OK, let's break this down into handy-sized chunks, suitable for idiots of all religions
Evolution was the traditional view of the mediaeval Church. It was held that God had appointed the proper animals to each area, and that if one species became extinct, others would evolve to replace it. This did not apply to the tiny animals, like insects, which were believed to appear spontaneously. This left some issues about why Noah went to so much trouble with the Ark...
Putting aside the quibble that it should be six periods, the basic statement is untrue.
The Church observed, correctly, that there are two accounts of creation in the Bible: Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. It was also noted that the order of creation was different in the two accounts. Therefore the Church did not push one at the expense of the other.
In fact, if anything, the Church tended to favour the version in Genesis 2 - largely because it led into the highly picturesque story of Adam and Eve - and therefore to play down Genesis 1 and the 'six days'.
The issues were well understood, and argued over endlessly, but certainly an overliteral interpretation of either version was always avoided.
There is a brief and easily accessible account of some of the issues in Thomas Browne: Religio Medici, which is in reasonably modern English, and although postmediaeval is pregeological and still reflects the issues as traditionally seen by the Church.
Most of the founders of geology were Christians, and included several priests.
Perhaps the most telling example is Rev Richard Owen, an Anglican priest, the 'father of geology', who was the first to recognise the vast expanses of time needed for geological processes - and remained a good Christian and a priest in good standing with his Church until his death.
Obviously not, therefore!
NO NO NO! Evolution was ALREADY well accepted in Darwin's time. What Darwin did was to introduce a MECHANISM for controlling evolution - Natural Selection. (And yes, I do know that other people claimed to have thought of that earlier too, but it's publication that counts...)
This is based on the 'Oxford Debate' between Thomas Huxley (For Darwinism) and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (Against Darwin) and the assumption that because Soapy Sam was a bishop, he had the support of the Church.
In fact the Church was solidly behind Huxley.
Honesty forces me to admit that this was less to do with the rightness of Huxley's case, and more to do with the fact that Soapy Sam was so totally obnoxious a git that most of the Church would have supported Mohammed against him.
It should also be noted that when he published "On The Origin Of Species" Darwin was a Christian - or at least regarded himself as a Christian; it's not for me to judge. He did lose his faith much later, as a result of his daughter;s death, but that was nothing to do with science.
No. It isn't even old. A system called 'Creationism' was invented in the 1830's in the southern states of the USA. Its driving force was the growing opposition between the North and the South and was part of the buildup to their Civil War. This was a political drive: because of the fact that most of the academic institutions were in the North, the South invented Creationism (and many other ideas) to discredit them.
Creationism was not therefore a traditional doctrine of the Church; it was not even a primarily Christian doctrine. It was endorsed and promoted even by patriotic atheists like Mark Twain.
Creationism is blatantly contrary to the Bible.
Consider (I quote from the Authorised (King James) Version) how each division of time is marked: "And the evening and the morning were the the first day" and so on: in the Hebrew these actually read "And evening morning evening morning the first day" and so on. Even taken directly these give a 'day' of two evenings and two mornings!
But repeating a noun in Hebrew gives a collective sense (Look at, say, Isaiah 28) so the correct reading is to take the pair of nouns as a poetic extension of this: "All the evening-mornings, the first day".
You may want to challenge this; so what meaning can you put forward that is consistent with a day of twenty four hours, which includes at least two evenings and at least two mornings?
Next, consider Genesis 2. Here we have a second account of creation, beginning at verse 4 and ending at the end of the chapter. Note in verse 4 that there is only one day of creation. Is this one twenty four hours as well, or perhaps 144 hours?
Now look at the order of creation: first the plants, then man, then animals and birds together, then woman! Let me give you verse 19: "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."
Note: "formed". Not "had formed". It is interesting that, under pressure from creationists, many modern versions deliberately mistranslate this verse: without any warrant whatever from the Hebrew! What more proof could be needed that creationism is contrary to scripture, that it deliberately corrupts the very scripture it relies on?
Any doctrine of creation that claims to be scriptural must therefore account for both orders. This was the traditional and absolutely correct view of the Church; creationism fails this test utterly.
Of course it is. It is incompatible with creationism, but that is itself unscriptural. Once you reject creationism, the only argument is the phrase 'after his kind' in verses like Genesis 1:11: "... fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind..." But we know that trees, plants and animals do not bring forth young identical with their parents, and that under human influence many types are far removed from their wild originals: compare maize with teosinte, for example. No limit has been met in these changes; only the time needed for each generation.
Nor is the argument that such changes can not cross the 'species barrier' - that is, that changes can not produce new species - valid: firstly, there is no agreed definition of species, and secondly, do you really believe a wolf could mate with a chihuahua? If chihuahuas occurred in the wild they would certainly be a separate species from the wolf.
In fact, evolution is neither contrary to nor required by scripture - which is not surprising, since it is the traditional view of the Church.
Let us give the proponents of this point of view the credit of assuming that they know the difference between evolution and Darwinism. (If they think Darwinism is evolution, and they probably do, refer them to the last question.)
What Darwinism proposes is a mechanism that enables 'random' changes to produce directed change. This certainly does give the materialist a way of accounting for the development of mammals from protoplasmic primordial globules - and its subsequent descent to humanity - but so does every such mechanism. If Darwinism denies God, then so does cooking.
The truth from the Christian point of view is the direct opposite: we are not denying God's role, we are merely clarifying the means He has chosen to implement His will. Ask what killed Goliath: his own arrogance, David, the sling, the stone, or God? The answer is 'Yes'.
Incidentally, Darwinism actually leaves more scope for God than most. Compare similar environments in different parts of the world: the roles of the individual species will often be wildly different; and even when they are similar, the species filling the roles may be quite different. Here a land crab will fill the role of a rat there; there a monkey will fill the role of a bird here. It is obvious that natural selection is by no means a deterministic process - quite the opposite! In fact, Darwinism allows far more scope for that mythical 'God of the gaps' than even the mediaeval doctrine of evolution did.