User talk:MBDowd

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-- Sango  123  00:31, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you need help with anything or simply wish to say hello. :)

Hi
Hi there. I'm very glad to see you contribute to the discussion at The Great Story. I look forward to meeting you when you come to Chicago in June. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 17:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of The Great Story
An article that you have been involved in editing, The Great Story, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/The Great Story (2nd nomination). Thank you. User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 23:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

June 2008
If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
 * 1) editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
 * 2) participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
 * 3) linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam);
 * and you must always:
 * 1) avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see Business' FAQ. For more details about what constitutes a conflict of interest, please see Conflict of Interest. HrafnTalkStalk 19:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn: I respond to you on my talk page and you respond to me on yours? Is this correct? If so, then I obviously made another mistake in responding to you on your page (especially at the top) and then moving the thread to the bottom of your page. UGH. I now see why you and other serious wikipedians sometimes lose patience with ignorant newbies like me. Thanks again for the support. MBDowd (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC) MBDowd (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a matter of individual editor preference. I prefer to keep a conversation all together, so follow the convention that replies should go on whatever page the conversation was started on (I started off trying the convention of 'you reply on mine, I'll reply on your' -- but found the results to be often way too disjointed, particularly if an editor decided to reply months after I'd forgotten their existence) -- which is why I have that header notice up. As our conversation hadn't really started, it didn't really matter too much where it went. The always-on-the-bottom convention is so that editors can find new threads easily. I'd like to apologise for WP:BITEing you before. I had assumed from how long you'd been on wikipedia that you were an experienced editor, and did not cut you the slack that we allow new editors. HrafnTalkStalk 18:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Biographical info published in my book and also on my website
Hrafn, the following material is published in my 2008 Viking book Thank God for Evolution and on my website too. Feel free to delete it all if I'm not supposed to supply information about myself. I'm including it in case you or another wikipedian finds some of it useful (after distilling out the POV) in fleshing out the biographical stub page on me.

BIOGRAPHY (from pages 415-416 of TGFE)

The Reverend Michael Dowd is the author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marraige of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (2008 Viking), which has been endorsed by 5 Nobel Prize-winners and dozens of other scientific and religious luminaries across the spectrum. Since April 2002, he and his wife, Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer, have lived permanently on the road sharing a sacred view of evolution with religious and secular audiences of all ages, as America’s evolutionary evangelists. At home in both conservative and liberal settings, and uniquely gifted at building bridges between religious and nonreligious people, Michael is passionate about sharing the 14-billion-year epic of evolution in ways that uplift and expand heart, mind, and soul.

The Making of an Evolutionary Evangelist

Michael graduated summa cum laude from Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri (affiliated with the Assemblies of God), where he received a B.A. in biblical studies and philosophy. He also graduated with honors from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Seminary) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (affiliated with the American Baptist Church), where he earned a Master of Divinity degree. Rev. Dowd served as a congregational minister for nine years, pastoring churches in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. His 1991 book, EarthSpirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity (Twenty-Third Publications) was one of the first attempts to look appreciatively at biblical Christianity from the perspective of a modern cosmology.

In 1995 Rev. Dowd began working with Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Unitarian Universalist, and New Thought leaders across America on social and environmental issues that were coming up for a vote in Congress, as Religious Organizer for the Washington D.C.--based National Environmental Trust. From 1997 to 2000 he headed the first government-funded program designed to produce large-scale voluntary citizen behavior change along stewardship lines in the United States: The Portland Sustainable Lifestyle Campaign, in Portland, Oregon. In 2000 and 2001 he served as Campaign Manager of Global Action Plan's EcoTeam and Livable Neighborhood Programs in Rockland County, New York. Both programs helped neighbors build trust and a greater sense of community by supporting each other in living more Creation care, stewardship-based lifestyles and developing healthier, friendlier, safer neighborhoods.

Rev. Dowd has served on the boards of the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology; the Ohio Conference United Church of Christ (UCC) Integrity of Creation, Justice, and Peace task force; and the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network. He has also served on the steering committees of the International Network of Biblical Storytellers and the UCC Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility. Michael’s great joy in life is telling the history of everyone and everything in ways that inspire and empower people of all ages and theological orientations to know real freedom, to live in deepest integrity, and to fulfill their evolutionary mission.

Michael and Connie are co-creators of the leading educational and community building website in the sacred evolution movement: www.TheGreatStory.org

FROM THE PROLOGUE OF THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION (Tons of POV here, of course.  I just cut and pasted from my book, pages 1-6.)

“Satan obviously has a foothold in this school!” I told my roommate twenty-five years ago at Evangel University. Moments earlier, I had stormed out of freshman biology class aft er the teacher held up the textbook we were going to use, and I recognized it as one that taught evolution. How else could I explain why a Bible-believing, Assemblies of God institution would teach evolution?

