1 and 2 of his free online audio program, Bible Stories Your Parents Never Taught You, those who claim that the Ten Commandments can or should serve as an ethical foundation for us today fail to realize how far they themselves have evolved morally beyond the biblically prescribed consequences for violating these so-called “laws of God.” According to the Bible, “God’s will” can be, and often is, brutal. Deuteronomy 13:6–10 prescribes that if someone breaks either of the first two commandments (”no gods before God” and “no idols”), they are to be put to death. Leviticus 24:13–16 and 23 instructs readers that if the third commandment (”Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain”) is broken, the penalty is death. Numbers 15:32–36 warns that if you work on the Sabbath, thereby breaking the fourth commandment, your life will be taken from you. And according to Exodus 21:17 and Deuteronomy 21:18–21, if you curse your parents, or even if you’re just a stubborn and rebellious teenager (thereby violating the fifth commandment, to honor your father and mother), God’s prescribed penalty for this, too, is death. (That’ll teach little Isaac—or, at least Isaac’s younger brother, who has to watch his sibling being stoned to death for mouthing off to mom and dad.) This is not the sort of justice making or parenting practice that Americans in the main would support today.

Many Christians today advocate, or at least support the notion, that the Ten Commandments should be our moral benchmark. We are told that God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. But as Earl points out, today we don’t kill Sabbath breakers. Nor do we stone to death our teenage daughters who lose their virginity before marriage, or our teenage sons who disobey us. And the reason we don’t kill Sabbath breakers or our troublesome children is quite simple: it would be immoral. Moreover, who among us would qualify as stoner rather than stonee. Clearly, we’ve evolved beyond (at least some) biblical values and scriptural morality. As Earl states, “When compared to the regime of Moses, the regime of the Taliban comes off looking like the ACLU.”

Not long ago I was talking with a woman, the mother of two teenagers, after one of my programs. We were discussing the mixed moral messages found in ancient written scripture. The woman confided, “I wouldn’t even think of encouraging my kids to apply in their own lives whatever values they found in the Bible. And most other parents I know feel the same way.” She continued, “Why, then, do so many of us Christians—liberals and conservatives alike—still refer to these texts as ‘God’s Word’?” My response was simple: “What alternative, until now, did we have?”

We can finally (thank God!), once again speak boldly and prophetically about right and wrong, and do so without needing to appeal to ancient texts. From the perspective of Evolution Theology, something is right if it honors or fosters the health and wellbeing of the larger and smaller holons of our existence or furthers the emergence of greater cooperation and interdependence at increasing scale and evolvability. A thing is wrong if it undermines these values. Said another way, a thing is right if it helps individuals and collectives to grow in trust, authenticity, responsibility, and service. A thing is wrong if it tends otherwise.

In oral cultures of ancient times, the inborn moral sense would have been honed and amplified by storytelling, songs, and ceremony. When writing developed, right and wrong tended to become identified by whether or not something aligned with written laws and guidelines held sacred by the community. Judgment was also based on whether an act would promote cooperation and wellbeing at the level of tribe, religious group, or nation—or whether it would do the obverse. Today, thanks to print, electronics, computers, and the Internet, we’ve come to see that the wellbeing of every individual, corporation, and nation-state is integrally connected to the health and wellbeing of the entire body of Life. This is why right and wrong are now discerned in larger, more comprehensive ways than ever before, and why conversations to find insights and solutions that meet the needs of all parties are so central to the Great Work we are now engaged in.

People everywhere today know that love, respect, gratitude, compassion, integrity, responsibility, humility, kindness, accountability, and so on are God’s will and lead to healthy maturation, healthy relationships, and healthy communities. Similarly, we all know that hatred, pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, envy, resentment, bitterness, deception, theft, and so forth damage the human spirit and unravel social bonds. We don’t need ancient writings to tell us this. It may be the case that in biblical times, the size and complexity of societies and information systems had not yet developed to a point where these moral principles were as obvious as they are to us today, just as the moral issues around war and use of fossil fuels became apparent during the 20th century. Now God’s will and God’s ways can be discerned throughout biological and human history, as well as in our own experience and within the quiet places of our hearts.

