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How did fundamentalism affect society in the 1920s? Unfortunately, Rimmer sometimes used even pseudo-scientific facts to defend the reliability of Scripture against scientists and biblical critics. By 1919, the World Christians Fundamentals Association was organized. This was especially relevant for those who were considered Christians. Distinctions of this sort, between false (modern) science on the one hand and true science on the other hand, are absolutely fundamental to creationism. The Scopes Trial has never been forgotten, and its repercussions are evident. The Lost Generation refers to the generation of writers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals that came of age during the First World War and the "Roaring Twenties.". Like todays creationists, Rimmer had a special burden for students. Proponents of common sense realism sometimes see such ideas, which lie at the core of all branches of modern science, as wholly unjustified speculations. The grandfather,Samuel Simon Schmucker, founded theLutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg; his son, Allentown pastorBeale Melanchthon Schmucker, helped found a competing institution, TheLutheran Philadelphia Seminary. In passages such as these, Schmucker stripped God of transcendence and removed from the laws of nature every ounce of contingency that has been so important for thedevelopment of modern science. Regardless of whose numbers we accept, many came away thinking that Rimmer had beaten Schmucker in a fair fight. Writing to his wife that afternoon, he had envisioned himself driving a team of oxen through the holes in his opponents arguments, just what he wished the Trojans would do to the Irish: they didnt; Notre Dame won, 27-0,before 90,000 fans. Define nativism and analyze the ways in which it affected the politics and society of the 1920s; Describe the conflict between urban Americans and rural fundamentalists; . The verdict sparked protests from Italian and other immigrant groups as well as from noted intellectuals such as writer John Dos Passos, satirist Dorothy Parker, and famed physicist Albert Einstein. As he had done so many times before, he had defeated an opponents theory by citing a particular fact.. Radio became deeply integrated into people's lives during the 1920's. It transformed the daily lifestyles of its listeners. One of the best things about many post-Darwinian theologies (and thats what Schmucker was writing here) is a very strong turn to divine immanence, an important corrective to many pre-Darwinian theologies, which tended to see Gods creative activityonlyin miracles of special creation, making it very difficult to see how God could work through the continuous process of evolution. In the period between the two world wars, many American scientists believed that evolution was progressiveand intelligently designed. Those who share my interest in baseball history are invited to read John A. Lucas, The Unholy ExperimentProfessional Baseballs Struggle against Pennsylvania Sunday Blue Laws, 1926-1934,Pennsylvania History38 (1971): 163-75. This caused a sense of fear and paranoia in American . This material is adapted from two articles by Edward B. Davis, Fundamentalism and Folk Science Between the Wars,Religion and American Culture5 (1995): 217-48, and Samuel Christian Schmuckers Christian Vocation,Seminary Ridge Review10 (Spring 2008): 59-75. Written in many cases by authors with genuine scientific expertise, such works had the positive purpose of forging a creative synthesis between the best theology and the best science of their dayexactly what we at BioLogos are doing. They rarely lead anyone in attendance to change their mind, or even to re-assess their views in a significant way. This was true for the U.S. as a whole. Direct link to Joshua's post In the Transformation and, Posted 3 years ago. Whereas theologically liberal scientists and theologians of the 1920s typically affirmed design while denying the Incarnation and Resurrection, many Christian scientists and theologians today are reluctant to speak of design at all. Humor was a powerful weapon for winning the sympathy of an audience, even without good arguments. Direct link to David Alexander's post We can reject things for , Posted 4 years ago. Going well beyond this discussion, I recommend a penetrating critique of religious aspects of naturalistic evolutionism by historianDavid N. Livingstone, Evolution as Metaphor and Myth,Christian Scholars Review12 (1983): 111-25. Indeed, the internet has done for plagiarism, even of really bad ideas, what steroids did to baseball for a generation. A flyer from the 1930s, advertising a boxed set of 25 pamphlets by Rimmer. Direct link to David Alexander's post Nativism posited white pe, Posted 3 years ago. The telephone connected families and friends. Schmucker got in on the ground floor. In an effort to put some nuance into our analysis of the debate, I turn to social philosopherJerome Ravetz, an astute critic of some of the excesses and shortcomings of modern science. Direct link to hailey jade's post Why not just put them in , Posted 5 months ago. Courtesy of Edward B. Davis. These two pamphlets from 1927, both of which were recycled as chapters in his book, The Harmony of Science and Scripture (1936), contain the best-known examples of Rimmer using false facts to defend a traditional interpretation of the Bible against the theories of academic biblical scholars. Why not just put them in camps, make sure they're not against democracy then let them go? 1920 - The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gives women the right to vote. The laws of nature, he said, are not the decisions of any man or group of men; not evenI say it reverentlyof God. Without a transcendent lawgiver to stand