Article
Darwinism, Fundamentalism, and R. A. Torrey
Michael N. Keas
Michael N. Keas
R. A. Torrey (1856–1928), a leading world evangelist at the turn of the twentieth century, played a prominent role in the emergence of fundamentalism, which aimed to defend Christianity against liberalism. The writers of The Fundamentals (1910–1915), including Torrey, proposed harmony between science and Christianity by accepting the standard geological ages and by offering some criticisms of Darwinism. Torrey advanced the work of The Fundamentals beyond 1915 through the monthly periodical of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, The King’s Business (1910–1970). Although Torrey offered occasional criticism of Darwinism in The King’s Business and his other publications, he urged evangelicals and fundamentalists to focus on biblical inerrancy and a repudiation of naturalism more broadly. There is much to be emulated from early fundamentalism before it flung itself into the humiliation of the 1925 Scopes trial—a disastrous move that Torrey did not support. R. A. Torrey is worth remembering in 2010, the centennial year of The Fundamentals.
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istorical and philosophical analysis of science and religion can improve our understanding of how science and religion have related and how they should relate. On the last page of his insightful book about American fundamentalism, historian George Marsden wrote, Since God’s work appears to us in historical circumstances where imperfect humans are major agents, the actions of the Holy Spirit in the church are always intertwined with culturally conditioned factors.1 Following Marsden, I shall analyze some of the “culturally conditioned factors” of science and fundamentalism in the early twentieth century (how science and religion have related), largely leaving the matter of how they should relate to another study. Even so, historical knowledge can inform philosophical inquiry. Volume 62, Number 1, March 2010
The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (hereafter, Biola) played a prominent role in the emergence of fundamentalism in the early twentieth century, particularly through the work of R. A. Torrey— Biola’s dean from 1912 to 1924. If the twenty-first-century reader can look beyond the harmful connotations of the term fundamentalism today and recognize its beneficial features before the 1925 Scopes trial, such reflection might inspire a better relationship between science and Christianity. Presbyterian ASA Fellow Michael N. Keas earned a PhD in the history of science from the University of Oklahoma. He experienced some of the last historic moments behind the Berlin Wall as a Fulbright Scholar in East Germany. He is professor of the history and philosophy of science at the College at Southwestern in Fort Worth and an adjunct professor in Biola University’s M.A. program in Science and Religion. He teaches physical science, biology, philosophy, logic, hermeneutics, rhetoric, intellectual history, and the history of science and religion. His scholarly and curricular work has received funding from agencies such as the John Templeton Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He has contributed articles to several scholarly journals and anthologies, including the American Chemical Society’s Nobel Laureates in Chemistry and Darwinism, Design and Public Education published by Michigan State University Press. 25