Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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each other in the 1920s—and indeed all three are still competing today. In fact, while<br />
Price raged against all compromises with strict young-earth creationism, Riley and<br />
Rimmer held friendly but serious debates on Day-Age versus Gap Theory creationism<br />
(Riley and Rimmer’s 1929 A Debate: Resolved, That the Creation Days in Genesis Were<br />
Aeons Not Solar Days; also The Creation Days of Genesis: A Profound Debate Between<br />
Dr. W.B. Riley and Dr. Harry B. Rimmer, 1974).<br />
William B. Riley, pastor of First Baptist Church in Minneapolis, was the founder<br />
of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association in 1919, and also founder and<br />
president of Northwestern Bible College. Riley declared that evolution was even worse<br />
than compulsory vaccination:<br />
I confess to no small degree of revolt against having an impure virus <strong>for</strong>ced into the pure blood of a girl of<br />
perfect health; but a thousand times over would I prefer my daughter’s blood tainted, and her flesh scarred<br />
<strong>for</strong> a time, to having her mind tainted with infidelity and her soul scarred <strong>for</strong> eternity. I believe in<br />
education, but not in an Anti-christian one! I believe in <strong>Science</strong>, but not in an anti-scriptural one! I believe<br />
in the college, but not if it deny my Christ...<br />
When Christ is no longer worshipped, men will sink back into cannibalism... [1917:127-128]<br />
Riley’s 1923 book Inspiration or Evolution was a “call to arms” to protect American<br />
democracy and Christian faith against the destructive doctrines of modernism and<br />
evolution. The title refers to the divine origin of the Bible as opposed to its supposed<br />
“evolution” according to Higher Criticism. But Riley attacks biological evolution<br />
ferociously as well, emphatically asserting that evolution promotes atheism and anarchy.<br />
Evolution is not science, and it destroys the Christian beliefs of students to whom it is<br />
taught. Proclaiming that “bestial Bolshevism” is the product of evolution, Riley writes<br />
that the Soviets are actively seeking to control U.S. education by planting the evil seed of<br />
evolution in our schools. “<strong>Science</strong> is now the subtle word of Satanic employment,” he<br />
warns; he then goes on to quote many academics and scientists who oppose either<br />
evolution or Darwinism.<br />
Riley demanded that evolution be removed from both private and public schools.<br />
Since it is false, it should not be taught. Riley rejected the accommodationist view that<br />
science and the Bible spoke of different but harmonious truths.<br />
To be sure, all truths are harmonious! But why speak of evolution as a truth? ... Our entire contention is<br />
that in its conception, development and application, evolution is utterly false; as false to science as to<br />
Scripture; and so Scripture and this unproven and unprovable hypothesis can never speak together. “What<br />
communion hath light with darkness?” Truth is the embodiment of intolerance! It cannot be <strong>for</strong>ced into<br />
any fellowship with falsehood. God’s Word is truth! Darwin’s theory is a falsehood and between them<br />
there can be no fellowship! [1923:116-117]<br />
...I affirm without fear of contradiction—For this age, at least, the theory of evolution is the evil seed. It<br />
has evilly affected every ground into which it has been sown... [N]o two phrases were ever coined that<br />
became such shibboleths of blood as “The struggle <strong>for</strong> existence,” and “The survival of the fittest” proved<br />
in the combat of 1914-1918. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” If any philosophy was ever weighed in<br />
the balance and found wanting, to such an extent that intelligent men ought to turn with loathing from the<br />
same, it is the theory of evolution... [1923:122-123]<br />
The tares of evolution have been surreptitiously sown. [W]hen, five years ago, the Christian Fundamentals<br />
Association began to fight this theory, it was soon discovered that, like cuckoos, they had laid their eggs in<br />
almost every college nest, and made sacred endowments to unwittingly hatch them, and unknowingly