FROM SCOPES TO REAGAN: PRESBYTERIANS AND THE PERSISTENCE OF ANTIEVOLUTION By JOSHUA BAIJU ABRAHAM A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2014 © 2014 Joshua Baiju Abraham To Joshy and Mariamma Abraham ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all I thank my parents, Joshy and Mariamma Abraham, for understanding how worthwhile this project was and donating large sums of money to support its completion. My parents endured substantial burdens to see this project to its completion and I sincerely thank them. I owe a great debt that I can never repay secondly to the professors of the University of Florida History Department. Above all, I thank Dr. Frederick Gregory for taking me on as a student and teaching me about the roots of modern science and training me to think about the development of science and the complex interactions it has had with the domain of religion. Dr. Gregory’s patience in correcting the thousands of errors in my chapters over the course of seven years was truly a herculean feat of patience and endurance. I also wish to thank Dr. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis for teaching me about the history of evolutionary biology but also urging me to think about science and scientific communities in an interdisciplinary way. Dr. Robert Hatch schooled me in the origins of ancient science and the scientific revolution. Dr. Jack Davis taught me about the history of the South after the Civil War and got me thinking about issues of race that played so central a role in my work. I also owe a debt to Drs. Charles Montgomery and the late Alan Petingy for compelling me to think about the Religious Right in the 1960s. Drs. Mark Noll and David Livingstone put me on the track that led to this dissertation when I took their 2000 class on science and religion at Regent College in Vancouver, a seminary to which I owe much in terms of thinking about these issues. I also wish to thank Drs. David Mahan and Richard Horner of the Rivendell Institute for Thought and Learning at Yale and the Christian Study Center of Gainesville respectively for their mentoring me in thinking about Christianity and culture. I also owe thanks to thirteen interviewees who elucidated the structure and values of fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant cultures, including Dr. Udo Middelmann, Dr. John Frame, Mark Rushdoony, Dr. Douglas Creer, Dr. Charles Thaxton, Dr. Tim LaHaye, Dr. Elmer 4 Towns, Dr. George Marsden, John Whitehead, Professor Jeffrey Tuomala, and Dr. John Morris. Finally, I wish to thank Dr. Elizabeth Dale and Dr. Brent Henderson, who served along with Drs. Gregory, Davis, and Smocovitis on my committee, for reading this lengthy document and providing critique. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................10 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................13 Recapitulation of the Thesis ...................................................................................................19 The Changing Historiography of the Post-Scopes Era ...........................................................28 2 J. GRESHAM MACHEN, PRESBYTERIAN INTELLECTUAL OF THE SCOPES ERA ........................................................................................................................................70 John Gresham Machen (1881-1937) ......................................................................................82 Machen’s Theological Views .................................................................................................88 Early Warnings: The Threat of Disciplinary Autonomy .................................................88 Academic Etiquette and Attempts at the Re-Integration of a Compartmentalizing Modernity .....................................................................................................................93 Machen vs. Fosdick: Conflicting Codings of the Future and the Past ............................97 Machen’s Social Views ........................................................................................................102 Defending States’ and Parents’ Rights Against a Backdrop of European-style Bureaucratization .......................................................................................................102 Machen on Suffrage: States Rights ...............................................................................104 Alien Registration and Fingerprinting: European Resemblance Abhorred ...................105 Child Labor: Parents’ Rights .........................................................................................108 Education: Differentiation as Good, Uniformity as Evil ...............................................111 The Final Battle: Roosevelt’s New Deal as the Negation of Etiquette and Due Process .......................................................................................................................115 Machen’s Scientific Views ...................................................................................................119 3 DIVERSITY AND UNITY—HARRY RIMMER AND GEORGE MCCREADY PRICE ...................................................................................................................................125 Harry Rimmer (1890-1952): Self-Styled Researcher ...........................................................128 Defending Supernatural Inspiration: Anticipating Science in a Pre-Scientific Age .....135 Limiting the Scope of Science’s Jurisdiction: Historical Sciences as Unprovable Speculation .................................................................................................................140 Corollary: The Democratizing Stratagem of the “Fossil Shuffle” ................................141 No Perceived Threat: Rimmer’s Tolerance for Continued Debate Over the Age of the Earth .....................................................................................................................146 Autonomy as a Mark of the Devil .................................................................................154 6 George McCready Price (1870-1963): Instantaneity in Geology and Biology ....................157 Stopping Geological Time .............................................................................................163 The New Geology ..........................................................................................................165 Geology and Genetics: Limiting Time ..........................................................................169 Stopping Biological Time ..............................................................................................172 Coding Race-Mixing as Evolution, Autonomy and Apostasy ......................................178 4 CARL MCINTIRE AND THE CHRISTIAN BEACON—APOSTASY IN CHURCH AND STATE ........................................................................................................................182 Carl McIntire (1906-2002): Separatist Pastor and Rights Advocate ....................................187 Backdrop: The Ecumenical Movement, Neo-Evangelicals, and the Worldview of The Christian Beacon Newspaper .............................................................................198 Containing Revolutions On Many Fronts: The Beacon’s First Battles .........................204 Ecumenism as Spiritual Adultery/Apostasy ..................................................................207 The Seduction of the Brethren, Part One: The NAE .....................................................213 The Battle Fully Joined: Codings and Antithesis in 1954 .............................................214 A Moment in the Spotlight ............................................................................................224 The Ecumenical Monster Cartoon .................................................................................230 A Year of Transition: 1957-1958 ..................................................................................232 A Matter of Vocabulary: Unveiling the Deception of the Middle Steps into Apostasy .....................................................................................................................232 Revolution as Seduction of the Brethren, Part Two: The New York City Crusade of Billy Graham ..............................................................................................................234 Revolution as Civil Rights .............................................................................................242 5 THE SUPREME COURT AND THE FUNDAMENTALIST WORLDVIEW...................245 The Beginnings of Judicial Revolution ................................................................................247 From Free Speech and Race to the Rights of Religious Minorities .....................................260 Religious Minorities and the Beginnings of Organized Culture War ...................................267 6 THE FUNDAMENTALISTS’ SEARCH FOR RIGHTS.....................................................280 Carl