Tue March 24, 2009 Commentary: A Clergyman Believes in Evolution
By Rev. Fred Jensen Buffalo, NY – Last February, upon the 200th
anniversary of Darwin's birth, Barbra Bradley-Hagerty reported
on NPR a story of pastors and rabbis celebrating "Evolution
Weekend" together. I too am a pastor who believes in evolution.
The opening section of Genesis in the Bible, the Creation Poem,
is not contradictory, but complementary with Darwin's theory.
Both the story and the theory teach us about the basic goodness
of nature. In Genesis we hear: In the beginning when God created
the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and
darkness covered the face of the deep Then God said "Let there
be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was
good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called
the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was
evening and there was morning, the first day. This passage is a
poem. Do you remember the poem Trees, by Joyce Kilmer? The one
that begins,