Christianity
From EvoWiki
Christianity is a world religion, derived from first century Judaism, and divided into many different confessions and denominations:
There is no clear consensus amongst Christian denominations regarding Evolution. Amongst many modern mainline liberal Protestant and Catholic churches and communities in the U.S.A and Europe, the acceptance of theistic evolution is almost a given, with Fundamentalist Creationists comprising a small minority of their membership.
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Charismatic and Pentecostal churches
In the growing Charismatic and Pentecostal churches, adherance to Biblical literalism is widespread, to the point that some churches in Africa still practice animal sacrifice to God in accordance with the book of Deuteronomy and other Old Testament laws. As many as half of all Americans are in favor of the teaching of Creationism alongside Evolution, while the total Christian population of the US comprises about 80% of the total population. Apart from Muslims and a small minority of Orthodox Jews, it is hard to see non-Christians supportive of this view. As the demographic shift of Christianity takes the majority of the population into Latin America and Africa, where education is poorer and Biblical literalism stronger, more and more Christians will be seen to oppose Evolution. A large Catholic segment of these popluations however may be more amenable to Evolution for reasons outlined below.
Non-fundamentalist Protestants
Non-fundamentalist Protestants generally accept evolution.
Roman Catholics
In Catholic circles, the late Pope John Paul II, for example, taught that Evolution was currently the best scientific theory for the description of the development of life. His successor, Benedict XVI, has recently chosen to more strongly emphasize God's part in creation (which is not in contradiction to Theistic Evolution), calling the universe an "intelligent project," which some have seen as mimicking the language of many in the ID movement. If more and more of the church's membership is comprised of Biblical literalists, it is increasingly possible that the church's position on this could become more extreme (though this is not a given, considering how some teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic church are largely ignored by the membership). One theory is that the church would become more anti-evolution if a Latin American or African pope was elected by the college of cardinals. However it not well understood that many of the papal candidates from those countries are considered "conservative." What "conservative" in Catholic circles means is different than how it is regarded in Evangelical Protestant circles.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy accepts the general mechanism/reasoning of Evolutionary theory, as do most non-fundamentalist Protestant denominations. While the Orthodox churches, mostly in the countries where they are small minorities, like the United States, increasingly open their doors to former Protestants looking for an authentically ancient (but non-Catholic) tradition, these trends may hardly change their views on evolution in any way since the Eastern Church has always traditionally distanced itself from science, and former Protestant converts are likely to remain an insignificant minority even if a large number of them enters Eastern Orthodoxy.
Despite these peculiarities, the vast majority of Christianity is divided on the issue of evolution.
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