While I appreciate the heart and soul of the intelligent design movement and respect its key proponents at the Discovery Institute, ultimately I believe ID is a dead-end path. The main problem with ID, as I see it, is that it trivializes God and dishonors science. The phrase itself, ‘intelligent design’, presupposes a view of the world as a created object rather than as a divinely creative reality in its own right. One of the great modern revelations, which could not possibly have been revealed in biblical times, is this: divine immanence is measurably real! The Universe as a whole (including planet Earth) is creative at all nested levels: atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, planets, and galaxies alike, with increasing complexity emerging over time. More, we don’t merely believe this is true, we know it. Reinterpreting traditional insights and doctrines in light of this fact is the Great Work of religion in the 21st century. ID presupposes an otherworldly designer outside the system - transcendent, but not immanent nor omnipresent.

It’s not a surprise to me that the scientific community has so roundly rejected intelligent design as an explanation for how the world became complex. ID fails to appreciate the revelatory nature of the worldwide, self-correcting scientific enterprise. It also perpetuates in people’s minds a ‘God of the gaps’ view of time, space, and matter. That is, wherever there’s a gap in our understanding, that’s where God’s activity is. To my mind, this is an inconsequential and trivialized understanding of the divine. An evolutionary God is so much more real than this—indeed, undeniably real!

‘Intelligent design’ as a term first appeared in 1989, two years after the teaching of ‘biblical creationism’ in public schools was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Its definition differs from creationism in that it is not tied to a literal interpretation of the Bible or Qur’an. Most of the leaders in the ID movement, in fact, accept that the Universe is billions of years old.

Unlike creationism and intelligent design—both belief-based approaches critical of mainstream science—Evolution Theology as a worldview and ‘evolutionary spirituality’ (Part IV of TGFE!) as a personal practice are knowledge-based approaches grounded in our best and most current scientific understandings of this evolving Cosmos and its human expression.

In my opinion, the courts are right to reject the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, at least in science classes. But I predict that the perspective offered in Thank God for Evolution! will be embraced by public school officials and the courts alike. Having endorsements from five Noble laureates and many other scientists, theologians, ministers, and cultural leaders across the theological and philosophical spectrum, including Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, should help. In contrast, I can’t imagine any of these science and religion leaders backing a book espousing intelligent design. (For those not familiar with Genie Scott, she and NCSE are the main defenders of teaching evolution in public school systems throughout the United States.)

“Michael Dowd illustrates in Thank God for Evolution! that there are many ways to be a spiritual person, and that all of them are enriched by an understanding of modern science, especially evolution. This is a creative, provocative book that sheds light on just about any spiritual path one might be on. Many will find their faith revolutionized.”
– Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D., Executive Director, National Center for Science Education

In future blog posts, I’ll introduce and share something about the many and diverse groups that embrace an understanding of grace that goes back billions, not just thousands, of years. Here, I’d like to just mention two of the more interesting and inspiring examples - both within Christianity: the Clergy Letter Project and the Emerging Church movement.

The Clergy Letter Project centers on a list of 11,000+ clergy who have signed a letter publicly stating that they see no conflict between their faith and a mainstream scientific understanding of evolution. The project also promotes Evolution Sunday (whichever Sunday falls closest to Darwin’s birthday, February 12th). Both of these are the brainchild of Michael Zimmerman, a biologist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Butler University, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Not only has the list of Clergy Letter signers continued to grow every year, but the national media attention it generates, such as in The New York Times, continues to grow too.

I wrote briefly about the Emerging Church movement ago a couple of months, while I was attending Soularize, a yearly gathering of leaders actively engaged in the Emerging Church conversation. Since then, my book, Thank God for Evolution! was sent to fifty of the leading bloggers in this movement. I’ll soon report on, and include links to, some of the exciting and heated discussion that this has generated.