apart from nature as our judge, it was not hard to see eugenic reforms as morally appropriate means to spread the kingdom of God on earth. For many years Hearn has been a very active member of theAmerican Scientific Affiliation, an organization of evangelical scientists founded in 1941. If his Christian commitment wavered at all, its not evident in his helpful little book,On Being a Christian in Science. That way of thinking was widely received by historians and many other scholarsto say nothing of the ordinary person in the streetfor most of the twentieth century. This article explores fundamentalists, modernists, and evolution in the 1920s. Isnt that a fascinating statementa prominent theistic evolutionist endorsing intelligent design!? Why do you think there was a backlash against modernity in the 1920s? Harding worked to preserve the peace through international cooperation and the reduction of armaments around the world. Two of his books were used as national course texts by theChautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and his lectures, illustrated with numerousglass lantern slides, got top billing in advertisements for a quarter century. Although he never published any important research, Schmucker was admired by colleagues for his ability to communicate science accurately and effectively to lay audiences, without dumbing downso much so, that toward the end of World War One he was elected president of theAmerican Nature Study Society, the oldest environmental organization in the nation. Fundamentalists also rejected the modernity of the "Roaring Twenties" that increased the impulse to break with tradition and witnessed Americans beginning to value convenience and leisure over hard work and self-denial. So, it comes to no shock when the nativism is shown to also be a problem in the 1920s. A former high school science teacher, Ted studied history and philosophy of science at Indiana University, where his mentor was the late Richard S. Westfall, author of the definitive biography of Isaac Newton. Nativism posited white people whose ancestors had come to the Americas from northern Europe as "true Americans". Morris associate, the lateDuane Gish, eagerly put on Rimmers mantle, using humor and ridicule to win an audience when genuine scientific arguments might not do the trickand (like Rimmer) he is alleged to have won every one of themore than 300 debates in which he participated. Can intelligence and reason be content with twelve links in so great a gap, and call that a complete demonstration?. At a meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation in 1997, biochemist Walter Hearn (left) presents a plaque to the first president of the ASA, the lateF. Alton Everest, a pioneering acoustical engineer from Oregon State University. Either way, varieties of folk science, including dinosaur religion, will continue to appeal to anyone who wants to use the Bible as if it were an authoritative scientific text or to inflate science into a form of religion. Prosperity was on the rise in cities and towns, and social change flavored the air. Samuel Christian Schmuckers Christian vocation was to educate people about the great immanent God all around us. The twenties were a time of great divide between rural and urban areas in America. When Morris and others broke with the ASA in 1963 toform the Creation Research Society, it was precisely because he didnt like where the ASA was headed, and the new climate chilled his efforts to follow in Rimmers footsteps. Indeed, the basic folk-science of the educated sections of the advanced societies is Science itself (Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, pp. In retrospect, one of his most important engagements happened at Rice Institute (nowRice Universityin 1943. Christian fundamentalism, movement in American Protestantism that arose in the late 19th century in reaction to theological modernism, which aimed to revise traditional Christian beliefs to accommodate new developments in the natural and social sciences, especially the theory of biological evolution. The high hope of eugenics was to increase the proportion of fine strong beautiful upright human families and diminish the ratio of shiftless, weak, defaced, unmoral people, in order that the world will be bettered for ages. Progress was boundless. What exactly did he mean by a correlated body of absolute knowledge? To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. One of the key developments in the Middle East over the last three decades has been the rise of what commentators variously call political Islam, Islamism, and Islamic . Image credit: The outcome of the trial, in which Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, was never really in question, as Scopes himself had confessed to violating the law. The flapper, or flapper girl, was an ideal vision of a modern woman that rose to popularity among women in the 1920s in the United States and Europe, primarily as a result of huge political, social, and economic upheavals. Thinkers in this tradition, including many conservative Protestants in America, hold that the common sense of ordinary people is sufficient to evaluate truth claims, on the basis of readily available empirical evidenceessentially a Baconian approach to knowledge. T. Martin, Headquarters / Anti-Evolution League / The Conflict-Hell and the High School.. This is sort of like what China does to the people of Xinjiang of late, and what Vietnam did with former members of the Army of South Vietnam after 1975. The invitation came from a young instructor of engineering,Henry Morris, who went on to become the most influential young-earth creationist of his generation. This material is adapted from two articles by Edward B. Davis, Fundamentalism and Folk Science Between the Wars,Religion and American Culture5 (1995): 217-48, and Samuel Christian Schmuckers Christian Vocation,Seminary Ridge Review10 (Spring 2008): 59-75. In Tennessee, a law was passed making it illegal to teaching anything about evolution in that state's public . As far as we can tell from the evidence available today, Harry Rimmers debate with Samuel Christian Schmucker was of this type. He saw it as a money-making opportunity where he could sell memberships . In the opinion of historianRonald Numbers, No antievolutionist reached a wider audience among American evangelicals during the second quarter of the [twentieth] century (The Creationists, p. 60). The modern culture encouraged more freedom for young people and women. