Series: Faith Across Barriers

Elections for the Kansas state board of education this week centered on a furious debate over evolution, Darwinism, and biblical creationism. The fight over science and faith continues to rage in America. This weekend at the Chazy Central Rural School, a local theater company will stage a production of Inherit the Wind. Brian Mann spoke with director Andrew LaFontaine. He says the debate over Darwin’s theory has proved much more enduring than the play’s authors expected.

It's tent revival season in the North Country. Gregory Warner stopped by one tent off the Lake Ozonia Road. It was operated by the Christian Camp Ozonia. He watched a faith healer at work. And then he followed up...

There are still places in America where the Amish go to public schools. But here in the North Country, and in most other communities, the Amish learn in Amish schools. The schools go up to 8th grade. They use textbooks that are thirty, sometimes a hundred years old. And their methods are very different. Karen Johnson-Weiner is an anthropology professor at SUNY Potsdam. She's been visiting Amish schools; her book about Amish schools will be released later this year. She told Gregory Warner that the real growth in Amish schools came as public schools changed, in the 70s. Schools got bigger, and a high school education became mandatory.

The debate over evolution and creationism is one of the most passionate and divisive in American society. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is taught in public schools and most universities as scientific fact. The vast majority of biologists are convinced that living creatures evolved over hundreds of millions of years. But surveys regularly find that most Americans believe otherwise. They're convinced that God somehow shaped human development. The tension between science and faith often sparks fierce arguments, fueling protests and lawsuits. But at Paul Smiths College, in the Adirondacks, a scientist and a Christian church elder have translated their disagreement into a long-running collaboration and a deep friendship. Brian Mann tells their story.

Every week in churches across the North Country, people gather to pray for miracles. The idea that faith can heal broken bodies and cure disease isn't just found in evangelical congregations. More main-line Protestants — and even some physicians — are experimenting with prayer as a form of therapy. Brian Mann attended a healing session at an Episcopal Church in Saranac Lake.

In Brian Mann’s report yesterday on faith healing in a Saranac Lake Episcopal Church, he noted a recent report in The American Heart Journal that showed that intercessory prayer had no impact on the health of patients undergoing heart surgery. It was a widely awaited study that was supposed to be more scientifically rigorous than previous studies. But one of its co-authors says the implications of the report have been exaggerated. Father Dean Marek is director of chaplain services at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He told Gregory Warner the study dealt specifically with the power of intercessory prayer by strangers. But a sense of faith or religious conviction, he says, has been shown to have a healing power.