America's Evolutionary Evangelists
50 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 7 years ago - ★★★★★ - 6 ratingsConnie Barlow and Michael Dowd explore the practical, inspirational, and religious/spiritual implications of a mainstream understanding of the evolutionary sciences.
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Episodes
58. Evolutionary Gratitude for Challenging Times
November 18, 2016 22:37 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBRev. Michael Dowd shapes his evolutionary message for a New Thought audience (Unity of Portland, Oregon) on the first Sunday following the November 2016 elections. His three main points: (1) Decline is divine and chaos catalyzes creativity; (2) Interpretations matter — and mythic interpretations matter most; (3) You can't know the impact of your actions, so get on with it.
57. Overshoot and Grace Limits
July 02, 2016 15:44 - 44 minutes - 20.4 MBConnie Barlow and Michael Dowd reflect on the past year of learnings and insights, stimulated by listening to the final chapter of William Catton's book, Overshoot. Content is expanded in Dowd's 2016 video trilogy Standing for the Future (on youtube) and in Dowd's Grace Limits Audios webpage compilation.
56. The New Ten Commandments and the Coming Apocaloptimism
April 25, 2016 23:06 - 1 hour - 39.5 MBTerry Patten interviewed Michael Dowd in March 2016 as part of his ongoing "Beyond Awakening" audio series. In this 90-minute program, the two explore the existentially challenging worldview offered by Dowd in this "century of consequences."
55. Pro-Future Is Good; Anti-Future Is Evil
February 19, 2016 17:26 - 23 minutes - 10.6 MBFebruary 7, 2016 Michael Dowd delivered this guest sermon at South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society of Cottonwood Heights, Utah.
54. Inspired on Dark Mountain: The Big Picture
January 21, 2016 18:46 - 38 minutes - 17.4 MBThis is the third in a trilogy of sermons that Michael Dowd delivered at Peoples Church Unitarian, Ludington Michigan, during the summer of 2015. (The other two sermons are posted as episodes 52 and 53 in this podcast series.) You can also view this sermon on youtube in video format.
53. Embrace Death to Live Life Fully
January 21, 2016 18:42 - 25 minutes - 11.5 MBThis is the second in a trilogy of sermons that Michael Dowd delivered at Peoples Church Unitarian, Ludington Michigan, during the summer of 2015. (The other two sermons are posted as episodes 52 and 54 in this podcast series.) You can also view this sermon on youtube in video format.
52. When Religion Fails, Economics Becomes Demonic
January 21, 2016 18:34 - 25 minutes - 11.5 MBMichael Dowd delivered a sermon series in Summer 2015 at Peoples Church Unitarian, Ludington Michigan. This first sermon in the trilogy is titled "When Religion Fails, Economics Becomes Demonic." You can also view it on youtube in video format.
51: The Grace of Challenging Times
January 05, 2015 20:01 - 27 minutes - 12.7 MBMichael Dowd delivered on 4 January 2015 a guest sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers, Florida. His 3 points: (1) Challenging times remind us of our humanity and promote humility; (2) Challenging times help us embrace our mortality; (3) Challenging times help us clarify what matters most. Topics include Dowd's advocacy of "legacy consciousness" and living in accordance with "the fundamental law of life," which he speaks of by resurrecting a legal/moral term that was a ce...
50. Climate: The Great Reckoning
December 16, 2014 02:19 - 1 hour - 29.1 MBMichael Dowd was interviewed mid-December 2014 by the hosts of the podcast series Everyone's Agnostic. We edited it down to an hour for our America's Evolutionary Evangelists series. Climate change is front and center for Michael, and you will hear how the interviewers affirm Michael's view. Key points include: "God is Reality with a personality — not a person outside of Reality." Also, "The role of religion has always been to shame any individual or group of individuals who are harming the ...
49. The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness
September 12, 2014 22:04 - 19 minutes - 9.14 MBMichael Dowd delivered on 8 September 2014 a a guest sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Indianapolis, Indiana. His three points: (1) We are bigger, older, and more deeply related than we thought; (2) Nature is more holy, more divine, than we've been led to believe; (3) Our way into the future is crystal clear. Dowd begins with a reading from Thomas Berry and ends with a prophetic call:"The past is rooting for us, and the future is calling us to greatness!"
