Re: NA Evangelicals shift away from TE between 1880 - 1920 (was [asa] Park Street church)

Hi Michael,

re: your 7 suggestions why North America Evangelicals shifted away from TE
between 1880 and 1920. (Actually, it's probably more accurate to say
that the Evangelical consensus shifted away from TE being a valid
Evangelical option - I'm not sure it was ever even close a majority
position).

 the rise of Dispensationalism encouraging biblical literalism,

This is a good point that is not often highlighted. I think this is
one Sandeen's points in "The Roots of Fundamentalism". My take is
that even today, it is very unlikely for any dispensationalist to hold a TE
position. (Anyone know an exception to this?)
 reaction to Modernism and Biblical Criticism,

Yes definitely.
 The conflict thesis of science and religion being regarded as
"actuality" by both sides

Again agreed.
 influence of McCready Price on flood geology creating doubt but not
rejection,

Not sure about this one. My take is that flood geology was pretty much a
minority / marginalized view among anti-evolutionists until the 1960 release
of "The Genesis Flood" - ie. Anti-evolutionism won the day in the 1920's
within Evangelicalism (turned fundamentalism) with little to no help from
flood geology. I think it was almost a non-factor. But given that Price
et al tarnish the good name of your profession, maybe I should shut up
before you bury me in historical evidence to the contrary.
 The perception that German militarism was Darwinian,
Rise of Eugenics, giving a moral reason to reject evolution

I don't know enough on these to comment but it makes sense.
 Radiometric age dating precluding a short time-scale
(10-20,000years) for humans

Sorry. I'm not sure I understand why this affected the move away from TE as
being an option. Can you elaborate?

thanks,

On 12/17/07, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:

> Thanks TED, There was a shift in the USA from 1880 onwards but it does not
> seem to be paralleled in Britain, where most evangelicals took TE for
> granted until about 1980, though there was a bit of OEC argument by people
> like Merson Davies and Douglas Dewar and Fleming of the diode which gave
> rise to the Evol Protest movement in the 1930s.
>
> This can be seen in the early days of Christians in Science (founded in
> 1944
> as Research scientists Christian Fellowship) which was strongly TE in
> contrast to the ASA of the 40s which at a simplification was OEC/YEC and
> breaking out of a fundamentalist mode. (I have a very high regard for the
> founders of the ASA who did an excellent work, though nitpickers would say
> that they were anti-evolutionist, which in many ways was true)
>
>
> The $64000 question is why was there this change from 1880 to 1920
>
> My suggestions are that it was for several reasons ;
>
>
> · the rise of Dispensationalism encouraging biblical literalism,
>
> · reaction to Modernism and Biblical Criticism,
>
> · The conflict thesis of science and religion being regarded as
> "actuality" by both sides
>
> · influence of McCready Price on flood geology creating doubt but
> not
> rejection,
>
> · The perception that German militarism was Darwinian,
>
> · Rise of Eugenics, giving a moral reason to reject evolution
>
> · Radiometric age dating precluding a short time-scale
> (10-20,000years) for humans
>
>
>
> Michael
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>; "gordon brown" <gbrown@Colorado.EDU>; "Michael
> Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 3:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Park Street church
>
>
> >I intersperse my comments among Michael's below.
> >
> > Ted
> >
> >>>> "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> 12/17/2007 2:36
> AM
> >>>>
> > Thanks Randy.
> >
> > I thought you had given me another Anglican clergy who was YEC in about
> > 1910
> > to add to my tally of one - Griffith Thomas. I have searched for years
> for
> >
> > YEC Anglicans and had only found one from 1855 to 1970.
> >
> > Hague adopts a very literalistic sounding view of Genesis but implicitly
> > accepts geology as his last paragraph shows ;
> >
> > The attempt of modernism to save the supernatural in the second part of
> > the
> >
> > Bible by mythicalizing the supernatural in the first part, is as unwise
> as
> >
> > it is fatal. Instead of lowering the dominant of faith amidst the chorus
> > of
> >
> > doubt, and admitting that a chapter is doubtful because some doctrinaire
> > has
> > questioned it, or a doctrine is less authentic because somebody has
> > floated
> >
> > an unverifiable hypothesis, it would be better to take our stand with
> such
> >
> > men as Romanes, Lord Kelvin, Virchow, and Liebig, in their ideas of a
> > Creative Power, and to side with Cuvier, the eminent French scientist,
> who
> >
> > said that Moses, while brought up in all the science of Egypt, was
> > superior
> >
> > to his age, and has left us a cosmogony, the exactitude of which
> verifies
> > itself every day in a reasonable manner; with Sir William Dawson, the
> > eminent Canadian scientist, who declared that Scripture in all its
> details
> >
> > contradicts no received result of science, but anticipates many of its
> > discoveries; with Professor Dana, the eminent American scientist, who
> > said,
> >
> > after examining the first chapters of Genesis as a geologist, "I find it
> > to
> >
> > be in perfect accord with known science"; or, best of all, with Him who
> > said, "Had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote
> of
> >
> > Me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe My
> words?"
> > (John 5:45,46).
> >
> > TED: I was pretty sure that Dana would be on this list. The more I see
> > OEC
> > comments (which I think this is, agreeing with Michael) from the early
> > 20th
> > century, the more I keep hearing the echo of Dana. Sometimes it's
> > explicit,
> > as here, but not always. Dana's "sound bites" are usually of the type
> > above: he was fully committed to a concordist reading of the "two books
> of
> > God," and that approach continued to make sense to American evangelicals
> > *and fundamentalists* until it was tossed out by the YECs in the 1960s
> (an
> > excellent example would be John C. Whitcomb's booklet, "The Origin of
> the
> > Solar System" (1963).
> >
> > All those mentioned were NOT YEC. Dana actually accepted evolution.
> Dawson
> >
> > was a geologist etc.
> >
> > TED: Dana accepted pretty much all of evolution--Except human evolution,
> > where even in the last edition of his Manual of Geology (1890s) he
> > affirmed
> > that humans have a separate origin. He liked to paraphrase Genesis on
> > this,
> > to leave his readers with a clear implication of special creation
> without
> > exactly using that term. And Dawson was also a special creationist,
> > probably more so than Dana. Neither obviously was a YE creationist.
> >
> > Was Hague writing to the gallery for the Fundamentals?
> >
> > TED: No, not in my opinion. Somewhere between 1880 and 1920--the period
> > in
> > which the movement later called "fundamentalism" emerged--evangelical
> > scientists and clergy became disillusioned with theistic evolution, I
> > think
> > (though I am not sure) mostly for theological reasons; and they became
> > more
> > and more wary of atheistic evolution, which they equated with any
> version
> > of
> > evolution in which God did not play an explicit active role, such as
> > creating humans ex nihilo, or at least by guiding evolution in a
> > scientifically evident manner, through a created internal principle of
> > order
> > that would ensure the progressive nature of the unfolding creation. A
> > nice
> > example of this is George Frederick Wright, a leading advocate of
> > evolution
> > in the 1870s and 1880s who, in the years before World War One, wrote an
> > anti-evolutionary essay for The Fundamentals. The problem was, in his
> > opinion, that evolution had become the basis of a philosophy to exclude
> > design/purpose from the universe; therefore it needed to be opposed. If
> > all
> > of this is starting to sound familiar, it's b/c these issues just
> haven't
> > gone away. Phil Johnson would be right at home with Dana, and with
> > Wright's
> > essay in The Fundamentals--but not (I suspect) with Wright's essays from
> a
> > few decades earlier.
> >
> > Ted
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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> >
> >
>
>
>
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-- 
-- 
Steve Martin (CSCA)
http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com
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