In future blog posts, I'll introduce and share something about the many and diverse groups that embrace an understanding of grace that goes back billions, not just thousands, of years. Here, I'd like to just mention two of the more interesting and inspiring examples - both within Christianity: the Clergy Letter Project and the Emerging Church movement.

I'm often asked "How large is the Evolution Theology movement?" and "What kinds of individuals, churches, and other organizations find a sacred view of evolution inspiring?" These questions are not easy to answer, of course, for two reasons. The first is that there are many different ways that people have referred to a sacred, meaningful interpretation of cosmic history. Second, there are far, far more individuals and institutions that align with Evolutionary Theology than have ever used the term.

In future blog posts, I'll introduce and share something about the many and diverse groups that embrace an understanding of grace that goes back billions, not just thousands, of years. Here, I'd like to just mention two of the more interesting and inspiring examples - both within Christianity: the Clergy Letter Project and the Emerging Church movement.

The Clergy Letter Project centers on a list of 11,000+ clergy who have signed a letter publicly stating that they see no conflict between their faith and a mainstream scientific understanding of evolution. The project also promotes Evolution Sunday (whichever Sunday falls closest to Darwin’s birthday, February 12th). Both of these are the brainchild of Michael Zimmerman, a biologist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Butler University, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Not only has the list of Clergy Letter signers continued to grow every year, but the national media attention it generates, such as in The New York Times, continues to grow too.

I wrote briefly about the Emerging Church movement a couple of months ago in my Progressive Evangelicals/Emergents blog post, while I was attending Soularize, a yearly gathering of leaders actively engaged in the Emerging Church conversation. Since then, my book, Thank God for Evolution! was sent to fifty of the leading bloggers in this movement. I'll soon report on, and include links to, some of the exciting and heated discussion that this has generated.

Time will tell how rapidly Evolution Theology catches on in Progressive Christian and Emergent circles, but my sense is that once the Emerging Church ignites with a Gospel of Evolution message, which seems inevitable, watch out! I predict that we are on the verge of an evolution-celebrating religious revival that will transform America, and that evolutionary faith will gain ascendancy over traditional, pre-evolutionary faith here in less than a generation. I fully expect Emergent evangelicals, with their passion for God, postmodern sensibilities, and artistic/musical gifts, to play a vital and leading role in this evolutionary emergence.