Anglican Church for Darwin

The Church of England launched a new website today in connection with various Darwin celebrations next year. What a refreshing change from the usual creationist nonsense. This is from the front page of their site:

What is extraordinary is that Darwin was surrounded by the influence of the Church his entire life. Having attended one of the best Church of England boarding schools in the country in Shrewsbury, he trained to be a clergyman in Cambridge; was inspired to follow his calling into science by another clergyman who lived and breathed botany; and married into a staunch Anglican family (see the section Darwin and the Church).

Despite this exposure to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Darwin showed his human side by slowly losing his personal Christian faith, the erosion made complete by a need for evidence and no doubt the sad death of a beloved daughter (see Darwin and faith which collects Darwin’s thoughts on faith in his own words, initially penned for his family members, and reproduced with the kind permission of William H Darwin).

And from an article from The Times about this website:

The Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, one of the inspirations for the website, said: “We felt there would be public interest, particularly because of the rise of creationism in the US.

“Christian attitudes don't have to be either a complete swallowing of Darwin and everything that has been done in his name, on the one hand, and, on the other, the complete rejection of scientific method with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

“A culture that doesn't have a great deal of historic understanding of the Christian faith can easily characterise all Christians as being like the most noisy ones.”

A church spokesman added: “Creationism should not be taught as a scientifically based theory but could be included in discussion of the development of scientific ideas down the ages or in RE.”

Ok..so the last comment has generated some controversy (hat tip Secular Outpost and also see Edis's commentary on that). But over all lets give them some credit for acting in a sane manner regarding science.

See the new Anglican Church website here and read the Times article here.