Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
February 14, 2010
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Transfiguration/Evolution Sunday

Scripture Lesson:  Luke 9:28-36

Fully Awake to Glory    

"But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep;
and when they were awake, they saw his glory,
and the two men who stood with him."
(Luke 9:32; KJV)

Prelude

There is a professor of biological sciences at Butler University

in Indianapolis, Dr. Michael Zimmerman by name, who has in

recent years spearheaded an effort encouraging churches to

observe an Evolution Sunday.  Concerned with flourishing

misconceptions about evolution as a scientific theory,

and with a growing antagonism, an increasing belligerence,

from faith communities critical of classroom science curriculum

and the teaching of evolutionary theory,

Dr. Zimmerman founded in 2004

the Clergy Letter Project.

The "letter" is statement affirming that religious truth

is of a different order from scientific truth,

and that the truth we espouse in our religious faith

is not incompatible with the advances brought forth

with modern science; indeed, religion and science

need not be locked in bruising combat,

with one seeking to bully and belittle the other;

rather they may "comfortably coexist"

and complement each other.

To promote the letter, the professor suggested use of the Sunday

closest to February 12, the birth date of Charles Darwin,

whose explorations on the HMS Beagle

(which set sail from Plymouth, England on the first of 3 separate voyages),

brought us the pioneering work, On the Origin of Species.

This published work was ground breaking.

It was a tipping point offering evolutionary design

and a theory of natural selection to explain

the record of life coming and going,

and the incredible diversity of life quite traceable

in the world that is our home.

Darwin was instrumental in helping understand

the universe in a new way; rather than living in a fixed

world, static in nature, conceived and ordered to preclude

change, there is the possibility of adaptation,

of change, of advancement.

Many people welcome and cheered this new way of looking

at the work.  It made a lot of sense, and offered a framework

to explore human life and culture.  "Liberal theology not only

accepted the idea of evolution, but embraced it as the foundation

for understanding reality."  (historian Robt. Bruce Muillins, quoted in

A People's History by D. Bass, p. 268).  This is quite exciting isn't it?

We become agents of social progress; we adapt, advance, we improve!

Yet others were not quite so enthused.  They saw a dark cloud rising with

Darwinism.  Natural selection was an omission of divinity, a real threat

to all the stable foundations of faith. In evolution (natural selection),

they saw a rejection of design, no divine intelligence at work.

It is right here that we can trace the rise of

a fearful, defensive, fundamental streak

emerging in Christian faith. 

In Protestant thought, there was encampment

in a Biblical theory of inerrancy. 

In Catholicism, there emerged

papal infallibility (1870). 

These were defensive measures,

protecting faith under cultural assault.

Many voices have sounded over the years.

In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached the sermon,

"Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"  Some people still read this work,

for it is still worth reading.  Fosdick noted the fundamentalist

spirit was "essentially illiberal and intolerant," and that it was

driving out of the church multitudes of reverent Christians who

were unable to keep new understandings of life in this world in

one compartment of their minds, while maintaining

Christian faith quartered in another. 

In 1925 a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, John Scopes,

was charged with violating a new state statute known as

the Butler Act, that prohibited instruction in any

"theory that denies the story of Divine Creation

of man as taught in the Bible."  An advocacy group,

World Christian Fundamentals Association,

led by a William Bell Riley, lobbied the state legislature in

Tennessee and convinced it to pass the anti-evolution law.

Scopes was a lawyer by training, coaching football in

the Dayton area, and only occasionally substituting

for the principle in the science classroom.

He gave consent to risk arrest and test the law.

With the help of the ACLU, a defense was mounted

with lead attorney Clarence Darrow facing off against

lead prosecutor Tom Stewart, who later become a U.S. Senator,

and the nationally known William Jennings Bryan,

who gained appointment as special prosecutor.

Bryan was recruited by the folks who pushed through

the Butler Act,  the World Christian Fundamental Association.

It is little remembered, but Scopes was judged guilty;

but the verdict was overturned on a technicality,

for the judge usurped the jury's right to set the

fine to be imposed due to the guilty judgment.

It is even less remembered that the Butler Act remained state law

in Tennessee for another 42 years (1967). 

I find that quite extraordinary.

According to William Jennings Bryan:

"Evolution seems to close the heart to some of the

plainest spiritual truths while it opens the mind to

the wildest guesses advanced in the name of science."

Almost quaint, to think such debates were once actually waged. 

But evidence of friction, faith vs. science, has continued on.  

Some lay all the ills of society at Darwin's door,

he himself being demonized.

"Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy,

not a scientific fact.  Only a spiritually bankrupt

society could ever believe it.  Only atheists could

accept this Satanic theory."

(Jimmy Swaggert, preacher, TV evangelist)

The teaching of evolution, by some, is considered harmful,

and parents should protect. 

"Parents have a right to insist that

godless evolution not be taught to their children."

(Patrick Buchanan, political commentator, author;

3-time presidential candidate)

Or consider this assessment:

"The causes of youth violence are

working parents who put their kids into daycare,

the teaching of evolution in the schools,

and working mothers who take birth control pills."

(Tom Delay, the "Hammer"; 21-year member of Congress, '85-'06)

Other voices, not quite so strident, emerge from

quite different quarters.

"If evolution really works,

how come mothers only have two hands?"

(Milton Berle, comedian )

"I was taught that the human brain was

the crowning glory of evolution so far,

but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival."

(Kurt Vonnegut, novelist)

Hmmm.  One can't help but wonder.  And pray.

"Dear Lord, give us hope and heart to turn,

to adapt, and to advance, that in your grace

we might become ever more fully

the people you yearn for us to be." 

          *****                   *****                   *****

I want to note:  if there exists a construction of faith that is

suspicious of science, there is also a construction of faith that

can embrace with praise what discoveries science affords us.

