Anglican Church's Apology to Darwin

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Darwin to get apology from Anglican Church
The Asian Age Sept.15, 2008
By OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
London

BRITISH NATURALIST Charles Darwin, who is famous for his theory of evolution by natural selection, will get an official apology from the Church of England on Monday. Darwin, who died in 1882, introduced the theory about evolution by natural selection in his groundbreaking book The Origin of Species, in 1859.

The Church will apologise directly to Darwin almost 150 years after he propounded his theory and more than 125 years after his death. The Rev

Dr Malcolm Brown, the Church’s director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops’ Council, will write in the apology that will be posted as an article on the church website, "Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practise the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends."

"But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests," according to the extracts from the apology, printed in the Mail on Sunday.

It further said, "People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights. The Church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy and has since realised its mistake. Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking, then and now."

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