Creationism - National Center for Science Education

graduate school to study hydraulic engineering was to prove the validity of Flood
Geology (Morris and Parker 1982; Morris 1984b:147). However, shortly after he made
this decision, the first atomic bombs exploded. To Morris, it appeared that the
prophesied end of the world was at hand, and it seemed pointless to continue in school
when the Lord was about to return. At this moment, Morris met Arthur I. Brown, who,
though also a fervent premillennialist, convinced Morris to stay in school because his
scientific training would prove to be extremely valuable if the Lord chose to tarry (Morris
1984b:102). Morris says that before he returned to graduate school he had met W.B.
Riley, founder of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association. Riley had also
founded Northwestern Bible College, and was looking for a new president. Impressed
with Morris’s That You Might Believe, he wanted him for the job, but Morris had decided
to return to graduate school. Billy Graham was later appointed president of Northwestern
(Morris 1984b:58n). Morris also published another version of his book for Moody Bible
Institute’s popular Colportage Library series. The last edition under the original title was
published in 1978. In one form or another, this book has been in print continuously for
over forty years. In 1986, Morris published a revised edition of The Bible and Modern
Science titled Science and the Bible. In all its various editions and reincarnations, this
book has been Morris’s all-time best seller.
The Preface to The Bible and Modern Science opens with these words:
The purpose of this book, very frankly and without apology, is to win people to a genuine faith in Jesus
Christ as the eternal Son of God and their personal Saviour, and to assist in strengthening the faith of those
who have already received Him in this light. It is especially addressed to young people who are finding
biblical Christianity under attack in many quarters in these days, nowhere more so than in the classes and
textbooks of most of our colleges and universities, and even in the public schools.
Morris says (1984:100) that these words “could still apply to every book I have written
since, even those which are strictly sicentific in content.”
Irwin Moon, whose “Sermons from Science” so impressed Morris, founded the
American Scientific Affiliation in 1941 together with the president of Moody Bible
Institute. Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago, was founded in 1886 by Dwight L. Moody,
the famous evangelist. Though America had been periodically swept by great Revivals
and religious Awakenings in the past, Moody was the first—and one of the greatest—of
the new, urbanized revivalist preachers. Moody Bible Institute has remained strongly
fundamentalist and creationist.
The American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) is an organization of Christian
evangelical scientists: “A group of Christian scientific men devoting themselves to the
task of reviewing, preparing, and distributing information on the authenticity, historicity,
and scientific aspects of the Holy Scriptures in order that the faith of many in the Lord
Jesus Christ may be firmly established” (Amer. Sci. Affil. 1948:3). ASA members have
held varying positions regarding evolution, from strict creationism to theistic evolution.
When it was founded, there was a dearth of active creationist organizations, and many
creationists became members, expecting the ASA to remain a creationist bastion. Among
the original ASA organizers were John Van Haitsma and Peter Stoner. Van Haitsma,
professor of organic science at Calvin College (Christian Reformed) in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, is the author of The Supplanter Undeceived (1941), a Bible-science book.
Peter Stoner, a math professor at Pasadena City College (California), is the author of
Science Speaks: Scientific Proof of the Accuracy of the Bible (1958; an earlier version