48. The Evidential Reformation
August 07, 2014 21:53 - 21 minutes - 9.77 MBMichael Dowd delivered on 22 June 2014 a a guest sermon at The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, CO. His three points: (1) What we call Reality, the ancients called God; (2) God/Reality is communicating today primarily through scientific, historical, and cross-cultural evidence; and (3) in order for religions to pass forward a healthy world for future generations, each must undertake a kind of "evidential reformation" — celebrating that "Reality is God and evidence is scripture."
47. Inspiring Science and Realistic Hope
April 18, 2014 16:17 - 23 minutes - 10.6 MBMichael Dowd delivered on 13 April 2014 a a guest sermon at Granite Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Prescott, AZ. In addition to his primary themes (as presented in podcast episode 43, "Ecology As Theology," Dowd offers that "all gods and goddesses can be understood in either a fictional or a factual way." Other memes include thinking of the human as the "Prodigal Species": "We have squandered our inheritance, and now we must come home to Reality." He advises secular folk to "Ma...
46. Legacy Consciousness
March 03, 2014 02:50 - 45 minutes - 31.1 MBMichael Dowd delivered on 23 February 2014 a new presentation to nurture "legacy consciousness" and to motivate action in joyful service of the future. He spoke at the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living in Encinitas, California. This was his inaugural presentation in collaboration with The Great March for Climate Action, which would commence in Los Angeles on March 1 and conclude in Washington D.C. in early November. You will hear embedded audios of three short videos that Michael played fo...
45. How Religion Is Failing Our Youth
February 05, 2014 21:06 - 25 minutes - 17.6 MBConnie Barlow delivered a guest sermon on 27 October 2013 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hendersonville, North Carolina. The full title is "How Religion Is Failing Our Youth — and What We Can Do About It." She addressed three major concerns: first, the importance of youth being offered a coherent story by which to navigate the excitement and challenges of life (she recommends the "epic of evolution"); second, helping boys in particular steer away from the most debilitating and a...
44. Climate, Trees, and Legacy
January 11, 2014 01:12 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MBConnie Barlow introduces in January 2014 a learning and action series for helping trees adapt to climate change — species by species, decade by decade. Citizen naturalists are invited to research a favorite native tree species and begin to work with others to keep up with the northward movement of forest zones by planting and monitoring small numbers of wild seeds of common species onto private forested lands well north of where those seeds were collected. This "assisted migration" in a time...
43. Religion 2.0: Ecology As Theology
September 30, 2013 22:34 - 51 minutes - 35.4 MBMichael Dowd and Connie Barlow discuss Michael's latest version of his ever-evolving "Religion 2.0" -- aiming for a globally relevant, scientifically realistic, inspiring, and activating worldview that can bridge religiously diverse and secular perspectives. In this episode, Michael pairs a secular term with a religious term in each of his six foundational points: (1) Reality is our God; (2) Evidence is our scripture; (3) Big History is our creation story; (4) Ecology is our theology; (5) I...
42. Stone-Age Instincts / Supernormal Allurements
August 11, 2013 20:42 - 31 minutes - 43.7 MBConnie Barlow delivered a guest sermon at Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Muskegon, Michigan, on June 30, 2013. While scientifically literate peoples have long appreciated science for what it tells us about our outer nature (the vast universe and the ecological intimacies that surround us), we are now in the midst of a revelatory experience in which evolutionary brain science is helping us understand our inner nature. We learn that the ancient instincts that so vitally served o...
41. Ecology Is the New Theology
February 26, 2013 16:19 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBMichael Dowd delivered a guest sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Fe on February 10, 2013. His core message: "Ecology is the new theology; big history is the new Genesis. Those who fail to understand that evidence is modern-day scripture, and that the world we live in is an honorable world, betray God and humanity in the most egregious of ways." He also pointed to, what he calls, "the twin idolatries": idolatry of the written word and idolatry of the otherworldly. In...