In this regard, there is much in our past to help lead and guide us.

Here I would invoke the name of Charles Chauncy,

an 18th century Puritan preacher in Boston,

who emerged as a leading voice, sometimes a singular voice,

in questioning the religious revival movement known

as the Great Awakening (1740's). 

Historians often label Chauncy as the leading voice of

Old Light divinity, a conservative who frowned

upon the heights and ecstasies of rebirth promoted by revival.

It is an unfortunate identification, this Old Light label, and for

this morning, at least, I hope we work to better appreciate

and apprehend what was then signified and how it now serves us.

Chauncy objected to what he saw in the revival movement as

(1) emotional manipulation;

(2) anti-intellectualism;

(3) rampant self-deception purveyed in the name of faith.

Furthermore, he clearly saw the emphasis upon the individual,

through the generation of intense feelings of fear and contrition,

threatened to erode the communal nature of the church. 

We are right to remember Chauncy, pre-Darwin that he is,

as an emergent rationalist -

out of need for all the zaniness making the rounds,

as much as personal conviction.  In Chauncy we can see the

emergent thought: if we bear the image of God,

it is within the mind, no less than within the heart. 

The mind, we might say, is a terrible thing

to close to the grace of God! 

I plead that we be careful here.  We are a people, a tradition,

a living faith that embraces, that expects evolutionary change;

but we are rightly wary when talk turns to evolutionary progress

(see John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval, p. 25).

We can change, but there are limits to our human nature.

I do not believe we have progressed

beyond our need for the ancient sages.

I do not believe science has a

cure for the deadly sins.

We can change; but I'm uncertain of progress.

I don't believe every generation in theater

gets a Shakespeare;

I don't believe every generation of music lovers get

a Bach, Beethoven, or Beetles;

I don't believe there are Darwins sitting in every

Biology class, or that Einsteins are lurking

in mathematics class.

I do honestly believe the bar set by Jesus

remains where first it was set: 

on cross,

in tomb,

in the mystery of love defying death,

in life that God makes forever. 

          *****                   *****                   *****

Two years ago, January 2008, a pastoral letter

was distributed throughout the UCC entitled: 

"A new Voice Arising:  A Pastoral Letter on Faith Engaging

Science and Technology."  For those who are interested and curious

about this subject material, it is inspired thought and required reading.

It includes these words:

"Through (the) gifts of science we look across ever-expanding

vistas of cosmic beauty, almost to the beginning of time itself.

What we see evokes wonder and humility, and we hear within

ourselves a new voice rising and sing an anthem of praise that

reverberates through the whole creation ..."

The letter candidly acknowledges:  "Science is sometimes unsettling

because it destroys old foundations without providing new ones. 

Yet because of science, many today are on a new search of meaning."

Yet there is this confident confession:

"Behind all that science enables us to glimpse and grasp, there

remains a God who seeks our companionship."

And on the basis of the confession, there is challenge:

 "Many today are hungering for an authentic

spirituality that is intellectually honest and at home in a

scientific era.  They are searching for a new kind of wisdom

to live by, one that is scientifically sophisticated, technologically

advanced, morally just, ecologically sustainable, spiritually alive."

"We know that the challenges of science and technology are not

easy.  We also know they are not optional, as if we could be a

faithful church while ignoring our context."

          *****                   *****                   *****

THE TRANSFIGURATION

Well, we did have a lesson this morning.

Jesus makes way to a mountain. 

There is revelation. 

Is this an instance in which Jesus is evolving,

becoming something new;

is this a record of three disciples witnessing

the making of a star from within the heart of Jesus? 

I don't think there is a physical dimension to the

story, a scientific explanation, that will satisfy.

I do sense it is a story of human perception,

a record of what change occurs when there is

beholding of Jesus in all the beauty and wonder

and grace of his love. 

Jesus didn't have a spiritual moment of nuclear fusion;

the perception of the disciples has changed as they

come into a new awareness of how great

and good Jesus truly is within the world

God desires to save through his love and mercy. 

Fully awake, they behold the glory of the one with

words of life, standing with friends whose lives were

similarly fired.    

          *****                   *****                   *****

I'll close with this. 

In my second year of college, I had opportunity to

play the lead role in Bertold Brecht's play, Galileo.

It is a dramatic presentation of the man of science,

yearning to explore, to discover, to advance,

yet facing an institution of faith that was not

understanding, not open, not affirming.

Galileo was part of the Copernican revolution.

He was living at a time when a new instrument was

invented, almost as much as a novelty, toy, as a tool

for research:  the telescope.  It appeared in the Netherlands

in 1608; a year later, it was the hit of Paris,

and they were selling like wildfire. 

Aristotelian thought was still dominant, in place for 2,000

years, being the heavens changeless, and earth the

center of the world. Galileo took a crude telescope,

a metal tube, and with two quality lens,

was able to see movement, light, rotation;

the earth was not the center of universe, but part of

a much larger creation turning in concert around our sun. 

The church, so slow to believe. 

The church, so defensive. And aggressive. 

The church working to silence what new sight revealed,

forcing Galileo to recant, prohibiting publication of his

work, wanting to prevent any further trouble.

Yet within the same church,

there were those in dissent, who did not follow

unwise rule, who supported Galileo in his work,

and in his publications, even during his house arrest. 

The lesson:  our faith is dynamic in nature.

If it calcifies, it will crumble and fall; it is suited to serve

us in every moment in time whatever the challenge of

our present age; our faith should be engaging

and hopeful for new sight to emerge,

new understandings, new discoveries,

deeper, greater depths into the mind of God,  the hand of God,

at work for our good, heal and wholeness.

May it be so for each and all of us,

and to God be the glory.

Amen.