Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Journal of the Victoria Institute, which was “devoted to the study of the interrelation of
the Christian Revelation and modern research,” also published creationist works. Two
papers by G.M. Price were published in the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, one
winning the Victoria Institute’s award for 1925 (Morris 1984b:206). Much of George
Warington’s book The Week of Creation, or The Cosmogony of Genesis Considered in
Its Relation to Modern Science (1870), for instance, originally appeared in that journal.
Samuel Zwemer’s The Origin of Religion (1945) is based on a 1935 article which
appeared in the Transactions. Zwemer, a Presbyterian and Princeton Theological
Seminary professor, argued that the most primitive religions are monotheistic and
acknowledge the true God, as well as Creation an the Fall. 29 He refuted evolutionist
theories of the development of primitive religion, particularly the schemes of Tylor, Max
Muller, Frazer, Lubbock, Spencer, Durkheim and other anthropologists.
The Victoria Institute was not exclusively an antievolutionist group, however, and
the founding of the EPM probably reflected a desire for a more direct and concentrated
attack on evolution. The Evolution Protest Movement did not have a specific doctrinal
basis—its members are not bound by any rigid Statement of Belief—and it has therefore
attracted a wide variety of creationists. “Because EPM has been largely an anti-
Evolution movement rather than a pro-Creationist movement it has never had clearly
defined views on Creation, particularly on the age of the earth” (Munday 1986:42).
Following upon the success of modern American creationscience, emphasis within the
EPM began to shift more to strict creationism. In 1980 it changed its name from the
Evolution Protest Movement to the Creation Science Movement. The 1981 pamphlet
Particulars of the Creation Science Movement lists 227 pamphlets published by
EPM/CSM, and several books.
As with American creationist groups, different British organizations, with
differing approaches, have arisen to fill different niches in the anti-evolutionist scene.
The Newton Scientific Association, based in London, was founded in 1972 by a minister
and a few scientists (Barker 1979:187). As the name implies, it emphasizes “scientific”
rather than biblical creationism, though it advertised in religious magazines. And unlike
the CSM, full members (many of whom are scientists) must affirm an evangelical
statement of faith.
The Newton Scientific Assocation is particularly concerned not to resort to Biblical reference at all in its
work but to stick solely to secular references. The members are well aware that they could easily be
accused of being ‘religious’ and they are insistent that it is not a religious crusade that they are conducting.
Their interest is in good science and this they believe is non-evolutionary... The important thing is to
understand the difference between scientific facts which the Creationist will not only not be afraid of, but
will delight in accepting, and scientific theory which is man-made and subject to the vagaries of man’s
limited understanding. [Barker 1979:189]
Members of the NSA are likely to be embarrassed by what they consider the Bible-thumping approach of
the EPM which is seen as doing more harm than good to the cause. EPM members on the other hand are
dubious about the apparently secular attitudes of the NSA, and the way members of the latter appear to
29 Zwemer writes (1945:204-205): “Our conclusion, then, is that we need no longer cross a ‘Rainbow Bridge’ to
find a cave-man who by evolutionary processes became a homo sapiens; but that on the threshold of human history and
in the earliest cultures he greets us made in the image of God, conscious of his Creator, aware of moral impulses... One
cannot read the mass of evidence in recent books on ethnology without finding again and again corroboration of the
truth of Revelation: ‘God created man in his own image...’”