40. Failing Our Youth
January 15, 2013 21:33 - 21 minutes - 10 MBConnie Barlow recites and discusses a December 2012 essay she and Michael Dowd produced and posted in both the Huffington Post (online here) and Metanexus (here). Barlow and Dowd deliver a call-to-action for religious educators and ministers in theologically liberal settings to revamp their goals and curricula toward offering children and youth the inspiring, practical, and deeply meaningful fruits of a fully evolutionary worldview.
39. God Rebukes Religious Right (Dowd sermon)
January 11, 2013 23:24 - 27 minutes - 12.6 MBMichael Dowd propels his personal awakening to the perils of climate change into a powerful sermon. Delivered January 6, 2013 at both services of the Jefferson Unitarian Church (Golden, Colorado), the full title of the sermon is "God Rebukes Religious Right: Repent or Face Hell and High Water." Dowd suggests that "idolatry of the written word" and "idolatry of the otherworldly" have blinded the religious right to the "intergenerational evil" of climate change. Note: This is the audio of a vi...
38. Climate Change and Intergenerational Evil
December 31, 2012 17:04 - 49 minutes - 22.9 MBMichael Dowd and Connie Barlow "woke up" to the magnitude and speed of climate change in December 2012. The dangers of human-caused climate disturbance had, by then, become undeniable, making this the fundamental moral issue of our time. In this podcast, the duo include clips from the world's most respected climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, and two key advocates for systemic change: Bill McKibben and David Roberts. Because this is just the audio track of the original video podcast, we...
37. Evidential Wisdom
December 03, 2012 10:48 - 50 minutes - 23.3 MBMichael Dowd is interviewed for Blog Talk Radio by Richard Brendan. Widely ranging topics from Michael's book, Thank God for Evolution, are the focus of this 50-minute program, including the evolutionary value of religions, how all religions necessarily are evolving, the "evidential wisdom" of science (science as humanity's "global collective intelligence"), science as "public revelation," and the distinction between "practical truth" (carried forward by all long-standing religions) and "fac...
36. Evolution: The Next Generation
October 24, 2012 20:53 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBConnie Barlow delivers a 20-minute sermon at Cadboro Bay United Church near Victoria, BC (Canada) October 2012. Connie suggests that progressive churches will serve a vital role for the next generations when they evolve their understanding of "religious education" to mean primarily the need to provision children with a sense of feeling at home in the universe. Only in churches and homeschool settings can our culture's widespread malaise of "amythia" be healed. To do so, science must be prese...
35. The Magic of Reality: New Book by Richard Dawkins
October 12, 2011 18:11 - 23 minutes - 22 MBBarlow and Dowd take an inside look at Richard Dawkins' first children's book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True. The couple recite excerpts and discuss why this "courageous and necessary book" may indeed help evolve the religions of the world along the lines of, what Dowd calls, the Evidential Reformation. Note: This commentary was originally recorded in video format and posted on Youtube here. Other resources mentioned in the commentary include: • Jennifer Morgan's B...
34. Death, Budgets, and Generational Justice
September 25, 2011 20:36 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBConnie Barlow builds on the 2011 call-to-action opinion piece by NYT columnist David Brooks ("Death and Budgets"), and the 2011 essay (in The New Republic) by Daniel Callahan and Sherwin B. Nuland, "The Quagmire: How American Medicine Is Destroying Itself." ( You can also watch an illustrated version of this podcast on YouTube.) Here, Barlow issues her own call-to-action in order to "foment a revolution" with her fellow boomers and with what remains of the older generations. By "just saying...
33. A Deep-Time Model of Transformation
October 09, 2010 16:38 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MBConnie Barlow and Michael Dowd reflect on their current work of translating the discoveries and interpretations of the fledgling sciences of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary brain science into perspectives and practical tools for transforming lives and relationships. Inspiration and direction for participating in cultural and societal improvement are drawn from the equally new scholarly discipline of Big History, which aims to uncover broad patterns within the trajectory of evoluti...
