Philosophy and Theology
Dowd considers himself to be a Pentecostal Evangelical naturalist or evolutionary Christian minister. Dowd describes himself as having been "born again" while serving in the United States Army in Germany in 1979, and for the next three years living within a fundamentalist culture that was strongly opposed to evolution. Thereafter he came under a more eclectic range of religious influences (including a friendship with a "Buddhist-Christian" former Trappist monk, Tobias Meeker), that opened him up to first intellectual, and then spiritual, acceptance of evolution.
Dowd is pluralistic in his ministry. He teaches that humanity will never see an end to the science and religion war until religious leaders do their part and preach evolution enthusiastically from the pulpit. He recommends the Clergy Letter Project as a resource for clergy to help do this. Dowd promotes the Epic of Evolution as a sacred story and Religious Naturalism as his own religious orientation.. It addresses both objective truth and subjective meaning answering questions in ways that are both religiously and scientifically accurate. He claims that science can be interpreted in ways that nourish and inspire people like traditional religious stories do.
Colleen Engel-Brown, former pastor at a First Unity Church believes Dowd has a "very provoking message". Accepting evolution as plausible "disturbs those who take the Bible literally". Even the Dowd vehicle provokes as it displays two fishes kissing with the labels "Jesus" and "Darwin". His message of evolutionary theology attaches a lot of attention as a subject that opens up the debate on the creation-evolution controversy. Both sides of this debate have been at it for a century and a half. Dowd attempts to serve as a pacifier by showing people that celebrating Big History and interpreting it meaningfully will bring them nearer to spiritual fulfillment.
By utilizing traditional religious methods, Dowd invites "people to think about religion in new ways". Stephen Uhl, a former Catholic priest-become humanist psychologist, writes that Dowd does a great job of expanding minds beyond sectarian belief systems and entertains while doing it.
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