Joseph Campbell died in 1987 but remains influential. In this revealing video, Campbell clarifies why he left the Roman Catholic faith of his youth — EVOLUTION:
While many try to reconcile their faith with evolution, many find in evolution reason to leave the faith. Just because there’s no strict contradiction between the two doesn’t mean that the two aren’t in tension. Campbell felt the tension and left the faith.
SOURCE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJmNBxbExuA
Postscript [added 06.14.09, 7:40AM CST]: It’s interesting to see Campbell disparage the biblical cosmology for being several millennia old and thus out of touch with current cosmologies — myths that impact our lives being myths that are compatible with contemporary cosmologies, according to Campbell. But when I studied ancient near eastern cosmologies at Princeton Theological Seminary, I found an interesting thing: they divided into cosmologies in which creation occurs through a spoken word by a supreme deity (the biblical cosmology was not unique in this regard) and cosmologies in which natural forces evolve and do all the creating, producing better and more powerful deities as time flows along (e.g., the Babylonian creation, in which Marduk is born several generations down and finally becomes the chief god). Given that this is an information age and that the Bible teaches that God created the world through a spoken word, would it not follow that the biblical cosmology is actually back in the saddle and ready again to engage culture? It would seem then that the provenance and length of time that a cosmology has been with us need not sap it of its cultural relevance or impact.