Thank God for Evolution - book review

I think it is a brilliant choice of titles when, without their opening the book, hundreds of thousands of readers can be offended.  Author Michael Dowd has done just that with his book "Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World"  

My first thought at seeing the title was:  " Is he kidding?  

My second thought was:  "I have to read this!"  Pretty effective title, I'd say.

Indeed, Dowd is serious.  Without losing one whit of his fundamentalist Christian faith, Dowd reinterprets and redefines until he can reconcile his faith with Darwin's "Origin of the Species" as well as hundreds of books that have reinterpreted and extended Darwin.

To begin, Dowd defines "private revelation" as that given to one person.  It cannot be proven or disproven - it just is.  It is often passed through oral traditions until it is written at which time it is solidified, "written in stone" so to speak.  It becomes scripture and is often worshiped as much as the God who reveals himself in such writing.  It, of course, cannot be scientifically proven nor disproven.

In contrast Dowd defines "public revelation" as scientific discovery.  This class of revelation can be scientifically proven.  In fact, it can only be public revelation if it is disprovable.  In this way Dowd hi-jacks science to service religion and opens  away for science to use religious scripture.

Dowd also defines "night language" and "day language" as you would expect - the former to talk about mythic history and oral traditions, the latter to talk about data and experiments and provable theories.  God is then transformed to the greatest of all things, namely the Universe, and the Gospel (the Good News) is superseded by the Great Story, the multi-billion year story of the universe from the Big Bang to whatever the end is.

His wife, a scientist, and he, a Christian fundamentalist, have even developed their own religion.  They spell it the same but emphasize a different syllable: She is a CreAtheist.  He is a CreaTheist. Clever, huh!

Dowd's claim is that all religions can be overhauled and woven into the great story which will continue to develop as the universe evolves into it's destiny.

Dowd and his wife are on a multi-year traveling mission explaining his Great Story to all who will listen.  Not surprisingly, liberal Christians and believing scientists are the most likely to listen to their work.  

I found the book well written and well thought out.  However, the reasoning is not particularly compelling.  From a personal, caring God to a Universe as God may keep God in science but at what cost?