Statement of the Reverend Mark Belletini
Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus

I attended a Roman Catholic parochial grade school and high school in the fifties and sixties. I was taught from the beginning that evolution was a reality, and that to assume the two creation stories in Genesis/Bereshith were scientific and factual was to go against the grain of Christian tradition. This is because we, as Catholics, interpreted the Bible the way the early Christians all did, that is, not literally. This is something "The Church Fathers" (i.e. Justin Martyr, Jerome, Gregory Nazianzus, Origen) taught clearly. The surface or literal way of looking at scripture was the least important way of looking at the text. The symbolical and spiritual and moral were far more important, indeed, central. This was also the Jewish approach, which asked human teachers to engage the scripture with their hearts, minds and imagination. They were not to give up the gift of their critical mind and personal experience in order to be faithful to their tradition.

Presently I serve as Unitarian Universalist parish minister. But I have not given up the sound teaching I received in parochial schools. Science and biblical religion are not in conflict. True, the ancient scripture taught the world was flat and that the sun and moon were lamps hanging in the firmament, i.e. the solid dome of the sky. This is clearly not true to all modern people on earth, including those who claim that Genesis teaches against evolution. Yet the ancients were being as faithful to their observations of the world as modern day scientists are to ours. The world looks flat to the naked eye. The sun and moon look as if they might be like lamps. They were being fair and faithful. I'd say that the ancient scripture writer and the modern scientist have far more in common than the "Creationist," who has chosen to cut the feet and head off the scientific method in order to make the world itself fit their narrow bed of scripture interpretation.

Our children will lose their faith, not gain it, if they learn that science classes are up for political grab. They cannot help but grow cynical if their science teachers are not going to teach science, but only the quasi-religious pap that legalized church terrorism conducted by leaders of our local Ohio "Taliban" permits teachers to teach. The children in public schools cannot be isolated from the world. They cannot be locked away and blindfolded. They will still read National Geographic (which accepts evolution) and other common publications, and see films (Jurasic Park) which have not blinded themselves to the discoveries of modern science. And as these children see that they have been hoodwinked by certain adults, they will justly turn away from those religious terrorists who have traded the biblical faith that God is Truth and replaced it with devious political methods.

Science and most religion enjoy a check and balance system respectful of human growth and depth. Science has refined itself away from alchemy and astrology, and religion has for the most part refined itself away from human sacrifice, idolatry and the beliefs that slavery is justified and women have no souls. This is good news for the world. I only hope that such good news spreads to Ohio and reaches the hearts of those honorable men and women who hold the science education system of our great state in their hands.