Humor was a powerful weapon for winning the sympathy of an audience, even without good arguments. According toDavid LindbergandRonald L. Numbers, recent scholarship has shown the warfare metaphor to beneither useful nor tenablein describing the relationship between science and religion. 190-91) the title says it all. This part turns a similar light on Schmucker. How did fundamentalism affect America? As Ipointed out in another series, that controversy from this period profoundly influenced the current debate about origins: we havent yet gotten past it. T. Martin, Headquarters / Anti-Evolution League / The Conflict-Hell and the High School.. So great was his anger, that he carried a gun with him as an adolescent, hoping to find and kill his former stepfather. They reacted to the rapid social changes of modern urban society with a vigorous . 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. 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. There has always been nativism, in many time periods, including now :(, immigrants have not been welcome. Unfortunately, Rimmer sometimes used even pseudo-scientific facts to defend the reliability of Scripture against scientists and biblical critics. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. Additional information comes from my introduction toThe Antievolution Pamphlets of Harry Rimmer(New York: Garland Publishing, 1995). The 1920s was a decade of change, and we see the 2020s as reminiscent of the cultural flux of that period. The most influential historical treatments remain Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (1970) and George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980). Fundamentalism is usually characterized by scholars as a religious response to modernism, especially the theory of evolution as an explanation of human origins and the idea that solutions to problems can be found without regard to traditional religious values. 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. A flyer from the 1930s, advertising a boxed set of 25 pamphlets by Rimmer. This means that professional scientists like Dawkins are perfectly capable of doing folk science; you dont need to be a Harry Rimmer or a Ken Ham. What really got him going wasNature Study, a national movement among science educators inspired by Louis Agassiz famous maxim to Study nature, not books. 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. They are the principles of his being as they shine out, declaring his presence behind and within and through the whirling electrons. Like most fundamentalists then and now, he saw high schools, colleges, and universities as hotbeds of religious doubt. 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. Fundamentalism vs. Modernism . Though the movement lost the public spotlight after the 1920s, it remained robust . What are fundamentalist beliefs? Every immigrant was seen as an enemy fundamentalism clashed with the modern culture in many ways. When then asked to stand again if they found Schmucker more persuasive, it seemed that only this same small group stood up and those who voted seemed not to have had their preconceived ideas changed by the debate. Rimmers own account (in a letter to his wife) differed markedly; he claimed that Schmuckers support nearly disappeared, while gloating over his rhetorical conquest. I learned about it in two books that provide excellent analyses of both creationism and naturalistic evolutionism as examples of folk science; seeHoward J. Harding worked to preserve the peace through international cooperation and the reduction of armaments around the world. Nevertheless, the trial itself proved to be high drama. But modern science is the opinion of current thought on many subjects, and has not yet been tested or proved. With Rimmer and his crowd decrying good science, and Schmucker and his crowd denying good theology, American Christians of the Scopes era faced a grim choice. As a brief synopsis, initially, urban Americans believed in modernism . So, it comes to no shock when the nativism is shown to also be a problem in the 1920s. Science is mans earnest and sincere, though often bungling, attempt to interpret God as he is revealing himself in nature. (Through Science to God, pp. 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). I believe there is a kinship between all living things. The modern culture encouraged more freedom for young people and women. 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. 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. and more. Why do you think the American government passed laws limiting immigration in the 1920s? With seating for about 4,000 people, it was more than half full when Rimmer debated Schmucker about evolution in November 1930. 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. I shall type my notes for easy reference and then rest until the gong sounds.. 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. Societal Changes in the 1920s. Between 1880 and 1920, conservative Christians began . How Did The Scopes Trial Affect Society. The same decade that bore witness to urbanism and modernism also introduced the Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, nativism, and religious fundamentalism. 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. Last winter, I was part of asymposium on religion and modern physicsat the AAAS meeting in Chicago. 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. 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. Similar pictures of God presented by some prominent TE advocates today only underscore the ongoing importance of getting ones theology right, especially when it comes to evolution andcosmology. Many women didn't want to give up the well-paying jobs and economic freedom they'd acquired during World War I. Direct link to gonzalezaaliyah's post How did America make its , Posted 2 years ago. what was the cause and effect of the Scopes Trial? Is this really surprising? 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. During the Scopes Monkey Trial, supporters of the Butler Act read literature at the headquarters of the Anti-Evolution League in Dayton, Tennessee. Direct link to David Alexander's post Nativism posited white pe, Posted 3 years ago. