October 19, 2005
By Melodie Woerman

Carol Rupe has heard it all – the snide remarks, the laughs, the jokes by Jay Leno. Rupe, a parishioner at St. Stephen's, Wichita, is a member of the Kansas State Board of Education, and that puts her smack in the middle of the statewide controversy over the teaching of evolution in Kansas public schools.

She makes no bones about her position. She opposes the idea of teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in science classrooms. As a lifelong Episcopalian, Rupe says her firm belief in God, and God's hand in the creation of the world, shouldn't be taught in a science class.

Immediate controversy

A moderate Republican whose district includes Wichita and a portion of Sedgwick County, Rupe first was elected to the state school board in 2000 and was reelected in 2004. She said she was prompted to run, in part, by the science standards adopted by the state board in 1999 that permitted the teaching of creationism. She also said the woman she defeated "didn't represent what the Wichita area looks like," noting she had opposed breakfast and lunch programs for Kansas school children while serving a district with rising poverty rates.

Rupe came to the state school board with eight years' experience on the Wichita school board and many more years as a middle school teacher.

Her initial election in 2000 landed her in the middle of the evolution issue. In 1999 the state school board, with conservatives holding a 6-4 voting edge over moderates, had changed its policies to include the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.

Elections in 2000 tipped the votes to a 5-5 tie between conservative Republicans and a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats. That allowed the board to remove creationism from its standards when they came up for review again that year.

Now the five-year cycle of curriculum review has placed science standards back on the state board's agenda in 2005, and this time conservatives again hold a 6-4 edge in votes. That, Rupe said, makes it almost certain the standards will be changed to include what is called "intelligent design."

God as designer

That idea, she said, is the belief that creation is so complex that it could not have happened by random selection, as Darwin's theory of evolution says, but instead requires the hand of a designer to create the complexity. For proponents, Rupe noted, that designer is God, and permitting its teaching introduces religious beliefs into public schools.

Rupe said she actually wouldn't mind including the theory of intelligent design in schools – but not in a science class.

"One idea is science and the other is not," she said. "Certainly teach the controversy. But teach it in philosophy class, teach it in history class, teach it in a comparative religion class. But you shouldn't be teaching non-science in a science class. That doesn't mean they're wrong; it's just not science."

But Rupe said she is resigned to the board making that change when it meets again in November. She said she also is convinced the move is prompted by a conservative Christian world view on the part of most members of the Kansas state board, and that little, if anything can sway them at this point. "I think a couple of them feel that this is the one vote they were elected to make."

The change in standards means those issues will be included on statewide assessments, but Rupe said at this point she doesn't know how the change might be reflected in test questions.

She said local school districts still will be the ones to select the curricula their students will learn, and local boards will continue to adopt the textbooks their students will use. "Hopefully, we won't do very much damage," she said.

Even more troubling to Rupe than the introduction of intelligent design is the new definition of science about to be adopted.

She said the definition is being changed from "seeking natural explanations for how things occur" to "seeking logical explanations." She said it could lead to students deciding for themselves what they are willing to learn, based on matters of their faith.

She also wonders how teachers will handle these new concepts. "I know very few biology teachers who would have enough background or knowledge to be able to explain ideas of faith as well as ideas of science," she said. "That isn't where I want my children learning ideas of faith, in their biology classroom. I want them to learn it at church."

Her faith questioned

Rupe is ready to admit that she is a Christian. But there have been times she felt her beliefs were being questioned by others on the board.

"There has been the implication that those of us who want the true science standards taught must be atheists, because otherwise we wouldn't want that," she said. "But the whole idea that you can't be a person of faith and want good science is just ridiculous."

Rupe said the controversy has caused her to examine her own faith and even led her to profess her belief in God as creator of the universe during a board meeting.

"I said that God did it. I don't know how you can look at a sunset or an ocean or a newborn baby and not believe that God did it. But that doesn't preclude students from learning good science."

She noted her father and son, both physicians, have never questioned their own faith as a result of the science they studied. "I don't know what the fear is if people learn science," she said.

She said those who say Christians can't believe in evolution are being too narrow. "I think that makes God very small, if you say he created all of this in six literal days," she said. "I just think he's much more magnificent, much larger, than that."

Episcopal News Service
Melodie Woerman is director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.