Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Fundamentalism had always been—and still is—a non- or trans-denominational
movement. Although there are some fundamentalist denominations, most
fundamentalists belong to fundamentalist wings of generally larger denominations which
are not wholly or officially fundamentalist. Most of the important fundamentalist
organizations are non-denominational: both now and in the 1920s. The peculiarity of the
1920s was that fundamentalism had become so popular that many if not most of the
major denominations came very close to being taken over by the fundamentalists. With
this kind of power, it is hardly surprising that fundamentalists attempted to influence
society by direct political means, despite their predominantly pre-millennialist belief,
which otherwise did not dispose believers to engage in political action, but encouraged
them to concentrate on soul-winning and to await the inevitable worldy triumph of Satan,
the Rapture, and the Second Coming.
During this period, the fundamentalists got anti-evolution laws passed in many
states, but their political power declined—in large part due to the sensational publicity
generated by the Scopes Trial. With this loss of political clout, fundamentalists rather
quickly withdrew from “the world,” retreating into their own institutions and enclaves,
where, however, they continued to evangelize, publish, and organize. Meanwhile, the
anti-evolution laws were to have a long-lasting effect, and fundamentalists continued
actively to write creationist books, though few outside their circles paid any attention to
them. When the modern “creation-science” movement emerged in the 1960s, it shifted
its strategy somewhat, but drew many of its arguments not only from the antievolutionism
of the 1920s, but from an unbroken tradition of fundamentalist
antievolutionism, which, though largely invisible to non-fundamentalist outsiders,
continued to flourish on a reduced scale, confined mostly to its own institutions.
During the peak years of fundamentalist influence in the 1920s there were a
number of organizations dedicated to the eradication of evolution. Four hundred
delegates to the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association met in 1922 in Los Angeles
for the Fourth Annual Great Christian Fundamentals Conference. According to Shipley
(1927:239) they resolved to “wage a relentless warfare on Evolution and Modernism.”
The published volume of the Conference proceedings, Scriptural Inspiration versus
Scientific Imagination (1922), includes anti-evolution chapters by prominent
fundamentalists Riley, Keyser, and Dixon. The Bryan Bible League was founded in 1925
in Turlock, California to continue Bryan’s fight against evolution (Shipley 1927:255).
The initial announcement of the National Anti-Evolution Society reads:
Whereas there is a strong organization in the United States whose purpose is the teaching of the unscientific
and un-Christian theory of evolution, and the dissemination of information in support of that theory, and
Whereas evolution denies the Divine Creation of Man, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and disparages and
belittles the Christian religion and the Creative Powers of God, and
Whereas the evolutionists are engaged in a campaign to fasten this pernicious doctrine upon the public
schools and colleges, and instill this false, absurd, and debauching theory in the youthful minds of the
country, and thereby seek to overthrow our Christian Civilization, and all institutions which are based upon
a belief in the Supreme Power of God, and the Divinity of Christ, and establish in their stead the
materialistic pagan civilization with all its attendant and degrading influences, and
Whereas it is the established policy of our National and State governments to maintain the public schools
as non-sectarian and non-denominational institutions, and prohibit the teaching of any creed, theory or
doctrine not acceptable to all believers in the sacredness of the Bible upon which our governments are
founded;