Creationism - National Center for Science Education

compromise this interpretation and must be firmly rejected; the only alternative,
therefore, is the complete and deliberate re-interpretation of all science and history.
Among organizations most obviously influenced by Reconstructionism is the
Coalition on Revival, a Dominion group that promotes fulfillment of the biblical
inerrantist view in all aspects of life: the arts, society, political science—everything.
Directors of COR include several prominent Reconstructionists (but also many premills).
COR has engaged in flamboyant public presentations, at the Capitol in
Washington, of its manifestoes demanding acceptance of a Christian worldview. Its
“sphere” documents are charters for this total biblical restructuring of society. The
Science and Technology “sphere” is chaired by Duane Gish of ICR. COR’s Science and
Technology “Sphere Document” (Gish and Cunningham 1986) is of course explicitly
biblical and emphatically creationist. Some excerpts:
We affirm that each biological life form was specially created by God as a definite kind, and that all natural
variations in life forms have been and are limited to variations within that kind (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25;
1 Corinthians 15:38,39).
We deny that life arose from non-life through any evolutionary process, and that the various basic types
of plants and animals have arisen from a common ancestor (Psalm 104:30; Acts 17:25)…
We affirm that Adam and Eve were specially created by God and were the first human beings...
We deny that mankind arose from apelike ancestors through any evolutionary process...
We affirm that the Biblical record of history in Genesis 1-11 (including the creation of the universe and
its inhabitants in the six days of the Creation Week, the Fall of man, the worldwide flood of Noah’s time,
and the origin of languages and the dispersal of mankind from the Tower of Babel) is an accurate and
historical account...
We affirm that the Genesis flood was a worldwide aqueous catastrophe that overflowed the entire world...
We affirm that the genealogical histories recorded in the Bible, as well as many physical time clocks,
indicate that the earth is young. [1986:6-7]
It denies that mankind can be saved through science or any merely human endeavor, and
declares that science must be biblically centered. (It also supports military spending, and
rejects UCLA historian of science Lynn White’s theory (1967) that the ecological crisis
was precipitated by an exploitative attitude fostered by the Genesis Mandate
commanding man to “take dominion” over the earth.
Maranatha Campus Ministries, sponsor of the 1988 Creation Conference and of
the Society for Creation Science, is another aggressively Dominion-oriented group, and is
praised by Reconstructionists. (See, e.g., Broocks’ Change the Campus, Change the
World! [1985] and his keynote address “The Battle Has Just Begun” to the 1987 National
Creation Conference.) The Providence Foundation of Virginia, which has close ties with
Maranatha, says that “Christianity must permeate every aspect of life in a nation if that
nation desires to be free,” and urges that Christianity be brought into public affairs in
order to extend the kingdom of God on earth.
Televangelist D. James Kennedy is strongly influenced by Reconstructionism,
and has featured Reconstructionists on his TV programs. His Coral Ridge Ministries is
listed in Gary DeMar’s God and Government (1982) as a “Christian reconstruction”
organization dedicated to advancing the kingdom of Christ. Francis Schaeffer has also
been strongly influenced by Reconstructionism; his A Christian Manifesto (1981) is
largely based on Reconstructionist ideas.
Other Reconstructionist organizations (all of them strongly creationist) are Gary
North’s Institute for Christian Economics in Texas, Gary DeMar’s American Vision, the