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Lets go further into this particular rhetorical move. Why not just put them in camps, make sure they're not against democracy then let them go? Direct link to Keira's post There has always been nat, Posted 3 years ago. All humor aside, Rimmer was an archetypical creationist. What caused the rise of fundamentalism? In Tennessee, a law was passed making it illegal to teaching anything about evolution in that state's public . These fundamentalists used the bible to guide their actions throughout the 1920's. Without such, its impossible to claim that science and a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible agree. The cars brought the need for good roads. The new morality of the 1920s affected gender, race, and sexuality during the 1920s. Unlike Moore, he had no interest in a God who could create immanently through evolution but could also transcendently bring Christ back from the dead. Morris hoped Rimmer would address the whole student body, but in the end he only spoke to about sixty Christian students. Lets see what happened. Direct link to Liam's post Would the matter of both , Posted 4 years ago. His textbook,The Study of Nature, was published in 1908the same year in which The American Nature Study Society was founded. This cartoon, drawn by W. D. Ford forWhy Be an Ape?, a book published in 1936 by the English journalist Newman Watts. Cartoon by Ernest James Pace,Sunday School Times, June 3, 1922, p. 334. But the 1920s were an age of extreme contradiction. Fundamentalism and nativism had a significant affect on American society during the 1920's. Fundamentalism consists of the strict interpretation of the bible. Radio became deeply integrated into people's lives during the 1920's. It transformed the daily lifestyles of its listeners. Rimmer wasnt actually from Kansas, but he liked to advertise a formal connection he had made with asmall state college there. Additional information comes from my introduction toThe Antievolution Pamphlets of Harry Rimmer(New York: Garland Publishing, 1995).Roger Schultz, All Things Made New: The Evolving Fundamentalism of Harry Rimmer, 1890-1952, a doctoral dissertation written for the University of Arkansas (1989), is the only full-length scholarly biography and the best source for many details of his life. He awaited that confrontation as eagerly as the one he was about to engage in himselfa debate about evolution with Samuel Christian Schmucker, a local biologist with a national reputation as an author and lecturer. Isnt it high time that we found a third way? 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. 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. His article about dinosaur religion was featured in my series onScience and the Bible, but I highlighted a different aspect of the article. His God wascoevalwith the world and all but identical with the laws of nature, and evolutionary progress was the source of his ultimate hope. The negative opinion many native-born Americans held toward immigration was in part a response to the process of postwar urbanization. His God was embedded in an eternal world that he didnt even create. Eight decades later, the horse remains atextbook example of evolution, and creationists still demand more transitional formsdespite the fact that, as creation scientistTodd Woodadmits, the evolutionists got that one right. Regardless of whose numbers we accept, many came away thinking that Rimmer had beaten Schmucker in a fair fight. What is an example of a fundamentalist? The pastor of one of the churches, William L. McCormick, served as moderator. Ken Ham, the CEO of theCreation Museum. How did fundamentalism affect society in the 1920s? This phenomenon, he argues, has made possible the persistence of religion in our highly scientific society. 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). Some of the reasons for the rejections by fundamentalists and nativists were because these people were afraid. 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. Courtesy of Edward B. Davis. Our foray into this long-forgotten episode will provide an illuminating window into the roots of the modern origins debate. Thats fine as far as it goes, but proponents are sometimestoo empirical, too dismissive of the high-level principles and theories that join together diverse observations into coherent pictures. It could be argued that fundamentalism is a serious contemporary problem that affects all aspects of society and will likely influence all cultures for the foreseeable future. Our mission at BioLogos is to provide a helpful alternative to both Rimmer and the YECs, an alternative that bridges this gap in biblically faithful ways. How should we understand the Rimmer-Schmucker debate? The result was that those who approved of the teaching of evolution saw Bryan as foolish, whereas many rural Americans considered the cross-examination an attack on the Bible and their faith. Interestingly, Wikipedia pages exist for his father and grandfather, two of the most important Lutheran clergy in American history, while electronic information about the grandson is minimal, despite his notoriety ninety years ago. They founded "The Klan" to protect the interests of the white popularity. These will also be made monkeys of. 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. 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. Having set up the situation in this way, Rimmer knew full well that so great a gap will never be crossedwe will never find millions of transitional forms. The former casts the tradition as an intellectual movement, a cluster of . One of the students who heard Rimmer at Rice, Walter R. Hearn, became a biochemist specializing in experiments exploring the possible chemical origin of life (seehereandhere). The building bears a large sign reading T. Fundamentalists looked to the Bible with every important question they had . Direct link to Hecretary Bird's post The article mentions the , Posted 5 months ago. How did fundamentalism and nativism affect society in 1920? Both groups differed in viewpoints on almost every topic. The ISR's Ashley Smith interviewed him about one of the pressing questions raised by the Arab Springthe Left's understanding of, and approach to, Islamic Fundamentalism. 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. The leading creationist of the next generation, the lateHenry Morris, said that accounts of Rimmers debates made it obvious that present-day debates are amazingly similar to those of his time (A History of Modern Creationism, note on p. 92). 