A little background. ..

I grew up Roman Catholic. As a teenager—like so many of my peers during the 1970s—I struggled with alcohol, drugs, and sexuality. In 1979, while in Berlin, Germany, and serving in the U.S. Army, I was “born again.” Six months later I experienced what Pentecostals call “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” evidenced by speaking in tongues. For the next three years, the people I fellowshipped with, the books I read, the television programs I watched, and the music I listened to all reflected a fundamentalist perspective strongly opposed to evolution.

I was taught that evolution was of the devil and would seduce people away from godly thinking and living. I believed Darwinism was the root of most social problems, and I was deeply concerned for my friends and family—especially those caught in the snares of a secular humanistic worldview. I even distributed anti-evolution tracts and was eager to debate anyone who thought the world was more than six thousand years old. So how was I to make sense of the fact, as I soon discovered at Evangel, that virtually all evangelical colleges and universities teach evolution?

The shift occurred in three steps. First, I came to know and trust several students and teachers before learning that they held evolutionary worldviews. Having already conversed, prayed, sung, and worshipped with each, I couldn’t write any of them off as demonically possessed. The second influence was the biblical studies and philosophy courses I took at Evangel. Both the content and the professors reinforced the idea that “all truth is God’s truth.” The final element in my transformation was a budding friendship with a Roman Catholic hospital chaplain and former Trappist monk, Tobias Meeker. Before I discovered that Toby considered himself a “Buddhist-Christian,” and that he embraced a process theology understanding of evolution, I had already assessed that he was the most “Christ-like” man I had ever met.

The past two and a half decades have been an amazing journey. After completing my undergraduate work at Evangel (double majoring in biblical studies and philosophy), I went on to earn a Master of Divinity degree at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Although I learned to accept evolution at Evangel, I did so only with my mind—not my heart. Th at final shift happened suddenly, in February 1988. I was in Boston for the first session of a course titled “The New Catholic Mysticism,” taught by cultural therapist Albert LaChance. Albert began by telling the scientific story of the Universe in a way that I had never heard it told before—as a sacred epic. Less than an hour into the evening, I began to weep. I knew I would spend the rest of my life sharing this perspective as great news. My evangelizing began shortly thereafter as an avocation wedged into the rest of my life. Even so, virtually everything I’ve preached and written since that epiphany has been in service of a religiously inspiring understanding of evolution, such that others, too, might experience our common creation story as gospel and be inspired to love and serve accordingly.

By no longer opposing evolution, but wholeheartedly embracing it as the “Great Story” of 14 billion years of divine grace and creativity, I now have a more intimate relationship with the divine than ever before. Throughout this book, I will be sharing how and why this is the case, and I will do so in ways that non-Christians and nonreligious people can also celebrate.

Over the course of ten years, I pastored three United Church of Christ congregations—one in New England and two in the Midwest—before shifting careers into interfaith sustainability work and community organizing. In the spring of 2000, I attended a Pentecostal/Charismatic worship service near my childhood home of Poughkeepsie, New York. I’ve always loved the energy and enthusiasm of “Spirit-filled” worship. At a moment when the congregation was swept up in ecstatic praise, the woman who had invited me turned and grasped my hands. “I have a word from God for you,” she declared. “Great!” I replied. She continued, “Thus sayeth the Lord, ‘My son, I have called thee home to reveal thy true mission. Step out boldly with thy beloved and fear not. For I will bless thy steps and thy ministry more abundantly than thou canst imagine.’”

Several thoughts raced through my mind. The first: “I’m ready!” Then, “I wonder why God likes Elizabethan English so much?” Finally, “Whoa boy, did you hear that? God said, ‘with your beloved.’ You’d better get moving, dude. You don’t even have a girlfriend!”

Several months later my friend’s prophetic words were made flesh. I met science writer Connie Barlow at a lecture given by cosmologist Brian Swimme at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. Connie was the author of four books, and two of them had “evolution” in their titles (Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life and The Ghosts of Evolution). She, too, was a long-time “epic of evolution” enthusiast. What is more, her passion for sharing a sacred understanding of cosmic history was no less than mine. Seven months later I asked Connie to marry me. Three weeks after that, we were wed at the EarthSpirit Rising Conference on Ecology, Spirituality, and the Great Work, which was held in Louisville, Kentucky, in June 2001. Surely this was a marriage of science and religion. Connie was a self-described atheist, and her professional life was steeped in the sciences. My life was devoted to religion. Our union embraces both.

