Christian faith in the other good book
12:56 10 February 2007
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11145-christian-faith-in-the-iotheri-good-book.html
Flocks of the Christian faithful in the US will this Sunday hold special services celebrating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The idea is to stand up to creationism, which claims the biblical account of creation is literally true, and which is increasingly being promoted under the guise of "intelligent design". Proponents of ID say the universe is so complex it must have been created by some unnamed designer.
Support for "Evolution Sunday" has grown 13 per cent to 530 congregations this year, from the 467 that celebrated the inaugural event last year. Organisers see it as increasing proof that Christians are comfortable with evolution.
"For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science," says Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "We're saying you can have your faith, and you can also have science."
Zimmerman and his backers believe the biblical account of creation is allegorical. "Creationists fear that if you believe evolution, you're an atheist," he says. But for Zimmerman, attempts to try and "ratify God's existence" through intelligent design signify lack of faith. "If you have enough faith, you don't need science to prove God exists, and science can't prove this anyway," he says.
The event arose from the Clergy Letter Project, a pro-evolution letter signed in 2004 by 10,500 Christian clergy. It is spreading internationally, and this year will also be celebrated in Australia, the UK, Canada and Nigeria. Seven publishers are donating material for the services.
It is fitting that it be Christians that confront the Christian Right.
After all, since the high-sheen sanctimony of religion was worn like a cloak to work like armor by the Christian Right (which is politically fascist)--thus always partially if not entirely voiding ciriticism--it only logically concludes that criticism must come from Christians in order to riddle that armor.
These common, non-zealot Christians know all the words and know all the scriptures, and cannot be shamed by the cherry-picking use of them by the Far Right. They cannot be shamed away with a derisive Falwell sneer. It is an intracorporate affair. The field is level.
This is all about eight or ten years late for the Christians to pick up the mantle(earlier, if you were a student of tracking this phenomenon known as the new evangelical movement.)
Every Christian, and certainly every professionally collared Christian shall have to answer the question--'where were you when the foundation was laid.'
I posted for eight years about the political intrigue, the political power contained in this Christian movement, but all I ever got back was how I was attacking their--the post readers--"faith." This common chickenshit reaction came from both . . . er . . . at least three sides of the aisle in here.
In the history of such things, this Christian movement, this created, Far Right political machine will go down as an brilliant construct, with strong powers manipulated to achieve political success (power), effective beyond the ken of all those who simply sat there in their head like a bump, answering a call of being shamed into submission by the shaking nanny finger of Evangelical America.
Psychologically, it was and still is brilliant.
And those who think they are gone?
In watching various serious coverage by media news specials, one hour shows, about these Christians--a few things are clear:
--they are not going to separate themselves from your society, they already have.
--looking from a sputnik with the proper lens filter, this would look like a completedly divided country. This would be no distortion. True, not divided in half, but divided.
--They have constructed a new world for themselves by disengaging and inventing their own science, medicine, entertainment, music, science, psychology . . . just about all the pigeonhole concrete staples that constitute a culture.
Not to mention the intellectual insult that they have proffered up as substitute.
If you can't see what's coming, you don't deserve to.
