Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
Written by Michael Dowd
Narrated by Michael Dowd
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Michael Dowd
The Reverend Michael Dowd is America’s evolutionary evangelist. He and his wife, Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer, have traveled the country sharing their sacred view of cosmic, biological, and human evolution. Equally at home in both conservative and liberal settings, and uniquely gifted at building bridges between religious and nonreligious people, Rev. Dowd is passionate about sharing the fourteen-billion-year epic of evolution in ways that uplift and expand heart, mind, and soul. During the 1980s and 90s, Dowd was pastor of three United Church of Christ congregations, and has worked with diverse religious leaders across the country on environmental initiatives, peace and justice issues, and social reform. He holds a Master of Divinity degree. Rev. Dowd has served on the boards of the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology; the Ohio Conference United Church of Christ (UCC) Integrity of Creation, Justice, and Peace task force; and the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network. He has also served on the steering committees of the International Network of Biblical Storytellers and the UCC Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility.
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Reviews for Thank God for Evolution
19 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A refreshing perspective.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I whole-heartedly recommend the first part of this book which is overflowing with Dowd’s infectious enthusiasm for his subject. His subject is, blatantly and proudly, evolution. If only he’d stayed clear of religion, if only he’d stuck to how amazing the universe is and focused on the lessons we can learn from contemplating evolution, it would be a magnificent book. Dowd offers inspiring ways to approach life with an evolutionary foundation. His concept of 'deep integrity' is rather cool. I'd wager that there's something for everyone in here and it’s certainly a book to provoke some good discussion ... but don’t believe the cover jacket’s hype about how Dowd has eloquently bridged the divide between faith and evolution. In fact, I'd dare to call it false advertising.After an inspiring start, all his talk about ‘Universal Reality’ and ‘The Great Radiance’ starts to wear thin. The book gets overloaded with religious terms that are jammed inside inverted commas. Dowd ostensibly discusses "Original Sin" but really he's just talking about how we inherited certain instincts from our lizard and monkey ancestors. He'll wax lyrical about being "in Christ" but really he's talking about something he calls 'living in evolutionary integrity'. All useful and instructive, but not when the book's pitch is that there are ways to be Christian and accept evolution at the same time. It begins to feel disingenuous because he's not showing a way for Christians to accept evolution at all. His purported reconciliation comes at the expense of every thread of traditional belief. If you boil it right down he's basically saying, "God does not exist and the Bible is pure myth, but hey, we all like the tradition so let's keep using Christian terminology. Let's call the Universe 'God' and let's talk about trusting evolution as 'having faith'. Let's admire Christ's humility, apply it to evolution and say that we are being 'Christ-like'. There's nothing spiritual going on here at all, all we're doing is re-labeling stuff. Feels great, and we can still pretend we're Christians."In the opening sections of the book I was genuinely excited. Here was someone with a fresh approach to reconciling faith with evolution. I started to plan how I might get some of my Christian friends to read it. By the end though, his references to "God", "Christ-like", "Satan", "Sin" etc seemed a bit pointless. Dude, it's a spade. At the end of the day it's still a spade. Calling it "Christ" changes nothing except the label.It's a shame because Dowd starts off so strongly with his passion for the science. I wonder if he's trying to do too much in one book. There's a lot of good stuff in here. But ultimately it is too long, too flaky and I finished up disappointed.
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