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasnt been reading my columns very carefully. Fundamentalism has a very specific meaning in the history of American Christianity, as the name taken by a coalition of mostly white, mostly northern Protestants who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, united in opposition to theological liberalism. July 1, 1925 John Thomas Scopes a substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was accused of violating Tennessee's a Butler Act, a law in which makes it unlawful to teach human evolution and mandated that teachers teach creationism. Rimmers antievolutionism and Schmuckers evolutionary theism were nothing other than competing varieties of folk science. Over a period of three hundred years of slavery in America White slave owners built a sophisticated structure to sustain their brutally corrupt and immoral system. As he said in closing, I am convinced that there is a continuous process of evolution. This material is adapted from Edward B. Davis, Fundamentalism and Folk Science Between the Wars,Religion and American Culture5 (1995): 217-48. He spelled it out in a pamphlet written a couple years later,Modern Science and the Youth of Today. I have also quoted newspaper accounts of the debate, Kansan [Rimmer] Wins in Debate on Theory of Evolution,Philadelphia Public Ledger, 23 November 1930, part II, 2; and See Divine Will Behind All of Life,Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 24 November 1930, 16. The new morality of the 1920s affected gender, race, and sexuality during the 1920s. In keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the . He expressed this in language that was more in tune with the boundless optimism of the French Enlightenment than with the awful carnage of theGreat Warthat was about to begin in Europe. Historically speaking, however, there was nothing remarkable about this. 190-91) the title says it all. and more. How should we understand the Rimmer-Schmucker debate? what was the cause and effect of the Scopes Trial? There is enough perfectly certain knowledge now on both sides of the problem to make human life a far finer thing than it now is, if only enough people could be persuaded of the truth of what the scientist knows and to act on it. (Heredity and Parenthood, pp. Isaac Newton at age 46, as painted by Godfrey Kneller (1689). As an historian, however, I should also point out thatthe warfare view is dead among historians, though hardly among the scientists and science journalists who are far more influential in shaping popular opinioneven though they usually know far less about this topic than the relevant experts. A better understanding of how we got here may help readers see more clearly just what BioLogos is trying to do. We can reject things for many reasons. Many of them were also modernists who denied the Incarnation and Resurrection; hardly any were fundamentalists. How did fundamentalism affect America? Wasnt that just putting the work of the wholly immanent God into practice, by applying the divine process of evolution to ourselves? There has always been nativism, in many time periods, including now :(, immigrants have not been welcome. A sub-literate audience, he said, needs fewer trappings of academic jargon and titles, while a sophisticated audience requires a reasonable facsimile of a leading branch of Science, such as physics (pp 388-89). His mother then made an enormous mistake, marrying a man who beat her children regularly before abandoning them a few years later. It was unseasonably warm for a late November evening when the evangelist and former semi-professional boxerHarry Rimmerstepped off the sidewalk and onto the steps leading up to the Metropolitan Opera House in downtown Philadelphia. Perhaps Ill provide that medication at some point down the road. Indeed, if we historians wrote about current scientific matters with the same blunt instruments that scientists typically employ when they write about past scientific matters, I dare say that no one would pay serious attention to us. If this were Schmuckers final word on divine immanence, it would be hard for me to be too critical. It only lasted for a short time. Unfortunately she destroyed their correspondence after the book was finished, so there is no archive of his papers available for historians to examine. The late Baptist theologianBernard Ramm, who attended one of Rimmers debates, remembered him as a superb humorist who had the crowd laughing along with him much of the time (quoting a letter from Ramm to the author). The notion of folk science comes from Jerome R. Ravetz,Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems(Oxford University Press, 1971). Muckraker Upton Sinclair based his indictment of the American justice system, the documentary novel, One of the most articulate critics of the trial was then-Harvard Law School professor Felix Frankfurter, who would go on to be appointed to the US Supreme Court by, To preserve the ideal of American homogeneity, the. Any interpretation that begins to do justice to the complexity of the interaction between Christianity and science