Clergy Letter Project

The Clergy Letter Project is an organization that has created and maintains a statement signed by American Christian clergy of different denominations rejecting creationism, with specific reference to points raised by intelligent design proponents. This effort was organized in 2004 by biologist Michael Zimmerman, now Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.

By September 26, 2008, the Clergy Letter Project had collected 11,685 signatures of US Christian clergy. It continues to collect more. The Project is also making efforts to publicize its other activities.

Statement

The letter is entitled An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science, and reads:

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

The letter is also available in French, Spanish and Portuguese on the Clergy Letter Project website.

The Project

Philosophy

Zimmerman feels that not only do creationism and intelligent design pose a serious threat to science, but to the social fabric as well. He feels that this project can enrich both science and religion.

History

The project was organized in 2004 by Zimmerman, then a biology professor at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Dean of the College of Science and Letters there. He was motivated to create a petition by the actions of the school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, which had passed some anti-evolution policies in the summer of 2004. The final straw came when Zimmerman saw some Christian fundamentalist clergymen from Dover, Pennsylvania on the television program Nightline, insisting that decisions about teaching evolution in schools was equivalent to a choice between heaven and hell. He recruited the husband of the head of the university Psychology Department, the Rev. John McFadden, pastor of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Appleton, Wisconsin, to write a letter describing how science and religion can co-exist.

Zimmerman worked with local clergy in Wisconsin to get clergy to sign this letter, and in a few weeks he had collected almost 200 clergy signatures. The signed letter was delivered to the Grantsburg School Board on December 16, 2004. This effort, together with those of other concerned groups of educators, citizens and scientists, lead the Grantsburg School Board to rescind its policies.

After this success, Zimmerman was encouraged to organize a nationwide campaign and gather more signatures. By September 12, 2005, the Clergy Letter Project had collected more than 7500 signatures. By the beginning of December, 2005, the Project had amassed more than 10,000 signatures.

Most of the clergy who signed are Protestant, an artifact of the way that people were originally invited to sign the letter. Email invitations were sent, and it was easier to get email addresses for some churches and denominations than others.

The clergy letter was at first strictly limited to Christian clergy. Zimmerman declined offers from Jewish and Muslim clergy. More recently, there has been a Jewish "Rabbi Letter" project which obtained 261 signatures. According to Zimmerman,

Since it is fundamentalist Christian ministers who have been shouting to the American people that they must choose between religion and science, it seemed reasonable to have thousands upon thousands of Christian clergy assert otherwise. It simply wouldn't be very persuasive to have leaders of other religions saying to Christians that Christian fundamentalist ministers are not speaking for all Christians. The Clergy Letter Project and Evolution Sunday are not designed to change the minds of fundamentalists. Rather, our goal is to educate the vast majority of Christians who, if told they have to choose between religion and modern science, are likely to opt for religion.

Other related activities

Zimmerman also encourages churches to discuss the role of science and religion on "Evolution Sunday", the Sunday nearest to February 12th (the date of Charles Darwin's birthday, also known as Darwin Day). There are 4 main goals to "Evolution Sunday", according to Zimmerman:

To demonstrate that religion and modern science are compatible

To reach out to thousands of parishioners across the country
To elevate the national dialogue on the topic of religion and evolution

To increase the awareness of The Clergy Letter

In 2006, 467 congregations from all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated in "Evolution Sunday" according to the Clergy Letter Project. The Project records that 618 Congregations, from all from all 50 States, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and five different countries participated in Evolution Sunday 2007. In 2008, 814 congregations from 9 different countries held "Evolution Weekends". However, the New York Times noted that two of the churches in Chicago that were supposedly taking part in "Evolution Sunday" were not featuring sermons on evolution in their February 13, 2006 article on the Project.

Some churches also can drop off the list. The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Fort Collins, preached a sermon in 2006 titled, "The God of Evolution," but the church wasn't on the 2007 list of churches celebrating Evolution Sunday. Chorpenning said that the reason is that, "because the idea of evolution is so noncontroversial in our congregation."

The Clergy Letter Project has a large database of pro-evolution sermons available. In addition, the Project had collected the names of 279 scientists from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and 13 countries, who have volunteered to be available to clergy as consultants on the relationship between religion and science, as of July 28, 2007. By April 18, 2008, the number of scientists had grown to 567 from 29 countries.

Media attention

There has been growing coverage of the Clergy Letter Project in the media. Many local clergy have been interviewed in local publications. For example, The Rev. Ruth Eller of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Logan, Utah is one of the supporters of Evolution Sunday, and states that others have taken advantage of her politeness, while her faith has come under attack, "I respect people who have different viewpoints. I want them to respect me too. I love God and I want the depth of my faith to be respected." The Rev. Patricia Templeton of St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church in Atlanta is quoted as preaching, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

Criticism

The creationist Discovery Institute, which arranged its own anti-evolution petition called A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism in 2001, has disputed the value and relevance of the Clergy Letter Project. Discovery Institute Director of Communications Rob Crowther said that since the disputes about evolution are “purely a scientific debate”, clergy petitions are irrelevant. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Crowther asked, “Can you imagine if the Discovery Institute issued a list of clergy opposing Darwinism?” He also stated that clergy “don’t make any difference,” since “We don’t think there is anything religious at all to the theory of intelligent design.”

