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