must be heavily qualified and subtly nuancedclearly a disadvantage in the quest for public recognition, but a necessity nonetheless. In other words, you can use sound bites and false facts if you want a big audience, but only if you are prepared to kiss historical accuracy goodbye. Would the matter of both nativism and religious fundamentalism be considered a response to the new urbanised America that was developing at the time? They must have had families. ),Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science(University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. This creates such a large gap with professional science that it can never be crossed: YECs will always be in conflict with many of the most important, well established conclusions of modern science. But the 1920s were an age of extreme contradiction. All humor aside, Rimmer was an archetypical creationist. Direct link to David Alexander's post This is sort of like what, Posted 2 years ago. Between 1880 and 1920, conservative Christians began . Before the moderator called for a vote, he asked those people who came to the debate with a prior belief in evolution to identify themselves. Harry Rimmers strongest objections to evolution flowed from a rock bottom commitment to the harmony (a word he often used, including in the title ofone of his most popular booksof science and the Bible. While prosperous, middle-class Americans found much to celebrate about a new era of leisure and. Simultaneously, some of the larger Protestant denominations were rent by bitter internal conflicts over biblical authority and theological orthodoxy, with the right-wing fundamentalists and the left-wing modernists each trying to evict representatives of the other side from pulpits, seminaries, and missionary boards. During the 1920s, three Republicans occupied the White House: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. The roots of organized crime during the 1920s are tied directly to national Prohibition. While many Americans celebrated the emergence of modern technologies and less restrictive social norms, others strongly objected to the social changes of the 1920s. Lets see what happened. I have not found a comparable body of literature from the first half of the twentieth century. Fundamentalism vs. Modernism . The radio brought the world closer to home. The controversies of the early twentieth century profoundly influenced the current debate about origins: we havent yet gotten past it. On the other hand, most contemporary proponents of Intelligent Design are traditional Christians with little or no sympathy for the theological views of Schmucker and company. How did fundamentalism and nativism affect society in 1920s? A couple of years after his native city wasleveled by an earthquake, he joined the Army Coast Artillery and took up prize fighting with considerable success. What is fundamentalism discuss the characteristics of fundamentalism? A newspaper reported that Rimmer drew hearty applause when he declared [that] the entire structure of the theory of evolution fell to pieces by the admission of its supporters that the inheritance ofacquired characteristicshas been proved exploded. Although Schmucker knew thatAugust Weismannswork had ruled out that particular mechanism, he probably thought there was still some environmental influence on genetic variation. Fundamentalists thought consumerism relaxed ethics and that the changing roles of women signaled a moral decline. Source: streetsdept.com. Portrait of S. C. Schmucker in the latter part of his life, by an unknown artist, Schmucker Science Center, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. A former Methodist lay preacher whohelped launchthe field of developmental biology in the United States, Princeton professorEdwin Grant Conklinwas one of the leading public voices for science in the 1920s and 1930s. Fundamentalists thought consumerism relaxed ethics and that the changing roles of women signaled a moral decline. The cause was that a scientific theory (natural selection) challenged the beliefs of the legislators in Tennessee, who outlawed the teaching of that theory. But, since Im an historian and the subject is history, please pay attention. Why do you think the American government passed laws limiting immigration in the 1920s? 20-21. After noting the existence of twelve ancestral forms related to the modern horse, he asked, What of the millions upon millions of forms that would be required for the transformation of each species into the next subsequent species? Despite subsequent motions and appeals based on ballistics testing, recanted testimony, and an ex-convicts confession, both men were executed on August 23, 1927. I never fully understood why Scopes went on trial. After introducing the combatants, McCormick announced the proposition to be debated: That the facts of biology sustain the theory of evolution., Schmucker wanted to accomplish two things: to state the evidence for adaptation and natural selection and to refute the claim that evolution is irreligious. Now we explore the message he brought to so many ordinary Americans, at a time when the boundaries between science and religion were being obliterated in both directions. We shouldnt be surprised by this. Fundamentalism was especially strong in rural America. Is this really surprising? When people think of the 1920s, many imagine a golden era filled with flappers and Jazz, solo flights across the Atlantic, greater freedoms for women, a nascent movement for African American civil rights and a boom-time for capitalist expansion. The same decade that bore witness to urbanism and modernism also introduced the Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, nativism, and religious fundamentalism. How did fundamentalism and nativism affect society in 1920? There