However, in the leaked Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, the supporters of the movement were told, "We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

Although intelligent design itself does not name the designer, the personal view of many proponents is that the designer is the Christian god. Whether this was a genuine feature of the concept or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case.

Executive Director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Rev. Mark H. Creech, was extremely dismayed by the Clergy Letter Project, and wrote claiming that evolution is bad science and drives science and religion further apart. Creech claims that Jesus used "bitter and castigating words" against those who did not subscribe to biblical inerrancy and those who regarded the scriptures as allegorical. Creech repeats many of the classic creationist objections to evolution which have been repeatedly refuted, and then looks to the Discovery Institute's much-maligned petition, A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, as an authority that confirms his position.

Maggie Whitlin opines in Seed Magazine that many of the clergy that have signed the Clergy Letter probably do not support evolution wholeheartedly.

Ken Ham and Mark Looy of the creationist organization Answers in Genesis, wrote articles in 2006 and 2007 expressing their incredulity at the notion that there are clergy that support evolution:

This Sunday, congregations throughout the U.S. will participate in what could be called a “Darwin praise service.” They will be celebrating (yes, that’s the word that could be used for many of the churches) the 198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. It’s called “Evolution Sunday.”

Ham and Looy note that the Clergy Letter denounces biblical literalism, and bemoan the fact that "over 10,200 clergy had signed this awful letter."

Ham and Looy also attack the fundraising efforts of Zimmerman through the Christian Alliance for Progress. They are indignant that the CAP states that “Jesus taught equality, justice and obligation. We accept Jesus’ call to love one another and to welcome all God’s children at the table.” as a justification for not discriminating against homosexuals, and that the CAP also supports a woman's right to choose. Ham and Looy worry that the Clergy Letter Project will create an atmosphere in which atheism will flourish. They believe that Evolution Sunday "attack[s] God's Word" and leads people to "hopelessness and despair".

In a 2006 article, Ham and Looy use quotes from atheist Richard Dawkins to demonstrate why evolution and Christianity are incompatible, contrary to the message of the Clergy Letter Project. They also interpret statements of Dawkins to imply that Dawkins views Christians as terrorists. They express alarm at the prospect that the Project will advance Dawkins' atheist agenda.

Ham and Looy view the Clergy Letter Project as part of the "war between Christianity and secular humanism" and a way to "attack Bible-believing Christians." Therefore, Ham and Looy plan to stage their own "Creation Sunday" at some point. Answers in Genesis also has a list of "Some modern scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation." As of December 2007, it had 192 names.

Jonathan Dudley, a divinity student at Yale University and researcher at the Yale School of Medicine wrote approvingly of Evolution Sunday in the Yale Daily News on January 24, 2007, while still worrying that congregations were not being taught to think for themselves with this current campaign, any more than subscribing to fundamentalist Christian biblical literalist doctrines. This apparently spurred Discovery Institute fellow and member of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement, Jonathon Wells, to write a scathing article in the Yale Daily News on January 29, 2007 about Evolution Sunday, "Darwinism", and even Zimmerman. Wells repeated creationist objections to evolution by claiming incorrectly that there is no evidence of evolution and condemning evolution for not being in agreement with the views of 40 % of the American public. Zimmerman responded to Wells' attack with a column in the Yale Daily News on February 5, 2007, pointing out the copious errors of fact in Wells' article. Wells followed this with a letter to the editor in the Yale Daily News dated February 6, 2007, and published on February 7, 2007. Wells brushed over the points Zimmerman had raised, and focused on whether the word "Darwinism" is appropriate or not. Wells also responded with vigor to two others who had written letters to the editor critical of his original article. Finally, Wells claimed that the only reason to stage Evolution Sunday is because evolution is not "scientifically sound or religiously neutral", and that it is "promoting an anti-religious philosophy disguised as empirical science." University of Iowa faculty member Tara C. Smith noted several other responses to this episode in her blog, Aetiology.

Some find the notion that evolution and religion are not in conflict disturbing. Another example of some of the attitudes that exist can be found in an article by Jefferson Reed on his "RightFaith" website, where he adamently claimed that the over 10,000 clergy that signed the letter have "signed away the authority of Scripture." In addition,

These pastors have signed a statement that inappropriately forces the integration of evolution into the text of the Bible, or worse, reduces the Bible to allegorical 'moral stories'... Beginning with the Bible, it is simply impossible to arrive at evolution. These 10,200 pastors arrogantly or ignorantly deviate from Christian tradition and orthodoxy by claiming their opinions trump the thousands of years of tradition and the plain reading of the Bible. The relativistic language, "forms of truth," confirms that this is an appeal to pastors duped by the cultural influence of tolerance.

See also

• Creation-evolution controversy
• A Scientific Support for Darwinism
• Theistic evolution
• Project Steve
• Level of support for evolution

External links

• The Clergy Letter Project official webpage.
• Clergy Letter Project Background
• The Clergy Letter Project: Website Banners, Project Links
• video in support of Clergy Letter Project, Cross Walk America and Renegade Video