From the Scopes Trial to Darwin on Trial

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Caudill
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Culture War ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Fundamentalist Movement ◽  
The 1950S

This chapter examines the transformation of the creationist movement after William Jennings Bryan's death and the Scopes trial. When Bryan died, fundamentalism was thrown into some disarray. However, creationists were also forced to reorganize and rethink his progressive politics and liberal interpretation. During the next few years, several individuals campaigned to become Bryan's successor, from George F. Washburn to Paul Rood and Gerald Winrod. This chapter begins with a discussion of changes in the fundamentalist movement after Scopes, with particular emphasis on the rise of creationism. It then considers the growth of religion, and religiosity in general, during the 1950s and 1960s, highlighted by the emergence of televangelists led by Billy Graham, and the “culture war” of the 1980s and 1990s. It also analyzes the book The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications (1961), by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb; the so-called “decade of creation” in the 1970s; and the evolution of “creation-science” into “intelligent design.”

Billy Graham Was a Transfer Student

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Laats
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Transfer Student ◽  
Evangelical Christians ◽  
Bob Jones University ◽  
The World ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Time Faculty

By the 1950s, tensions within the world of fundamentalism led to a new effort at reform. Self-proclaimed neo-evangelical reformers hoped to strip away some of the unnecessary harshness of fundamentalist traditions while remaining truly evangelical Christians. Often these reforms were personified in the revival campaigns of evangelist Billy Graham. The network of fundamentalist schools struggled to figure out its relationship to this new divide in the fundamentalist family. Some schools embraced the reform, while others decried it. At the same time, faculty members at all the schools wrestled with strict supervision of their religious beliefs and teaching. From time to time, schools purged suspect faculty members, as in the 1953 firing of Ted Mercer at Bob Jones University.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Scopes Trial: Young-Earth Creationism, Creation Science, and the Evangelical Denial of Climate Change

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
K. L. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Imminent Threat ◽  
Young Earth Creationism ◽  
American Evangelicalism

In the century since the Scopes Trial, one of the most influential dogmas to shape American evangelicalism has been that of young-earth creationism. This article explains why, with its arm of “creation science,” young-earth creationism is a significant factor in evangelicals’ widespread denial of anthropogenic climate change. Young-earth creationism has become closely intertwined with doctrines such as the Bible’s divine authority and the Imago Dei, as well as with social issues such as abortion and euthanasia. Addressing this aspect of the environmental crisis among evangelicals will require a re-orientation of biblical authority so as to approach social issues through a hermeneutic that is able to acknowledge the reality and imminent threat of climate change.

Arguing from the Evidence

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Thomasson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Federal Case ◽  
The Creation

In Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), the only U.S. federal case on teaching Intelligent Design in public schools, the plaintiffs used the same argument as in the creation-science trials of the 1980s: Intelligent Design is religion, not science, because it invokes the supernatural; thus teaching it violates the Constitution. Although the plaintiffs won, this strategy is unwise because it is based on problematic definitions of religion and science, leads to multiple truths in society, and is unlikely to succeed before the present right-leaning Supreme Court. I suggest discarding past approaches in favor of arguing solely from the evidence for evolution.

‘Communism Is a Religion That Is Inspired, Directed and Motivated by the Devil Himself’: Billy Graham’s Apologetics and the Cold War West

2021 ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Uta Andrea Balbier
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
End Times ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

Anti-Communism constituted a core feature of Billy Graham’s preaching in the 1950s. In Graham’s sermons Communism did not just stand for the anti-religious thread of an atheistic ideology, as it was traditionally used in Protestant Fundamentalist circles, but also for its opposition to American freedom and Free Market Capitalism. This article argues that the term Communism took on significantly new meaning in the evangelical milieu after the Second World War, indicating the new evangelicals’ ambition to restore, defend, and strengthen Christianity by linking it into the discourse on American Cold War patriotism. This article will contrast the anti-Communist rhetoric of Billy Graham and other leading evangelical figures of the 1950s, such as Harold Ockenga, with the anti-Communist rhetoric used by early Fundamentalists in the 1910s and 1920s. Back then, Communism was predominantly interpreted as a genuine threat to Christianity. The term also made appearances in eschatological interpretations regarding the imminent end-times. The more secular interpretation of Communism as a political and economic counter-offer by evangelical preachers such as Billy Graham will be discussed as an important indicator of the politicization and implied secularization of the evangelical milieu after the Second World War.

The 1950s: Part Two

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-248
Author(s):  
Steven K. Green
Keyword(s):  
Red Scare ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Congressional Investigations ◽  
The Church

This chapter continues with the examination of the church–state events of the 1950s. It begins with the Protestant–Catholic tensions associated with the Red Scare and the congressional investigations into communism, particularly the controversy surrounding Catholic support for the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy. It continues with an examination of a thawing of religious tensions brought about by the religious revival of the 1950s and the growth of ecumenism and religious cooperation. This section focuses on the impact of three religious figures: Bishop Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, and Norman Vincent Peale. The chapter concludes with an examination of the Protestant opposition to the candidacy of John F. Kennedy for U.S. president, an effort that was led by Graham, Peale, and POAU.

The Private Hopes of American Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, 1925-1975

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harrington Watt
Keyword(s):  
National Association ◽  
Moody Bible Institute ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Conservative Protestantism ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Present Context ◽  
Fundamentalist Movement ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Born Again ◽  
National Association Of Evangelicals

Much of the best recent scholarship on conservative Protestantism in the middle decades of this Century focuses on what is sometimes called the “mainstream” of interdenominational evangelicalism. Although this variety of evangelicalism was deeply influenced by and, indeed, in some respects the direct successor to the fundamentalist movement of the 1910's, 1920's, and 1930's, it did not begin to assume its present shape until the early 1940's. The formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942 is a convenient symbol of the emergence of what we now think of as constituting the evangelical mainstream.Drafting a perfect definition of this mainstream is impossible; drafting a good working description of it is not. In the present context, “evangelical mainstream” simply refers to that network of born-again Christians associated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Campus Crusade for Christ; with schools such as the Moody Bible Institute, Füller Seminary, and Wheaton College; with publishing firms like Eerdman's and Zondervan; and with magazines such as Christianity Today, Eternity, and Moody Monthly.

Anti-intellectualism and anti-evolutionism: Lessons from Hofstadter

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (7) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Glenn Branch
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
American Life ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
The Face ◽  
Science Educators

The forces of anti-intellectualism in American life, as described by Richard Hofstadter, have been especially prominent in the battle against the teaching of evolution. Glenn Branch discusses the different aspects of anti-intellectualism that are at the root of objections to evolution and explains how creation science, which had a transparently religious motivation, eventually gave way to intelligent design, which was less explicit in its religious aims. In the face of constitutional challenges, these modes of anti-evolutionism have been largely replaced by discourse that misrepresents evolution as “just a theory” and that misleadingly portrays miseducation about evolution as a matter of intellectual freedom. Branch then suggests how, by understanding the anti-intellectual roots of objections to evolution, science educators might teach evolution more effectively.

scholarly journals Understanding creation science and intelligent design

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Branch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Central Argument

AbstractIn American Creationism, Creation Science, and Intelligent Design in the Evangelical Market, Benjamin Huskinson presents a close examination of the two main American sociopolitical movements launched in opposition to evolution during the second half of the twentieth century: creation science and intelligent design. Despite a failure of a central argument and a handful of errors, the book is a welcome and valuable interrogation of the stereotypes of American creationism.

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