Three months later, the World Trade Center was attacked. We were living north of New York City, and Connie had a scheduled meeting in Tower No. 1 the very next day. The collapse of the towers forced us to reevaluate our priorities. A month later, we were watching the final installment of the PBS television special Evolution: A Journey into Where We’re From and Where We’re Going. That episode was titled “What About God?” It examined the struggle that conservative Christian college students face in trying to embrace both evolution and a pre-evolutionary interpretation of their faith. As the program ended, Connie turned to me and said, “You need to be out there speaking to those students. You need to show how an evolutionary understanding can enrich one’s faith!”

Connie and I were still newlyweds. I had no idea she was prepared to follow through—personally—on her declaration. A few weeks later, after a frustrating day at work, I told her (not really serious, just sort of whining), “You know, I wish we could just travel nonstop, teaching and preaching the Great Story wherever we go.” Her response was astounding. Looking me in the eyes, she said with utter conviction, “I’d love to do that!” Itinerant Evolutionary Evangelism

Since April 2002, Connie and I have been full-time “evolutionary evangelists.” We live permanently on the road, offering a spiritually nourishing view of evolution throughout North America. In the tradition of traveling preachers, we gave up our worldly possessions, left our home, and now carry everything we need in our van. We go wherever we are invited. Our goal is to inspire people of all ages and theological orientations to embrace the history of everyone and everything in personally and socially transforming ways. We offer a view of our collective evolutionary journey that fires the imagination, touches the heart, and leaves people wanting more. We keep our distance from the polarized science versus religion conflict that festers in our society, particularly with respect to public school education. In the few hours or days that we engage with any given group, we present only the most compelling and alluring features of what many call “the epic of evolution” or “the Great Story.” As with other leaders in this movement, we believe that the 14-billion-year story of cosmic, Earth, life, and cultural history can enrich any and all of humanity’s cherished creation stories and religious paths.

In our first six years on the road, we have delivered Sunday sermons, evening programs, and multiday workshops in more than five hundred churches, convents, monasteries, and spiritual centers across the continent, including liberal and conservative Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Unitarian Universalist, Unity, Religious Science, Quaker, Mennonite, and Buddhist groups. We have also presented audience-appropriate versions of this message in nearly a hundred secular settings, including colleges, high schools, grade schools, nature centers, and public libraries.

When we launched our ministry, we chose to display on our van both a Jesus fish and a Darwin fish—kissing. Many passersby fl ash a smile when they see it, although disapproving responses are not uncommon. A retired biology professor in Lawrence, Kansas, took one look at the decals and laughed, “Oh great! Now you piss everyone off !”

What Connie and I do on the road is serious, but it is best served by our maintaining a light-hearted approach. Our fishy pairing of what many regard as oppositional was thus a playful reminder to ourselves of who we wish to be along our shared journey.

Life on the road is far from a hardship. Connie and I have no home base in the usual sense, but North America as a whole feels like home to us. We are blessed to experience the stunning beauty of this vast continent. More, we rarely stay in public lodgings. Instead, we are invited into people’s homes for a few days or perhaps a week at a time—and this, too, nurtures our souls.

Connie and I love being part of what is now a fast-growing movement that unites people across the theological and philosophical spectrum. Throughout this book, you will find a wealth of quotations from others who, like us, hold a sacred view of evolution. I will also share personal stories gleaned from our experiences on the road. These stories include evolutionary epiphanies—when people suddenly see the meaning of their lives in a larger context.

A dozen years before Connie and I met, cosmologist Brian Swimme issued a proclamation that we are now privileged to live: “We are in the midst of a revelatory experience of the Universe that must be compared in its magnitude with those of the great religious revelations. And we need only wander about telling this Great Story to ignite a transformation of humanity.” MBDowd (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Curious, is this you? ---
I saw your name on Classmates.com here. Is this you? 66.102.205.27 (talk) 06:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm a different Michael Dowd. I graduated high school in 1976 from Miami Killian HS in Miami, Florida. MBDowd (talk) 14:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

"Evolutionary evangelist", yes. "Christian preacher", not quite
Related to the Michael Dowd wiki page... As my past itinerary and programs page both show, for the last seven years I have spoken more often in non-Christian setting than in Christian churches. It is true, as I discuss in my book, Thank God for Evolution, and on my website that I consider myself an "evolutionary Christian". But this is markedly different from a traditional, biblically-oriented Christian. For example, I see science as revealing "God's word" far more accurately than ancient texts could ever hope to. When 95% of Americans hear "Christian preacher" they think of something that is just not accurate about me. Thus, I suggest dropping "Christian preacher" from the first sentence. MBDowd (talk) 23:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

January 2009
If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
 * 1) editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
 * 2) participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
 * 3) linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam); and,
 * 4) avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for businesses. For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines. HrafnTalkStalk 04:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Got it. Thanks for educating me once again. MBDowd (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Michael Dowd for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Michael Dowd is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Michael Dowd until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:29, 28 April 2021 (UTC)