It's hard to believe the Scopes trial is back in the news as current events. The debate over evolution still rages with the same fervor and intensity as it did when Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan went at it in a Tennessee courtroom some 80 years ago.

Fundamentalists are demanding that school districts teach Creationism, a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of the beginning of the universe, as an alternative to evolution, and that evolution be presented as a theory rather than a scientific fact.

A vast amount of literature has been generated by the debate, much of it filled with venom-like language - each side accusing the other of some pretty outrageous misconceptions and attempts to mislead.

There is an interesting attempt to merge the two ideas by suggesting that schools teach evolution as part of God's original plan of creation. Actually, in addition to being an attempt on the part of some to harmonize the ideas in order to bring about peace, this is not a bad insight into the process. This is especially true if you look at Genesis 1 as a poetic account of how the world came into being. It is de- scribed as a process over time.

Remember also that religious language is by its very nature poetic. Words are used symbolically as a way of communicating ideas that extend beyond the realm of their literal meaning. When we speak of Torah as a tree of life, we don't literally mean a tree. It's a way of using the tree as a symbol. When we say we love God with all our hearts, we all know that love, whatever it is, resides in the brain not the heart.

Our rabbinic literature, which uses words symbolically, grows out of the biblical tradition of using words symbolically. To me it is no stretch to imagine that God created the world in such a way that it will evolve. Look at the order of creation in Genesis. It's not a scientific description, nor is it intended to be. But it does proceed from the simpler to the more complex. And what would the big bang have been but a great explosion resulting in a great light, the first of God's creations according to Genesis.

In the realm of religious teaching, in church and synagogue religious schools, it is certainly highly appropriate for the ideas I have written about to be taught to children. Whether it is appropriate for public schools to be teaching that idea is highly questionable, due to the separation of church and state. And since the..role of God in the creation of the universe is a matter of faith not science (after all, it's not provable in scientific terms), I'd just as soon public school teachers avoid foisting their faith opinions on our children.

I think this is the very kind of issue our American forebears had in mind when they separated church and state. Let's keep them separated.