Time will tell how rapidly Evolution Theology catches on in Progressive Christian and Emergent circles, but my sense is that once the Emerging Church ignites with a Gospel of Evolution message, which seems inevitable, watch out! I predict that we are on the verge of an evolution-celebrating religious revival that will transform America, and that evolutionary faith will gain ascendancy over traditional, pre-evolutionary faith here in less than a generation. I fully expect Emergent evangelicals, with their passion for God, postmodern sensibilities, and artistic/musical gifts, to play a vital and leading role in this evolutionary emergence.

Although a number of insightful and welcome blog posts have manifested on the Internet in response to the November 2007 publication of my book, Thank God for Evolution, one particular blog entry especially delighted Connie and me - for it was written by perhaps the best-known advocate of Young-Earth Creationism.

Ken Ham posted his December 4, 2007 blog with this title: “Evolution Evangelist Visits Creation Museum.”. He wrote it in response to an article that appeared two days earlier in the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled “Will Science, Religion Kiss and Make Up?”.

Ken Ham is the president and founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum (in Petersburg, Kentucky). He wrote:

“AiG welcomed Rev. Dowd and his wife and a Courier-Journal reporter to the Creation Museum and granted interviews. All were extremely courteous, and even though Rev. Dowd and his wife totally disagreed with the message of the museum, they were very complimentary about the museum itself.”

No, Ken Ham has not misquoted us. Nor did the Courier-Journal. My wife, Connie, aptly expressed our view of the Creation Museum as reported in the newspaper:

“It really ups the ante for the rest of us to present evolution in a way that’s memorable, has a narrative story line in it and directly connects to our personal lives and personal challenges,” said Barlow. “You walk into any of these other great museums in the world and you’re looking at some cool fossils and great interpretations,” she said. But “there isn’t a story.”

Thus, to reiterate the first sentence: The New Atheists and Young-Earth Creationists are both playing vital, necessary roles in furthering the evolution of religious perspectives. The New Atheists are assisting the evolution of religion by ridiculing trivial, uninspiring notions of God; the Young-Earth Creationists are doing their part by ridiculing trivial, uninspiring notions of evolution.

Intrigued? Hear more on this in the “REALizing God” video clip here and other video clips on the FAQ page my Thank God for Evolution website. Or, as I wrote on page 108 of TGFE!:

“Our common creation story offers a refreshingly intimate, scientifically compelling, and theologically inspiring vision of God that can provide common ground for both skeptics and religious believers. For peoples alive today, any understanding of ‘God’ that does not at least mean ‘Ultimate Reality’ or ‘the Wholeness of Reality’ (measurable and non-measurable) is, I suggest, a trivialized, inadequate notion of the divine.” (See chapters 5 and 7 in my book, which is available as FREE DOWNLOAD.)

The emergence of the Great Story - a sacred narrative that embraces yet transcends all scientific, religious, and cultural stories - will come to be cherished, I believe, first and foremost for enriching the depth and breadth of our experience of God.

NOTE: Pages 338-339 of my book report on our first visit to the Creation Museum, just after it opened. Ken Ham’s rendering of a Young-Earth Creationist view of how death came into the world appears on page 86, contrasted to a sacred evolutionary view of death as mirroring a cosmological reading of the early Christian scriptures: Death as natural and generative at all levels of reality and thus no less sacred than life. Also see the last section of Appendix B: “REALizing Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven”.

1. The authority of the Word of God
2. The need for conversion and discipleship
3. Spirit-filled worship and Christ-centered service
4. Evangelizing the gospel

As an evolutionary evangelist, I emphatically say “Amen!” to each of these, and I suspect you will too, no matter what your religious or philosophical worldview (even if you’re non-Christian or anti-religious!), once you think about such traditional religious language from the perspective of Evolutionary Theology.

When we truly get ‘public revelation’ and ‘facts as God’s native tongue’, we realize that of course if we want vibrant health - individually, relationally, and planetarily - nothing is more important than coming home to Reality and submitting to what God has been revealing for hundreds of years through the entire range of sciences. ‘God’s Word’ doesn’t get any more real than this! Ancient texts, no matter how inspiring, cannot hold a candle to the authority of measurable, undeniable facts. (And lest I be misunderstood, this is in no way a denigration of the written scriptures! See Part II: “Reality is Speaking” and Chapter 18: “Our Evolving Understanding of God’s Word” in my book, Thank God for Evolution! (TGFE!), which is available as a free pdf download here).