32. Imprinting Is Not Indoctrination
July 20, 2010 14:25 - 22 minutes - 21 MBConnie Barlow reflects on events that motivated her to write her boldest statement yet on the importance of provisioning children with a coherent cosmology. Now available online, "Imprinting Is Not Indoctrination" is a challenge to freethinking parents and liberal religious educators who are so determined to not indoctrinate their kids that they fail to give them "a creation story / worldview through which to enjoy and securely navigate the years of childhood wonder, learning, and innocence...
31. Sermon: The New Atheists As God's Prophets
June 27, 2010 19:17 - 26 minutes - 24 MBJune 6, 2010 was a landmark day for Michael Dowd as an evangelist of the evolutionary perspective in American churches. This was the day that he delivered his boldest sermon ever, titled "The New Atheists As God's Prophets." People's Church of Ludington, MI was his first religious venue for this title. He will reprise this sermon on July 11 at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse, NY, then twice in August in Oklahoma City: first at Mayflower Congregational Church and then at St....
30. Death and Intergenerational Generosity
June 24, 2010 17:45 - 32 minutes - 29.3 MBConnie Barlow reflects on her visit to Pioneer Cemetery in Canandaigua NY, where her paternal ancestors six generations back are buried. (Photo right is of her brother Bill and nephew Myles Barlow pondering the stone memorials of Abner and Mary Barlow.) This podcast topic was also stimulated by a memoir in the 6/20/10 issue of New York Times Magazine: "What Broke My Father's Heart". Barlow notes that the essay well depicted the modern-day obstacles that make achieving a natural and good d...
29. Supernatural Is Unnatural Is Uninspiring
June 08, 2010 21:14 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBMichael Dowd returns to the theme of our most popular podcast thus far: "The New Atheists As God's Prophets." This meme, which has since generated a lot of commentary on the internet, was introduced by Michael in Podcast #6, posted September 6, 2009. Now Connie Barlow joins Michael in discussing his companion blogpost, which is also titled "Supernatural Is Unnatural Is Uninspiring" (dated 7 June 2010). A key historical understanding grounds his premise: "The supernatural realm emerged as a ...
28. Inspiring Naturalism and Evolving Faith: Two New Podcast Series
June 01, 2010 02:03 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBConnie Barlow and Michael Dowd announce the launch of two new podcast series and provide snippets from the first several episodes. "Inspiring Naturalism" is a new series in which Barlow and Dowd serve as cohosts, interviewing and engaging ideas with scientists, historians, educators, and others leading the way toward reality-based views of the world that are both meaningful and motivating. "Evolving Faith" is hosted by Michael; he engages theologians, ministers, and other religious profess...
27. Deep-Time Remembering, Deep-Time Blessing
May 31, 2010 01:44 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBMichael Dowd extemporaneously delivers a guest sermon at a large, very progressive church in Spring Lake Michigan: C3 Exchange. This being Memorial Day weekend, his theme is remembering — but from a deep-time perspective. Michael offers the congregation four essential components for experiencing deep-time grace: (1) Learn your story, (2) Interpret life generously, (3) Honor your instincts, and (4) Be a blessing to others and the world. His wife, Connie Barlow, regards this as his best serm...
26. Idolatry of the Written Word
April 26, 2010 21:58 - 33 minutes - 30.2 MBMichael Dowd and Connie Barlow discuss ideas and share stories from their 8 years of experience evangelizing a modern evolutionary perspective in churches -- many of which have yet to update their beliefs, creedal statements, and liturgies beyond pre-medieval norms and understandings. Specifically, the duo highlight the harm caused by veneration of ancient religious scriptures over more modern evidential discoveries. Dowd suggests that, by making an idol of the written word, "The Christian c...
25. Deep-Time Eyes
April 17, 2010 22:31 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MBConnie Barlow was one of 17 guests interviewed by Craig Hamilton in early 2010 as part of Craig's free, multi-week telecourse: "Awakening the Impulse to Evolve: The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality". 35,000 people signed up to listen to the interview series live or to visit the audio archives at their leisure. This was a landmark event, both for giving free access to the insights and ruminations of many acclaimed thinkers across a spectrum of views and for its use of new technology that e...
