Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Categories of Bishops
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Things get no better with his assertion that there is a "recent insistence that only the Darwinian theory of evolution should be taught to young people as they study the origin of the cosmos and human life." It is beyond me why someone who has presumably been able to wrestle the doctrine of the transubstantiation to the ground, rather than vice versa, can fail to be able to recognize such a simple category error.
No one is saying that children should be taught only evolution or only science. Philosophy, history, comparative religion, ethics, art, literature, music, poetry and dozens more subjects are appropriate and necessary topics in the public schools. That fair and balanced instruction in religion can be done with the support of those interested in protecting the secular and nonsectarian nature of our government is amply demonstrated by the program conducted for the last six years in the Modesto California public schools. Ninth graders are required to take a nine-week course on world religions, beginning with two weeks of study of First Amendment and the U.S. history of religious liberty. People for the American Way is one group that has supported the program.
Ultimately, the bishop’s article is not arguing for Intelligent Design as practiced by the political movement, but for a kind of theistic evolution where the natural aspects of the universe are accepted as they are but with an acknowledgment of a divine sustenance and guidance.
Still, the bishop should certainly be able to grasp the difference between philosophy and theology on the one hand and science on the other. Simple common sense says we should not teach pig Latin in a French class, pretending it is French. Just so, science should be taught in science classes and philosophy in philosophy classes. And, under our Constitution, the truth claims of any theology should be taught in the churches and the homes of America, where they can best be kept safe from government intrusion..
The Vatican has announced that Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh will be named to replace Theodore Cardinal McCarrick as archbishop of Washington DC, considered one of the "red hat" dioceses in the US, the archbishop of which is customarily made a cardinal. In an article last year in the Pittsburgh diocesan paper, he came down on the side of Intelligent Design as "a middle ground." The tone is perhaps set by the bishop’s statement that "Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1855."
Things get no better with his assertion that there is a "recent insistence that only the Darwinian theory of evolution should be taught to young people as they study the origin of the cosmos and human life." It is beyond me why someone who has presumably been able to wrestle the doctrine of the transubstantiation to the ground, rather than vice versa, can fail to be able to recognize such a simple category error.
No one is saying that children should be taught only evolution or only science. Philosophy, history, comparative religion, ethics, art, literature, music, poetry and dozens more subjects are appropriate and necessary topics in the public schools. That fair and balanced instruction in religion can be done with the support of those interested in protecting the secular and nonsectarian nature of our government is amply demonstrated by the program conducted for the last six years in the Modesto California public schools. Ninth graders are required to take a nine-week course on world religions, beginning with two weeks of study of First Amendment and the U.S. history of religious liberty. People for the American Way is one group that has supported the program.
Ultimately, the bishop’s article is not arguing for Intelligent Design as practiced by the political movement, but for a kind of theistic evolution where the natural aspects of the universe are accepted as they are but with an acknowledgment of a divine sustenance and guidance.
Still, the bishop should certainly be able to grasp the difference between philosophy and theology on the one hand and science on the other. Simple common sense says we should not teach pig Latin in a French class, pretending it is French. Just so, science should be taught in science classes and philosophy in philosophy classes. And, under our Constitution, the truth claims of any theology should be taught in the churches and the homes of America, where they can best be kept safe from government intrusion.
