ABSTRACT Reclaiming Peace: Evangelical Scientists And
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ABSTRACT Reclaiming Peace: Evangelical Scientists and Evolution After World War II Christopher M. Rios, Ph.D. Advisor: William L. Pitts, Jr., Ph.D. This dissertation argues that during the same period in which antievolutionism became a movement within American evangelicalism, two key groups of evangelical scientists attempted to initiate a countervailing trend. The American Scientific Affiliation was founded in 1941 at the encouragement of William Houghton, president of Moody Bible Institute. The Research Scientists‘ Christian Fellowship was started in London in 1944 as one of the graduate fellowship groups of Inter-Varsity Fellowship. Both organizations were established out of concern for the apparent threat stemming from contemporary science and with a desire to demonstrate the compatibility of Christian faith and science. Yet the assumptions of the respective founders and the context within which the organizations developed were notably different. At the start, the Americans assumed that reconciliation between the Bible and evolution required the latter to be proven untrue. The British never doubted the validity of evolutionary theory and were convinced from the beginning that conflict stemmed not from the teachings of science or the Bible, but from the perspectives and biases with which one approached the issues. Nevertheless, by the mid 1980s these groups became more similar than they were different. As the ASA gradually accepted evolution and developed convictions similar to those of their British counterpart, the RSCF began to experience antievolutionary resistance with greater force. To set the stage for these developments, this study begins with a short introduction to the issues and brief examination of current historiographical trends. A background chapter follows that explores the issues that conditioned the intellectual and cultural settings of the 1940s. The work then proceeds to analyze the developments of the ASA and RSCF in four chapters. Chapters three and four explore the groups from the time of their founding in the 1940s to 1965. Chapters five and six explore events from 1965 to 1985. Reclaiming Peace: Evangelical Scientists and Evolution After World War II by Christopher M. Rios, B.A., B.Mus.Ed., M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of Religion ___________________________________ William H. Bellinger, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ William L. Pitts, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Rady Roldan-Figueroa, Th.D. ___________________________________ Barry G. Hankins, Ph.D. ___________________________________ D. W. Bebbington, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School December 2010 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2010 Christopher M. Rios All rights reserved CONTENTS PREFACE .......................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: .................................................................................................................1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................1 The State of the Conflict Thesis .................................................................................. 2 Overview ................................................................................................................... 13 Historiography .......................................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER TWO ...............................................................................................................20 Evangelicals and Science: 1860s to 1940s .........................................................................20 The Evolution of a Theory .............................................................................................22 Evangelical Responses ...................................................................................................26 Reconciling Evangelicalism and Evolution ...................................................................33 Resurgent Resistance .....................................................................................................42 The Scientific Attitude ....................................................................................................53 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................61 CHAPTER THREE ...........................................................................................................63 The American Scientific Affiliation: 1940s to 1965 .....................................................63 Founding the American Scientific Affiliation ........................................................... 65 Staking Their Ground ............................................................................................... 70 Coming to Terms with Evolution .............................................................................. 80 Parting Ways: The Creation of the Creation Research Society ............................... 93 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 108 CHAPTER FOUR ............................................................................................................110 The Research Scientists‘ Christian Fellowship: 1940s – 1965 ....................................110 Founding the Research Scientists‟ Christian Fellowship ....................................... 113 Reconciling Science and the Bible .......................................................................... 119 Reconciling Science and Theology ......................................................................... 139 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 153 iv CHAPTER FIVE .............................................................................................................155 The American Scientific Affiliation: 1965-1985 .........................................................155 State of the American Scientific Affiliation ............................................................. 156 The Oxford Conference ........................................................................................... 160 The Encounter Between Christianity and Science .................................................. 166 The Bube Era .......................................................................................................... 171 Beyond Evolution .................................................................................................... 185 The Inerrancy Question .......................................................................................... 189 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 201 CHAPTER SIX ................................................................................................................202 The Research Scientists‘ Christian Fellowship: 1965 – 1985 .....................................202 Membership............................................................................................................. 204 The Task at Hand .................................................................................................... 206 Miracles .................................................................................................................. 211 Evolution ................................................................................................................. 216 The Phenomenon of Man ........................................................................................ 218 Confronting Creationism ........................................................................................ 221 Apologetics for Science ........................................................................................... 236 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 246 CHAPTER SEVEN .........................................................................................................248 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................248 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................258 v PREFACE The bulk of the sources for this study have come from the archives of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) and the Research Scientists Christian Fellowship (RSCF), from papers and private documents made available to the author by members of each organization, from interviews and correspondence, and various publications from each group. The archives for the ASA are part of the Wheaton College Archives and Special Collections (SC-26) located in the Billy Graham Center on the Wheaton College Campus, Wheaton, IL. The collection is