24. Evolutionize Your Life
April 13, 2010 23:29 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBMichael Dowd was one of 17 guests interviewed by Craig Hamilton in early 2010 as part of Craig's free, multi-week telecourse: "Awakening the Impulse to Evolve: The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality" audio archives at their leisure. This was a landmark event, both for giving free access to the insights and ruminations of many acclaimed thinkers across a spectrum of views and for its use of new technology that enabled listeners to ask questions and to enter into small-group discussions. In th...
23. Dark Green Religion, Neo-Humanism, and More
April 02, 2010 02:26 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBDark Green Religion, Bron Taylor's new book, is one of the topics covered in this potpourri podcast by Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow. Other current events discussed are the March 2010 iaunch of a "Neo-Humanist Statement" by Paul Kurtz and others, Sam Harris's recent TED Talk, the Dennett/LaScola study "Preachers Who Are Not Believers", their recent experience at "The Little Church That Could," and more.
22. Music for Fossil Lovers
March 18, 2010 03:59 - 26 minutes - 35.8 MBConnie and Michael sample 5 songs from "Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway" (companion CD to the extraordinary fossil + art exhibit (by that same title) now on display at the Burke Museum of the University of Washington, Seattle). Titles include "Ages of Rock," "Hey Fishface," "I Am a Paleobotanist," "Ammonite" (which is an extinct mollusk, pictured here), and "Time Travellin' with a Shovel" -- all destined to become classics! Inspired by the latter song, Connie composed a song to convey the cont...
21. The Scientific Basis of Compassion
March 07, 2010 18:50 - 20 minutes - 19.2 MBHere is Michael Dowd's Feb 28, 2010 sermon at the Unity Church of Portland -- his first sermon since re-launching itinerant evolutionary evangelism following 6 months of successful cancer treatment in Seattle. Fresh from reading Jeremy Rifkin's new book, The Empathic Civilization, and listening to Frans de Waal's The Age of Empathy, Michael offers that "The challenge of our times is to create a global empathic civilization -- where we cooperate at the scale of a species and where we do so fr...
20. Evolutionary Legacy
February 19, 2010 05:34 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBMichael Dowd and Connie Barlow discuss current events in the context of "evolutionary legacy" -- the ripples of action that continue on in the world after we, as individuals, are gone. Intentional, even courageous, action are what the evolutionary impulse is calling forth from each of us now. As Dowd frames the issue, "The growing edge of both Eastern and Western thinking is participatory: How do we, in an embodied way, participate in the evolution of life, the evolution of consciousness a...
19. Deep Time, Deep Integrity, Deep Bliss
February 02, 2010 01:49 - 34 minutes - 32 MBMichael Dowd published 3 blogs recently on his ThankGodforEvolution.com website, which he and Connie Barlow discuss here. The first is for general audiences and is titled, "Evolutionary Spirituality: Coming Home to Reality". Dowd advocates a very practical form of evolutionary spirituality that is above all relational. Striving for "deep integrity" and pursuing an evolutionary calling ("deep bliss") are core elements. Next come the highlights of the two blogs Dowd wrote specifically for C...
18. The Technium
January 28, 2010 03:34 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MBConnie and Michael discuss a variety of ways in which new technologies and new information systems are boosting and challenging their own work: both in staying informed and getting their ideas out into the world. Kevin Kelly calls this suprabiological phase of evolution, "The Technium." New modes for the free exchange and collaborations of ideas and meaning include not only podcasts, such as these, but video uploads to YouTube, video "mashing" (by which third parties freely offer their time...
17. Science's Meaningful Universe: A Tribute to Primack and Abrams
January 02, 2010 01:40 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBView from the Center of the Universe made a powerful impression on Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow when it was published in 2006. This podcast celebrates its coauthors: Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams and their continuing role in interpreting cosmological science in ways that offer modern peoples not only a deeply meaningful universe but one in which the human project can be experienced as central. Michael and Connie offer listeners a sampling of their favorite quotations from this b...