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. For more than thirty years, historians have been probing beneath the surface of apparent conflicts, searching for the underlying reasons why people with different beliefs have sometimes clashed over matters involving science. Often away from home for extended periods, Rimmer wrote many letters to his wife Mignon Brandon Rimmer. 2015-01-27 16:44:00. The theory of evolution, developed by Charles Darwin, clashed with the description of creation found in the Bible. Why not? The moment came during his rebuttal. History, asan historian once said, is just too important to be left to historians. Courtesy of Edward B. Davis. Innocent youth faced challenges from faculty intent on ripping out their faith by the roots. What are the other names for the 1920s. 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. Darwinism, he wrote, has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit, by showing us that we must choose between two alternatives. Come back to see what happens. Fundamentalism attempts to preserve core religious beliefs and requires obedience to moral codes. Most religious scientists from Schmuckers time embraced that position. Can intelligence and reason be content with twelve links in so great a gap, and call that a complete demonstration?. Years later, Morris expressed disappointment that he didnt get a chance to talk to Rimmer afterward, owing to another commitment: he had been eagerly looking forward to getting to know [Rimmer] personally, hoping to secure his guidance for what I hoped might become a future testimony in the university world somewhat like his own (A History of Modern Creationism, p. 91). It was not put there by a higher power. This is followed by as blithe a confession of divine immanence as anyone has ever written: The laws of nature are not the fiat of almighty God, they are the manifestation in nature of the presence of the indwelling God. If you were an avid reader of popular science in the 1920s, chances are you needed no introduction to Samuel Christian Schmucker: you already knew who he was, because youd read one or two of his very popular books or heard him speak in some large auditorium. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. During the 1920s, three Republicans occupied the White House: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. 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. AsBernard Rammlamented long ago, the noble tradition which was in ascendancy in the closing years of the nineteenth century has not been the major tradition in evangelicalism in the twentieth century. 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. The laws of nature are eternal even as God is eternal. Despite the fact that Isaac Newton himself had explicitly rejected both the physics and the theology he was about to utter, Schmucker then said that gravitation is inherent in the nature of the bodies. For more about Compton and design, see my article, Prophet of Science Part Two: Arthur Holly Compton on Science, Freedom, Religion, and Morality [PDF],Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith61 (September 2009): 175-90. We shouldnt be surprised by this. The fundamentalism can be better considered a response to the horrors of WWI and the involvement in international affairs, although it was partially a response to the new, modern, urban, and science-based society, as shown in the Scopes Monkey Trial. Wiki User. Rimmer was a highly experienced debater who knew how to work a crowd, especially when it was packed with supporters who considered him an authority and appreciated his keen wit. Courtesy of Edward B. Davis. Some believe that the women's rights movement affected fashion, promoting androgynous figures and the death of the corset. Advertisement for talks Rimmer had given at a California church several months earlier. As a defendant, the ACLU enlisted teacher and coach, A photograph shows a group of men reading literature that is displayed outside of a building. Urbanites, for their part, viewed rural Americans as hayseeds who were hopelessly behind the times. I lack space to develop this point more fully, so Ill just quote something from one of the greatest post-Darwinian theologians, the Anglo-Catholic clergyman and botanistAubrey Moore. Although he quit boxing after his dramatic conversion to Christianity at a street meeting in San Francisco, probably on New Years Day, 1913, the pugilistic instincts still came out from time to time, especially in the many debates he conducted throughout his career as an itinerant evangelist. For much of the nineteenth century, by contrast, many highly respected Christian scholars had introduced a substantial body of literature harmonizing solid, respectable science of their day with the evangelical faith. 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). Hyers called naturalistic evolutionism dinosaur religion, because it uses an evolutionary way of structuring history as a substitute for biblical and theological ways of interpreting existence. In other words, When certain scientists suggest that the religious accounts of creation are now outmoded and superseded by modern scientific accounts of things, this is dinosaur religion. Or when scientists presume that evolutionary scenarios necessarily and logically lead to a rejection of religious belief as a superfluity, this is dinosaur religion. Even though Dawkins vigorously denies being religiousfor him, religion is a virus that needs to be eradicated, not something he wants to practice himselfhe fits this description perfectly. fundamentalism, type of conservative religious movement characterized by the advocacy of strict conformity to sacred texts. 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. A better understanding of how we got here may help readers see more clearly just what BioLogos is trying to do. In the period between the two world wars, many American scientists believed that evolution was progressiveand intelligently designed. Indicative of the revival of Protestant fundamentalism and the rejection of evolution among rural and white Americans was the rise of Billy Sunday. To understand this more fully, lets examine Rimmers view of scientific knowledge. The drama only escalated when Darrow made the unusual choice of calling Bryan as an expert witness on the Bible.