Creationism - National Center for Science Education

early ASA members were strict creationists who thought that that organization would
remain dedicated to strict creationism, and they were sorely disappointed to see its
membership increasingly dominated by old-earthers and even theistic evolutionists. This
is what the Statement of Belief is designed to prevent. As Morris put it when he left the
CRS presidency to devote himself to his new Institute for Creation Research:
We must, by all means, continue to resist all efforts to dilute our commitment to a recent literal creation and
a worldwide flood, as required by sound Biblical exegesis. Uncertainty on these points at ASA’s
inception...was the direct cause of that organization’s rapid drift into theistic evolution and the social
gospel. [1985:198-9]
The Statement of Belief was the first and “most important” order of business
when the CRS was organized. Significantly, the CRS constitution forbids any change in
this doctrinal statement. Here is Creation Research Society Statement of Belief, printed
in the first issue of the CRSQ (1964) and every issue since:
1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because we believe it to be inspired throughout, all of its
assertions are historically and scientifically true in all of the original autographs. To the student of nature,
this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.
2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during
Creation Week as described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation have
accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.
3. The great Flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Deluge, was an historical
event, worldwide in its extent and impact.
4. Finally, we are an organization of Christian men of science, who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman, and their
subsequent Fall into sin, is the basis of our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore,
salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.
The last tenet, of course, excludes non-Christians. Rusch wanted the CRS to be open to
all creationists, even Jewish and Islamic, and therefore opposed the adoption of this tenet,
but he was overruled. (Moshe Trop, a Jewish creationist, has published in the CRSQ, and
articles by old-earth creationists appear occasionally, but their articles do not argue these
points.)
As already mentioned, Morris felt that the CRS Statement was not explicit
enough, in that it did not unambiguously specify recent ex nihilo creation and insist upon
Flood Geology (though he admits that the Statement certainly implies such a strict
interpretation). Morris set up an even stricter doctrinal statement when he founded his
creationist college, and stricter still for the Institute for Creation Research.
The Creation Research Society was founded as a research and publishing
organization, with the primary function of publishing a creationist journal. The first issue
of the Creation Research Society Quarterly was the 1964 Annual (vol. 1, no. 1 followed
later that year). In the debut issue, Lammerts announced the goal of CRS as the
“complete re-evaluation of science from the thesitic viewpoint” (1964:2; also reprinted in
Lammerts, ed., 1973:2). Authors in that first issue were Klotz, Harris, Zimmerman,
Morris, Slusher, Marsh, Tinkle, Lammerts, John N, Moore, George F. Howe, Clifford
Burdick, and Thomas G. Barnes. Moore has an M.S. in biology and an Ed.D.
fromMichigan State University, where he was professor of natural science. Moore took a
sabbatical from Michigan State, staying at Morris’s creationist college, where he wrote