Astronaut John Glenn, who gave a news conference from space many years ago, now aged 97, said in a recent interview that despite his being a devout Presbyterian, he believes evolution should be taught in schools across America.
While Glenn famously said from space, “to look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible,” he sees no contradiction between belief in God and a belief in evolution.
As Glenn shared in the interview,
“I don’t see that I’m any less religious by the fact that I can appreciate the fact that science just records that we change with evolution and time, and that’s a fact. It doesn’t mean it’s less wondrous and it doesn’t mean that there can’t be some power greater than any of us that has been behind and is behind whatever is going on.”
For his part, Glenn has enjoyed a life of achievement, having been a former senator, a democratic presidential candidate, and a combat jet pilot in two wars.
Glenn revealed that following his time in space, he did what he could to persuade the then- NASA director, Bob Gilruth, to let him venture into orbit once again,
“Kennedy had indicated to NASA that he would just as soon that I was not assigned to another flight. Now, whether it was because of the impact if I got killed on the second flight would that reflect politically, I never knew. I never discussed that with anybody. All I knew was I didn’t get reassigned to another flight.”
For now John and his wife Annie, 95, intend to devote most of their time to the growing John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University.
While speaking proudly about the college, Glenn said, “This is not going to be a Republican college or a Democratic college. Quite the opposite of that. It’s going to be what we hope will be the best college of studies of government and policy of any place in the country.”
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