Michael Dowd - Preaching the Gospel of Evolution

When EnlightenNext heard that evolutionary theologian Michael Dowd’s new book, Thank God for Evolution, has been garnering praise from everyone from Nobel laureates to U.S. senators, we wanted to catch up with him to speak about his recent work. A one-time fundamentalist Christian who later awakened to the “great story” of evolutionary history, Dowd is an evangelical minister who spends his time traveling nonstop across North America to preach the gospel of evolution and the marriage of science and religion. Together with his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, he has spent the last six years on a personal mission to introduce the ideas of evolutionary spirituality to traditional religious believers, atheists, and everyone in between.

In this conversation with EnlightenNext associate editor Carol Raphael, Dowd expounds on the many ways science and religion augment each other. With the enthusiasm of a preacher and the curiosity of a scientist, he dives into the heart of such universal concerns as God, morality, and the nature of evil, always from an evolutionary perspective. And he passionately calls for reimagining our personal and public lives in light of the truth of our place in an evolving cosmos. In Dowd’s spirited commentary, you’ll discover a powerful antidote to the current split between two of the most basic ways humans have made sense of life—reason and faith.

BIO

The Rev. Michael Dowd, a gifted teacher, preacher, and evolutionary theologian. A leading voice in the Evolutionary Spirituality movement, Michael is the author of the 1991 book "EarthSpirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity" (Twenty-Third Publications), which was inspired by the writings of cultural historian Thomas Berry, physicist Brian Swimme, and deep ecologist Joanna Macy. During the 1980s and 90s, Michael pastored three United Church of Christ congregations, worked with Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Unitarian Universalist, and New Thought leaders across America on environmental, peace, and justice issues, and managed government funded Sustainable Lifestyle Campaigns on both coasts. His great joy is telling the 14 billion year history of everyone and everything in ways that evoke awe, gratitude, and trust, inspire faith and openheartedness, and empower people to follow the path where their own great joy and the world's great need intersect.

Since April 2002, Michael and his wife Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer, have lived permanently on the road, teaching and preaching "the marriage of science and religion for personal and planetary wellbeing" in churches and living rooms as well as in public and private schools all across North America. Their website The Great Story is one of the best community empowerment tools in the conscious evolution/evolutionary spirituality movement, consistently generates nearly a half million hits per month! It is a leading resource for those working to heal the rift between science and religion, and for those envisioning a just, healthy, beautiful, and sustainably life-giving world for future generations of all species. Michael also has a website specifically for Christians.