(The following material is from Chapter 6 of Beyond Creation Science. The chapter has been reformatted and modified for web access.)
Chapter 6 – Worlds Collide: Lyell vs. Darby“ The Liberalism/Fundamentalism Context”
The rise of young-earth creationism among conservative Christians is a part of the wider debate between liberalism and fundamentalism. Liberalism gained traction in mainline seminaries and churches as a direct result of the prevailing "higher criticism" popular in Europe during the second half of the 19th century. Liberals concluded that there is nothing supernatural about the Bible, so they denied divine inspiration.
They also denied miracles such as the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus. Because of their bias against all things supernatural they also embraced Darwinian evolution. The reaction against liberalism in America came to be known as fundamentalism, a term coined as a result of a 1909 manifesto edited by R.A. Torrey titled The Fundamentals. The movement defended the divine nature and inspiration of the Bible as well as miracles. In response to liberal claims, fundamentalists made literal Bible interpretation the central tenet of their theology.
This strategy defended all biblical miracles against the new liberalism's inherent naturalism, but it also produced a key side-effect. Fundamentalism became synonymous with dispensational premillennialism because it championed a "literal" approach to prophecy. The last of the original five "fundamental" doctrines in Torrey's book was belief in "Christ's personal, pre-millennial and imminent second coming."
The "fundamentals" have become different for various groups of conservatives, but the liberal/fundamentalist controversy polarized the methods by which Christians came to interpret Genesis. The fundamentalist pre-commitment to literalism created the necessary conditions for a widespread acceptance of young-earth creationism.
But that common explanation is only a broad outline to understand why young-earth creationism grew to dominate conservative views of Genesis. There is much more to the story. Dispensational premillennialism set the bulk of conservative, fundamentalist Christians in America onto a collision course with Lyell's old-earth geology.
Full text at:
Beyond Creation Science
The rise of young-earth creationism among conservative Christians is a part of the wider debate between liberalism and fundamentalism. Liberalism gained traction in mainline seminaries and churches as a direct result of the prevailing "higher criticism" popular in Europe during the second half of the 19th century. Liberals concluded that there is nothing supernatural about the Bible, so they denied divine inspiration.
They also denied miracles such as the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus. Because of their bias against all things supernatural they also embraced Darwinian evolution. The reaction against liberalism in America came to be known as fundamentalism, a term coined as a result of a 1909 manifesto edited by R.A. Torrey titled The Fundamentals. The movement defended the divine nature and inspiration of the Bible as well as miracles. In response to liberal claims, fundamentalists made literal Bible interpretation the central tenet of their theology.
This strategy defended all biblical miracles against the new liberalism's inherent naturalism, but it also produced a key side-effect. Fundamentalism became synonymous with dispensational premillennialism because it championed a "literal" approach to prophecy. The last of the original five "fundamental" doctrines in Torrey's book was belief in "Christ's personal, pre-millennial and imminent second coming."
The "fundamentals" have become different for various groups of conservatives, but the liberal/fundamentalist controversy polarized the methods by which Christians came to interpret Genesis. The fundamentalist pre-commitment to literalism created the necessary conditions for a widespread acceptance of young-earth creationism.
But that common explanation is only a broad outline to understand why young-earth creationism grew to dominate conservative views of Genesis. There is much more to the story. Dispensational premillennialism set the bulk of conservative, fundamentalist Christians in America onto a collision course with Lyell's old-earth geology.
Full text at:
Beyond Creation Science