are several people and groups such as John Nelson Darby, William Bell Riley, and one group that, been in the news a lot . The cars brought the need for good roads. Opposition to teaching evolution in public schools mainly began a few years after World War One, leading to the nationally . Fundamentalism and secularism are joined by their relationship to religious conviction. Fundamentalism consists of the strict interpretation of the bible. What are fundamentalist beliefs? This material is adapted (sometimes without any changes in wording) from Edward B. Davis, A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist Fish Stories,Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith43 (1991): 224-37, and the introduction toThe Antievolution Pamphlets of Harry Rimmer, edited by Edward B. Davis (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995). Ken Ham, the CEO of theCreation Museum. Harry Rimmer got off to a very rough start. A regular at several prestigious venues in the Northeast, he was best known for his annual week-long series at theChautauqua Institution, the mother of all American bully pulpits. Morris hoped Rimmer would address the whole student body, but in the end he only spoke to about sixty Christian students. Some peoples religious views do indeed conflict with some parts of science, and I could point to several good historical examples: why beat around the bush? His home life was so difficult that he was expelled from school in third grade as an incorrigible child and had no further formal education until after being discharged from the Army. Knowing of Bryans convictions of a literal interpretation of the Bible, Darrow peppered him with a series of questions designed to ridicule such a belief. A narrow bibliolatry, the product not of faith but of fear, buried the noble tradition (quoting the 1976 edition ofThe Christian View of Science and Scripture, p. 9). Some cultures, including the United States, have a mix of both. When Rimmer began preaching before World War One, Billy Sunday was the most famous Bible preacher in America. At the same time, its easy now to find leading Christian scientists, including Nobel laureates, who affirm both evolution and theecumenical creeds, whereas such people were all but invisible in Schmuckers daya fact that only contributed to fundamentalist opposition to evolution. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 by six veterans of the Confederate Army. Add an answer. Ive been sorting my pebbles and greasing my sling. This creates a large gap between the views of professional scientists and those of many ordinary peoplea gap that is far more significant for the origins controversy than any supposed gaps in the fossil record. As it happens, his opponent was Gregorys longtime friend Samuel Christian Schmucker, a very frequent speaker at the Museum and undoubtedly one of the two or three best known speakers and writers on scientific subjects in the United States. The heat of battle would ignite the fire inside him, and the flames would illuminate the truth of his position while consuming the false doctrines of his enemy. In earlier generations, historians would have been tempted to apply the warfare model to episodes of that sort, on the assumption that science and religion have always been locked in mortal combat, with religion constantly yielding to science. Indeed, in the broad sense of the term, many of . His textbook,The Study of Nature, was published in 1908the same year in which The American Nature Study Society was founded. The great gulf separating Rimmer from Schmucker, fundamentalist from modernist, still substantially shapes the attitudes of American Protestants toward evolution. Born in San Francisco in 1890, his father died when he was just five years old. Listen to the verdict from two of the best historians of science in the world, neither of whom is religious. 13-14) Ultimately, Schmucker all but divinized eugenics as the source of our salvation; he believed it was the best means to eliminate sinful behaviors, including sexual promiscuity, the exploitation of workers, and undemocratic systems of government. It was in fact Rimmers second visit to Philadelphia in six months under their auspices, and this time he would top it off in his favorite way: with a rousing debate against a recognized opponent of fundamentalism. These agreements ultimately fell apart in the 1930s, as the world descended into war again. As more of the population flocked to cities for jobs and quality of life, many left behind in rural areas felt that their way of life was being threatened. Courtesy of Edward B. Davis. How did fundamentalism affect society in the 1920s? Opposition to teaching evolution in public schools mainly began a few years after World War One, leading to thenationally publicized trialof a science teacher for breaking a brand new Tennessee law against teaching evolution in 1925though it was really the law itself that was in the dock. Fundamentalism focused on Protestant teachings and the total belief that everything said in the Bible was the absolute truth. What really got him going wasNature Study, a national movement among science educators inspired by Louis Agassiz famous maxim to Study nature, not books. In many cases, this divide was geographic as well as philosophical; city dwellers tended to embrace the cultural changes of the era, whereas those who lived in rural towns clung to traditional norms. The problem with the New Atheists isnt their science, its the folk science that they pass off as science. The building bears a large sign reading T. The article mentions the Butler Act, which was a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. For the first time, the Census of 1920 reported that more than half of the American population now were indulging in urban life.