Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Creationism in South Africa is influenced by both its British colonial ties and by
its Dutch heritage. The white Dutch Reformed Church has some 1.5 million members,
including a majority of the Afrikaaner population and almost all of South Africa’s
government officials. Many Dutch Reformed members are strongly conservative and
fundamentalist. Deus Dixit is a magazine published by a creationist group in Pretoria.
There is also a Creation-Science Association in South Africa. Many American
fundamentalists openly support South Africa on the grounds that its government is built
upon a strongly conservative religious base. Some creationists say that the United States
and South Africa are the only two nations in the world which have retained a biblicallybased
(i.e. fundamentalist) society. They see the widespread criticism of South Africa as
liberal, atheist attacks against a courageous, God-fearing people, and dismiss concern
about apartheid as an excuse to destroy the religious base of society. Many South
African fundamentalists continue to insist that apartheid and racial discrimination are
biblically justified, though this is no longer the official position of the Dutch Reformed
Church of South Africa.
There are a number of active creation-scientists in Germany, and several
creationist organizations, but the movement apparently has not achieved widespread
public support. The officially recognized churches are state supported. The great
majority of Germans who declare church membership (and most do) belong to either
Lutheran or Catholic churches, which receive a portion of members’ taxes. Most
Germans attend public high schools, where they receive religious instruction, but there
have been few cases of creationist teaching in these state schools. Schirrmacher (1985:3)
complains that most German fundamentalist churches do not stress creationism. Both
Schirrmacher and Myers (1980:21) attribute the low level of public support for creationscience
in Germany as compared the U.S. to the lack of support provided by
fundamentalist churches and the absence of prominent national creationist organizations.
(In Germany, “evangelische” refers to Protestantism generally; “pietists” and
“evangelikals” are conservative Protestants, but do not necessarily share all the concerns
of American fundamentalists, such as creationism.)
Several German scientists and theologians stoutly opposed evolution as anti-
Christian in the early part of the century, such as F. Bettex (as discussed previously).
Albert Fleischmann, a professor of comparative anatomy at Erlangen University, wrote in
Die Descendenztheorie (1933 [1901]) that the theory of evolution
suffers from grave defects which are becoming more and more apparent as time advances. It can no longer
square with practical scientific knowledge, nor does it suffice for our theoretical grasp of the facts. The
Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of
scientific research, but purely the product of imagination. [Quoted in D. Zimmerman 1976:203-4]
Fleischmann also contributed articles such as “The Doctrine of Organic Evolution in the
Light of Modern Research” to the Transactions of the Victoria Institute. Earlier (1883),
another scientist at the University of Erlangen, Friedrich Pfaff, co-authored a book The
apparently modeled on the popular Time-Life science books, considered by fundamentalists as evolutionist
propaganda of the worst sort. The format is the same. McDowell and Stewart stress the need for defense
of Christianity by reason and evidence. Campus Crusade for Christ International, founded by Bill Bright
and now based in San Bernardino, California, was headquartered across the street from UCLA in Bel-Air in
the 1950s. Nine of the eleven starters on the number-one-ranked UCLA football team of 1954 publicly
presented testimony for Campus Crusade for Christ (Bright 1970:30-34, 130).