16. Evolutionary Activism
December 21, 2009 02:19 - 20 minutes - 18.9 MBTom Atlee, fellow evolutionary, has just published a book titled Reflections on Evolutionary Activism. This book enters new territory in applying an evolutionary perspective for motivating, guiding, grounding, and consoling those now in or called into any form of activism for bettering the human project and ameliorating our collective ecological impacts on the world. Connie and Michael discuss how this book informs and inspires them and how feeling oneself as an expression of this creative ...
15. Every Man's Dream, Every Man's Nightmare
December 10, 2009 16:47 - 36 minutes - 33.9 MBMarital infidelity is big-time in the news again with the Tiger Woods debacle. Also, the New York Times Magazine (November 17) offers an in-depth examination of a new marital dilemma: with cheap and easy DNA paternity testing, we have entered a new era in which husbands grown suspicious of their wives sometimes have to cope with devastating news that they are not, in fact, the biological fathers of children they dearly love. Michael and Connie, as usual, bring an evolutionary perspective to...
14. Revelation: Public and Private
November 22, 2009 23:23 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MB"Public v. private revelation" and "day v. night language" are two distinctions Dowd has brought to religious audiences that have yielded tangible benefits in bridging the reason v. faith divide. In this podcast Dowd and Barlow reflect on their experiences with these key distinctions notably, why and how these concepts move traditionally religious listeners to shed fears of embracing an evolutionary, evidential worldview. The independent discovery of species change by means of "natural se...
13. The Big Integrity Model of Evolutionary Spirituality
November 16, 2009 01:46 - 53 minutes - 48.9 MB"Right relationship with Reality" is how Dowd defines, what he calls, the Big Integrity model of evolutionary spirituality, which he regards as a secular (nonmetaphysical) expression of human universals, grounded in our best scientific understandings of both objective and subjective realities. The bedrock understanding is that individuals and humanity as a whole are expressions of the universe, 14 billion years in the making. Consequently, an ultimate concern of those on this path is "leavi...
12. Tree Talks About Death
November 08, 2009 21:57 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MB"Death is natural and generative at every level of reality." That affirmation was a core part of Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd's teachings during their years of living on-the-road as America's Evolutionary Evangelists. Having a naturalized view of death in the cosmos is not, however, intended to diminish the sadness we feel when a loved one dies. Rather, this insight, which emerges from the sciences, provides a "cosmic container" to hold us safely as we experience our grief. What better w...
11. Naturalizing Religion
November 01, 2009 03:18 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBConnie and Michael explore a smorgasbord of related ideas and current events in the ongoing religion-versus-science controversies, beginning with the recent atheist invention of "Blasphemy Day" and the New Atheist critique of liberal religionists (and moderate atheists) who "accommodate" (and thus inadvertently foster) religious fundamentalisms. Taking a broader perspective, the duo detect in the current foment and antagonisms the signs of evolution in action: cultural emergents tossed into ...
10. Symphony of Science
October 22, 2009 20:03 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBConnie Barlow and Michael Dowd riff on the latest sensation in musical culture -- which is also the latest sensation in the public understanding of science. It is a new music video series created by independent video artist John Boswell. Posted on YouTube, and also available in mp3 for free download, the two projects Boswell created thus far have topped the charts. "A Glorious Dawn," which features the auto-tuned (and thus singing) voice of Carl Sagan is now the top-rated music video of al...
9. Mentors in the Movement
October 12, 2009 15:55 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBConnie and Michael reflect on mentors in the Epic of Evolution Movement, past and present. Among them: Thomas Berry (this photo), Richard Dawkins, Lynn Margulis, and Albert LaChance. Michael speaks of how his cancer challenge has shifted his own priorities away from individual action and leadership and toward mentoring others in this movement and ministry. Connie reminisces on the pivotal role that Carl Sagan's Cosmos series played in her own life and in the lives of others, rounding off th...