Thursday, May 19, 2005
Biblical Literalism: A Persistant Viral Infection
Leo Sandon, the distinguished teaching professor of religion and American studies at Florida State University, writes in a Knight Ridder commentary:
Biological evolution per se has never been a great issue for Catholics because they are not into such scriptural literalism. And most U.S. Jewish leaders gradually accepted evolution theory after initial reservations. There is no inevitable warfare between Darwinian theory and religion unless the religion is uncritically literalist in its interpretation of Scripture.
In a famous 1896 editorial in the Emporia (Kan.) Gazette, William Allen White asked the question now being echoed by educators and journalists around the country:
"What's the matter with Kansas?" The answer in 2005 is that Kansas is suffering
from a persistent viral infection that has afflicted many other states since the
1870s: biblical literalism.
