Spreading Darwinmas Cheer!

The Johnson City Press provided space for the Origins Conference on Saturday.

Welcome to 1925.






I am hoping to get an interview as well. Here is our press release:

First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, Tennessee will be celebrating Evolution Weekend for the sixth straight year, February 12th and 13th. This has become one of the congregation’s most popular events. The community is invited to four activities over the weekend:

1) Friends of Roan Mountain Winter Naturalist Rally on Saturday at 9:15 a.m. featuring presentations by Peter Weigl and Lisa Huff. Participants can choose from four different hikes in the afternoon.

2) The Adult Forum at the church features Dr. Julie Wade, retired Biology Professor who taught at Milligan College for 24 years. She will present on the evolution of the human brain Sunday morning at 9:45.

3) Rev. John Shuck will lead worship Sunday at 11 a.m. We will celebrate the 14 billion year creation story that science is showing us.

4) The congregation will take a field trip to the Gray Fossil Site and Museum. We will have a brown bag lunch at church and carpool or meet at the Fossil Site at 2 p.m. Their special exhibit is “Building Triceratops.”

The entire community is invited to participate in all of these events. Children are welcome to Sunday School and worship where they will learn our evolutionary and cosmic story.


Evolution Weekend is part of the Clergy Letter Project started by Dr. Michael Zimmerman of Butler University to raise awareness that people of faith can and do affirm science, particularly the foundational truth of evolution.


Rev. John A. Shuck, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton is one of over 12,000 clergy to sign this letter which says in part:

“We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.”

The church is located at 119 West F Street in Elizabethton across from T.A. Dugger Middle School.

You can visit the website or call 543-7737. Rev. John Shuck blogs on this and other topics at Shuck and Jive. For a media interview, contact Rev. John Shuck at 543-7737 or johnashuck [at] embarqmail [dot] com

And if none of that is enough endorsement, Rev. Tony says it for me!