Creationism is a set of beliefs based on the idea that a Supreme Being brought into existence Earth and all its life through a direct act of creation. Creationism is usually associated with conservative Christians who base their beliefs on the Bible’s account of the Creation. Creationists include people of many different Christian faiths.
Creationist beliefs.
There is considerable variation in creationist beliefs. Strict creationists take the Biblical story of the Creation literally. They believe that God created the universe just thousands of years ago and created all life forms within six 24-hour days. Other creationists interpret the Bible more loosely. For example, some think the universe is millions or billions of years old, but that human beings were created only thousands of years ago. All creationists believe that each species (type of life form) on Earth has remained relatively unchanged since the Creation. They do not believe that any species has evolved from any other. Most creationists base their beliefs on the Bible alone. Some, however, called scientific creationists, argue that there is scientific evidence supporting their viewpoint.
Creationists reject the theory of evolution, which nearly all scientists have adopted as a basic idea of modern biology. The theory of evolution first gained widespread attention when it was presented by British naturalist Charles R. Darwin in 1858. It states that Earth came into being about 41/2 billion years ago and that one basic life form evolved since then into the millions of species that inhabit the world today. Physically modern human beings, according to the theory, first appeared about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, after evolving from earlier human and prehuman ancestors. Most Christians who are not creationists accept the theory of evolution, believing the process was guided by God.
Early theories about the Creation.
Modern Christian creationist belief stems from a time line published in the 1650’s by James Ussher, an archbishop of the Church of Ireland. Ussher constructed the time line by interpreting literally the birth and death dates of figures in the Bible. According to Ussher, God created Earth and its life forms in 4004 B.C. Today, however, considerable disagreement exists among creationists concerning the date of what they believe was the Creation.
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, Ussher’s ideas were called into question by the theory of evolution and other scientific developments. Christian leaders argued increasingly among themselves about the role of science in understanding Biblical accounts of the Creation. Some maintained the Bible should still be the basic source for information on the origin of Earth and its life.
The 1900’s.
In the early 1900’s, public high schools in the United States began teaching evolution in science classes. In the 1920’s, creationists proposed laws in 20 states to ban public schools from teaching evolution. They considered the teaching of the theory to be part of a dangerous trend toward the separation of religious beliefs from everyday life. Several states, including Arkansas and Tennessee, passed such legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposed the laws, saying that they violated the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. The ACLU challenged the Tennessee law in 1925 by defending a teacher named John T. Scopes, who had volunteered to stand trial on the charge of teaching evolution.
The ACLU lost the Scopes case, and the laws against teaching evolution remained in effect. However, public opinion of creationism suffered as a result of the trial because the press portrayed creationists as uninformed and out of touch with mainstream science.
In the 1960’s, more public schools again began to teach evolution, in part because of a fear that the United States was falling behind other nations in the teaching of science. In 1968, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that laws banning the teaching of evolution were unconstitutional because they made religious considerations part of the curriculum. Despite these setbacks, the creationist movement gained strength in the 1960’s.
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, scientific creationists proposed laws that would have made creationism a required subject in classrooms that taught evolution. These people argued that creationism, like evolution, is based on science and so should be taught along with evolution. They also said that because evolution is “just a theory,” it should be considered a religion. Thus they claimed that teaching only evolution would violate the Constitution both by limiting academic freedom and by supporting one religion over another.
In 1981, Arkansas and Louisiana passed laws that would have required the teaching of creationism in public schools. But the laws were declared unconstitutional—the Arkansas law by a U.S. district court in 1982 and the Louisiana law by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. The courts ruled that the theory of evolution was scientific rather than religious. They also concluded that creationism was essentially a religious explanation of life and that the Arkansas and Louisiana laws were therefore unconstitutional because they favored one religion over another.
Later developments.
Since the late 1980’s, creationists have sought to strengthen their influence through increased political activity in local school districts and communities. To avoid constitutional limits on teaching a specific religion, they have called for schools to teach other concepts, such as abrupt appearances and intelligent design, as alternatives to evolution. These concepts do not specifically refer to God, but they do state that at least some species or biological features appeared suddenly rather than evolving from earlier forms. Intelligent design became especially prominent during the 1990’s and 2000’s.
See also Evolution (Acceptance of evolution); Intelligent design; Scopes trial.
