Spring Break
Speaker talks about motivations for Clergy Letter Project
Adam Larck / Staff Reporter
Issue date: 2/11/09 Section: News
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In 1999, former Congressman Tom DeLay blamed the Columbine shooting on evolution.
In 2006, an advertisement in the Cincinnati Enquirer blamed Sept. 11 on the belief of evolution. It is these types of incorrect political implications that made Michael Zimmerman start the Clergy Letter Project.
Zimmerman spoke as part of the Darwin Day programs Tuesday night in the Coleman Hall Auditorium.
"It's because people see that evolution does damage," he said. "That is, the way evolution has been politicized. That is, people think, 'Doesn't the belief in evolution mean you can do anything you want?'
"Well, that is a political belief, that isn't a scientific belief," he said. "So, these people are attacking the underlying science because they don't like what it's standing for when it enters the political arena. Even though, when it enters the political arena, it's doing it wrong."
Zimmerman said that it bastardizes the science and turns it into bad politics, which then gets attacked.
Another problem of the politicization of evolution is that some people still believe in biblical literalism. Zimmerman, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University, is only opposed to people using a literal translation of the Bible if it becomes the norm in schools.
"If people want to be biblical literalists or want to be atheists or they want to be Wiccans, as long as they're doing it in the privacy of their home, with consenting animals, and they're doing it in the privacy of their congregations, why would I care?" he said. "I mean we have a constitution that permits and encourages that."
It is because of these reasons that Zimmerman started the Clergy Letter Project.
He created the project with three goals: to demonstrate that religion and evolutionary biology are compatible, to demonstrate that fundamentalist ministers do not speak for all clergymen and to raise the quality of discourse on the topic.
After having a clergyman write up a letter stating the belief that science and religion can be compatible, but should be separate, he posted the letter for Christian clergymen to sign.
Currently, the letter has 11,827 signatures, including the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States and the head of the United Church of Christ.
"There are plenty of big names, and plenty of small names," Zimmerman said.
"The big names, in one sense, in my perspective, are no more important than small names, but people care more for good reason."
He then made a letter for Rabbi to sign and Unitarian Universalists to sign, which have 434 signatures and 179 signatures, respectively. Zimmerman said he thought the letters would start causing change and get the media to take interest, but nothing happened.
"When I had 10,000 signatures and no one cared, I either had to do something or I had to stop," he said. "So, I figured what's the next best thing, and declared a holiday." The holiday started as Evolution Sunday in 2006, and has now expanded to Evolution Weekend to include multiple religions.
It takes place on the weekend closest to Charles Darwin's birthday, and encourages clergy members to have a discussion on evolution or a picnic to talk about evolution or some other way just to discuss it.
Adam Larck can be reached at 581-7942 or at allarck@eiu.edu.
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