When we truly get that ‘Original Sin’ and ‘The Fall’ are traditional ways of pointing to our animal instincts (our unchosen nature or inherited proclivities), we realize that of course, if we want freedom from bondage, if we want heavenly joy, if we want peace that passes all understanding, of course we must choose (and keep choosing!), with the support of others, to grow in divine integrity (”in Christ”). It won’t happen naturally. We will instinctually serve older, baser drives – generally those relating to food, safety, sex, and feel-good states of consciousness. The path of Christ-like evolutionary integrity (humility, authenticity, responsibility, and service) really is our only way forward, individually and collectively. Repentance, salvation, and ‘the second coming of Christ’ don’t get any more real than this!

When we truly get that there is power in both message and music that moves body and soul, and that our gifts really are needed for the health of larger communities of which we are part, we realize that, of course we can fulfill our purpose and be a blessing to the future only by following where our joy and the world’s needs intersect. Praise God, never again will we be able to see worship apart from justice-making and pursuing the health of the body of life as a whole!

And, yes, when we truly get that freeing, transforming Good News craves to be shared, and that this ‘Gospel According to Evolution‘ is universal and based on what we know rather than what we merely believe, we realize that of course we can and must share this saving Good News as far and wide, and as effectively, as possible. Thank God for Evolution! is Connie’s and my best attempt to do just this. Only time will tell whether or not this effort is blessed by God.

NOTE: In Chapter 11 of TGFE!: “Evolutionary Integrity Practices”, I discuss my own understanding and ongoing experience of “speaking in tongues”, which many consider to be the defining characteristic of Pentecostalism.

Thank God for Evolution! is not for everyone. I wrote it with five very different audiences in mind:

1) Those who embrace evolution but don’t have joy, peace, or a deep sense of meaning and purpose in their lives (i.e., those who don’t have a personal relationship with God).

2) Mainline Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Anabaptist believers.

3) Progressive, and Emerging Church Christians.

4) WWJD-type evangelical “Christ followers” (i.e., those committed to following Jesus “in His steps”).

5) Anyone and everyone struggling with their sinful or addictive nature.

Thank God for Evolution! is NOT intended for those whose walk with God is solidly embedded within a strict, literalist interpretation of scripture. But those who experience twinges of doubt when the book of Genesis is used line-by-line to explain the creation of this world are likely to experience this perspective not as a breath, but as a gust, of fresh air.

Rather than diminishing the core teachings of our religious faith, the “Evolutionary Theology” introduced in TGFE! shows how undeniably real and universally true many of the central insights of our tradition really are, AND it does so in a way that the non-religious can easily understand and accept. For more on this, again, see my Evolutionary Christianity essay.

My introduction to the emerging church movement came a couple of years ago when Spencer Burke, a former megachurch pastor and founder of theOOZE.com, the main networking site for emergent, progressive evangelicals, contacted me. Spencer mentioned that a friend had alerted him to an article, “Preachers of a New Pentecost”, written about Connie’s and my itinerant ministry in What is Enlightenment? magazine. He asked me to send him a copy of my 4-hour Evolutionary Christianity DVD set, which I did. A few weeks later, after he had watched the DVDs, we talked for nearly two hours on the phone. We’ve been friends ever since.

Last January Spencer and I roomed together for a week in Hawaii, at the first International Conference on the Evolution of Religion, where I was one of the evening keynote presenters (I was the lone evolutionary evangelist that week, among sixty scholars in the exciting new field of Evolutionary Religious Studies).

As I discussed briefly in my “Beyond Evidence: Responding to Creationists post, while I find the evidence for evolution utterly compelling (as do the vast majority of the world’s scientist and millions of devout religious believers), I’d have to say that the main reason I’m evangelistic about evolution is because of how it expands and deepens my understanding and experience of “the gospel”, intensifies my communion with God, and makes it much easier to live a Christ-centered, Christ-like life.

