Questions about Darwin and Christianity
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Where is the short giraffe? Considering the editorial "Expelling Darwin" [September 10], I was disappointed that a third opinion about Darwin's thought was not even...
...In this regard it is important to be clear on church teaching and to integrate the findings of a new Creighton University study, "Ministry to Interchurch Marriages...
...The closing of the Paraclete Book Center is a terrible loss to literate believers—and those who hope to be...
...But I wonder why Catholics have not been more troubled by the implications of Darwinism for Christian theories of Original Sin...
...Or have we...
...REV...
...First, we need to grasp the Roman Catholic distinction between interchurch marriage between two Christians who share the same faith, even when their churches may not be in full communion, and interreligious marriage between believers from different religious traditions...
...Darwin & Adam's sin Your editorial on "Expelling Darwin" rightly points out that Catholics have not been much troubled by theories of evolution because they are not tied to a literal reading of the creation stories in Genesis, and have little difficulty imagining that God made evolution the vehicle of his creative design...
...Considering the editorial "Expelling Darwin" [September 10], I was disappointed that a third opinion about Darwin's thought was not even mentioned...
...Wedding the churches Thank you for James D. Davidson's "Outside the Church: Whom Catholics Marry & Where" [September 10...
...I can imagine various answers to these questions but I would very much like to know what the theologians have to say about them...
...For example, if giraffes gradually developed long necks, shouldn't we be able to find fossils of the intermediary steps...
...The current (September/October) issue of Books & Culture includes an exchange between Johnson and Robert Pennock, author of Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (MIT Press...
...Christian theology has long taught that the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus were required because the sin of Adam had jeopardized the salvation of all humankind...
...While its content may not be news to those in related pastoral ministries, for the general reader it is a helpful overview...
...Could you commission an article addressing the problem and providing bibliographical guidance for nonscholars...
...Additionally, in dioceses where interchurch families are a significant component, it is best to design marriage encounter programs with ecumenical participation...
...From the editors: To praise for Elizabeth Sullivan, we add praise for Mary Butler who has run the Paraclete since (Continued on page 30) Commonweal 4 October 8,1999 (Continued from page 4) Sullivan's death in 1978...
...outreach to such couples is greatly strengthened when pastoral agents grasp the church's ecumenical responsibility in this respect...
...BROTHER JEFFREY GROS, F.S.C...
...DAVID H. WERNING Leonardtown, Md...
...Liz was my sister, my soul mate, my boon companion...
...Its official opening was on the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila, doctor of the church, October 15,1951...
...The Genesis story is not only one of creation...
...The magisterium has come to recognize these marriages as instances of sacramental sharing...
...Isn't it held by some scientists that Darwin's theories fail to account for the lack of evidence to support a gradual branching off of man and monkey...
...Second, in dioceses with long experience of interchurch marriages, engagement programs with the variety of options suggested in your article do well to include mentoring by successful interchurch (or, preferably, ecumenical) couples...
...Or did that blessed moment occur immediately after the transition to Homo sapiens, briefly replacing the Darwinian competition with a universal harmony resting precariously on Adam's virtue...
...Pastoral agents should of course know the dialogues the Catholic church is engaged in with partner churches...
...Moreover, the sin of Adam has traditionally been considered the source of natural evils such as disease and death...
...Forty-eight years ago, a woman with a master's degree from the University of Chicago and a vision of the Catholic church as a work-in-progress acquired the inventory of the parish library of Saint Jean Baptiste on Lexington Avenue and turned it into the Paraclete Book Center...
...The Catechism of the Catholic Church states (#376): "The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation comprised the state called 'original justice,'" which was to be lost "by the sin of our first parents" (#379...
...Washington, D.C...
...it also portrays a universe in harmony, and suggests that natural disasters and the deadly predation prevailing among living things were the consequence not of God's design but of Adam's sin...
...NANCY SULLIVAN MURRAY Syracuse, N.Y...
...But Darwinism gives us a universe where chance rules and predation is normal...
...A customer could not phone or enter the store without recognizing (and anticipating) the intelligence and acuity (sometimes acerbity) that Butler and her colleagues, Kay Voss and Kevin Cur-ley, brought to queries, comments, and vague searches for the "right" book...
...Why haven't we found intermediary fossils that attest to the gradual change in species...
...Johnson reviewed Stephen Jay Gould's Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life in Commonweal for April 23...
...The aim of such programs should be to help young people see the possibilities of successful interchurch living, where both their unity in Christ and the diversity of their communities can be resources for their relationship, rather than sources of alienation from the church...
...Let the historians so note...
...In whatever history is written of the Catholic church in the last half of the twentieth century, I can only hope that adequate space is given to the faithful ministry of the Word, proclaimed and celebrated for almost five decades at the Paraclete Book Center...
...A number of scientists and philosophers point to gaps in the fossil record as one reason to question "Darwinism...
...Not a store but a center In the closing of the Paraclete Book Center [announcement, September 24 issue], its customers, the Archdiocese of New York, and indeed many far-flung religious communities of different faith traditions are losing a treasure...
...No evidence of "micro-evolution"—the slow, gradual process of natural selection—can be found...
...Even if we adjust our theology to have God "ensoul" a pri-(Continued on page 4) Commonweal 2 October 8,1999 (Continued from page 2) mate or two who are then capable of sinning and forfeiting "original justice" for their descendants, aren't we left with a divine plan that includes a harsh nature, bloody in tooth and claw...
...I'm asking not because I am in the least bit anxious over who created me, but simply because I'm interested...
...One such is Phillip E. Johnson, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial, Reason in the Balance, and Defeating Darwinism (by Opening Minds), all published by InterVarsity Press...
...Have you heard of this third opinion, or am I out of the chain myself...
...It was at the Center that Frank Sheed, Maisie Ward, and many other prophetic pre-Vatican II visionaries gathered to wrestle with the issues of liturgy, theology, and social justice...
...JOHN C. MOORE Bloomington, Ind...
...In other words, the evidence on hand so far suggests different stages of evolution separated by great gaps of time: Once there was monkey, then there was man...
...Christian interchurch marriages may become truly ecumenical if couples grow into an understanding of the unity they share in Christ, the lingering divisions among the churches, and the stages of both their churches on the road to full communion...
...As its name suggests, and as Liz Sullivan intended, the Paraclete was to be, and continued through the years, not a store but a center...
...From the editors: You're in the loop...
...Commonweal 30 October 8, 1999...
...The writer is assistant director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops...
...There is much more to the story, but it needs a historian more objective than myself...
Vol. 126 • October 1999 • No. 17