Whether or not future generations look back at our time as “The Great Blashpemy”, as I suggested in my last post, I’m confident of this: Once the emerging church movement catches fire with a Thank God for Evolution! message, watch out. I predict that we are on the verge of an evolution-celebrating relgious revival that will transform America as few things have ever done, and that evolutionary Christianity will gain ascendency over flat-earth Christianity here in less than a generation. I fully expect progressive/emergent evangelicals, with their passion for God, postmodern sensibilities, and artistic/musical giftedness, to play a vital and leading role in this evolutionary emergence.

[NOTE: As I mentioned in an earlier post, by “flat-earth” Christianity I am not meaning those who believe the world is flat; rather, I mean where “sin”, “salvation”, “heaven”, “hell”, “the kingdom of God”, “the second coming of Christ”, and other Christian concepts are understood in abstract, imaginary, otherworldly ways—still reflecting a premodern flat-earth cosmology. Evolutionary Christianity cherishes these same doctrines, yet holds them in a far more realistic (REALized) way because it interprets them in light of a postmodern evolutionary cosmology—as experiential, measurable, and (for all practical purposes) undeniably real. For more on this distinction, see the first question under the video player on the FAQ page, as well as either the PDF version or HTML version of a conversation I had with my publicist—which is the single best introduction I know to the ideas presented in Thank God for Evolution!.]

When I’m at a world-class museum like Sternberg, I can’t help wondering if future generations will look back at our time and judge it as the period of “The Great Blasphemy.” To “blaspheme” is to treat something sacred as profane, in word or deed. It is behaving disrespectfully or harmfully toward someone or something that is, in fact, worthy of deepest honor, respect, even reverence.

When I suggest that our time in history may come to be known as “The Great Blasphemy”, what I’m pointing to is the fact that hundreds of millions of religious believers around the world not only are unable to see the entire 14-billion-year history of the Universe as holy—indeed, as the primary revelation of God—but many even consider evolution “demonic.” I know this because I, too, was once such a blasphemer, proclaiming evolution was “of the devil.” Many people, of course, have never been exposed to religiously inspiring views of evolution, so this should not be surprising. And the fact that many theists and atheists alike hold trivialized notions of the divine—i.e., they think of God as an otherworldly entity whose main business is engaging in unnatural acts (i.e., supernatural interventions)—also contributes to this condition.

Non-evolutionary views of God are by their very nature unsubstantial and inconsequential. The fact that Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, was an overnight bestseller is compelling evidence of this. No one would buy a book titled, The Life Delusion, or The Universe Delusion. Why? Because ‘Life’ and ‘the Universe’ are not trivial concepts—they are undeniably real. “Do you believe in water?” is an absurd question precisely because water is real, not imaginary. It simply doesn’t matter whether we ‘believe in’ water or not. We are each 50-70% water. Without water we wouldn’t exist, whether we believe in it or not.

Tradtional “flat-earth” views of God (understandings that emerged when people thought the world was flat) must be believed in or not. Evolutionary understandings of God transcend belief. Indeed, any “God” that can be believed in or not is precisely what I’m not talking about. The reason I spend two chapters in my book discussing this is because, to my mind, nothing is more important than un-trivializing God and redeeming God talk. Philip K. Dick has written: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” It is precisely this reality—this undeniable reality (and nothing less than this)—that I’m pointing to when I use the word “God.” And when we truly get this, it becomes obvious that facts are God’s native tongue.

Only when the evolutionary history of the Universe is articulated in a way that conservative religious believers feel in their bones is holy, and in a way that liberal believers are passionately proud of, will evolution be widely and wholeheartedly embraced. Fortunately, that time, is now—not 2,000 years ago, not 200 years ago, and not even 20 years ago. Now is when we are awakening to the reality that evolution is divine and that we’ve been blaspheming God to say otherwise. Now is when we can see that our faith can be enhanced and enriched by a deep-time view of cosmic history. And now is when we can fully appreciate that God did not stop communicating truth vital to human wellbeing back when scripture was still recorded on animal skins and preserved for posterity in clay pots. To my mind, this truly is Great News.