Putting
Evolution on the
Defensive: William B. Riley and the Rise of Fundamentalism in
As Charles Darwin
noted in his
autobiography, rationalism and skepticism flourished in the latter half
of the
1800s among the educated elites. The theory of evolution continued to
win new
converts, and by the end of the 1800s was accepted dogma at most
institutions
of higher learning. Natural causes
seemed in; supernatural causes seemed out. A showdown over the theory’s
validity
and place in education seemed unlikely.
Evolution appeared destined to triumph without another major
battle—at
least not as to the fact of evolution, as opposed to the mechanism by
which it
occurs, which remained a topic of debate. In theological circles, the
rage was
“higher criticism,” an approach to determining scriptural meaning by
looking at
the socio-historical setting of its writers.
The Bible contained important messages, these theologians said,
but no
serious person can any longer pretend that the Bible, for example,
provided an
accurate guide to world history.
Literalism seemed headed for virtual extinction.
The anti-evolution
campaign of
the 1920s might never have happened without the leadership of an
austere,
upright Baptist minister in
The first is John
Nelson Darby,
founder of the Plymouth Brethren Movement.
Darby insisted biblical prophesies provided “a sure guide to
human
history—past, present, and future.” (GE,
27) After having founded the
movement
three decades earlier in
Darby’s writings
became the
primary source of inspiration for the second theologian to figure
prominently
in the birth of the fundamentalist movement, Dwight L. Moody. Moody is remembered as the first prominent
American theologian to raise the banner of biblical inerrancy. Dwight L. Moody said he “would rather part
with my entire library, excepting my Bible” than Darby’s works. “They have been to me,” he said, “the very
key to the Scriptures.”
To say Moody took
the Bible
seriously is an understatement. He rose
at five o’clock every morning to engage in several hours of prayerful
study of
the book. He was especially interested
in Genesis, offering the advice: “Spend six months studying Genesis; it
is the
key to the whole book.” Although a
careful study of the Bible, no one could call Moody a well-rounded
reader. His choice of books followed a
simple rule. “I do not read any book,” he
said, “unless it
helps me understand the Book.”
In the 1870s, Moody
began an
evangelical crusade on a scale never seen before in American history.
“There
was a time when I wanted to see my little vineyard blessed, and I could
not get
out of it,” he declared. “But I could
work for the whole world now; I would like to go round the world and
tell the
perishing millions of a Saviour’s love.”
He preached his ardent pre-millennialist message to large crowds
in the
British Isles for two years beginning in 1873, before re-crossing the
Atlantic
to launch his religious campaign in the
As Moody’s
crusading career
neared its end, the career of William B. Riley—inevitably labeled in
the press
as “a second Dwight L. Moody”—was just taking off.
(GE, 24) Riley called Moody his “hero” and
adopted much of his evangelical predecessor’s message.
In revival meetings around the
Riley’s distinctive
brand of
fundamentalism combined social activism, puritanical moralism, and a
literalist
premillennialist theology. In his 1906
book urging Christians to serve the urban poor, Riley defined the
mission of
the Church as he saw it: “When the Church is regarded as the body of
God-fearing, righteous-living men, then, it ought to be in politics,
and as a
powerful influence.” (EL, 35-36)
Riley threw himself
into
politics. Seeing liquor as the source of
most urban problems, he became an outspoken advocate for prohibition. Following the adoption of the Eighteenth
Amendment in 1919, Riley devoted full attention to another threat to
Christian
life: “the new infidelity, known as modernism.” Opposition to
modernism, both
in the form of liberal theology and trends in modern culture, became
the core
of his new movement. The cultural
clashes of World War II had intensified tensions between theological
liberals
and conservatives, and the time seemed right for a national
anti-modernist
crusade. Riley deeply resented the
frequent suggestion that only modernists were “men who really think,”
and his
bitterness left him itching for a fight. (GE, 35)
Riley invented the
label
“fundamentalist” and became the prime mover in the movement that took
that
name. Riley, in May 1919, brought
together in
For his part, Riley
led the
effort to purge the Northern Baptist denomination of liberals and
headed out on
an eighteen-city crusade financed, in large part, by wealthy donors
such as J.
C. Penney. (PC, 67-68) Everywhere, it
seemed,
ministers heaped praise the restrained and dignified crusader. An
Although his
Fundamentalist
movement began as a reaction to the growing popularity of “higher
criticism”
(the view that the Bible is best understood in the distinct historical
and
cultural context which produced it), Riley soon identified the growing
acceptance by modernist religious leaders of evolution as the
infidelity most
threatening to Christian values. Riley
made the teaching of evolution in the public schools his number one
target. Evolution, he declared, was the
“propaganda of infidelity, palmed off in the name of science.” (GMT, 52-53)
He believed the theory lacked substantiating evidence and said
so
repeatedly: “Do no violence to the splendid attainments of human
speech by
calling [proofs of evolution] ‘scientific.’” Science, for Riley,
consisted of
observable facts and demonstrable laws; it allowed for no speculation. Beyond its threat to the faith and its
questionable veracity, Riley had another objection to evolution: he
worried, as
did many progressives of his day, that Darwinism with its notion of
“survival
of the fittest” offered support for self-centered economic policies and
insensitive treatment of the disabled and mentally infirm.
If the theory of evolution triumphs, Riley
warned, the foundations of civilizations will “be swept out their
places,
gnarled, twisted, torn, and finally flung on the banks of time’s tide.” (GE, 46)
He demanded to know, “Is there any longer any doubt as to the
relation
between Evolution and Anarchy?” (GE, 46)
The focus on
evolution allowed
Riley to go after his modernist enemies in the halls of academia. In his 1917 book, Menace of Modernism,
Riley lashed out more at academic experts—whose authority had largely
supplanted that of ministers—than liberal theologians.
“Conservative ministers have about as good a
chance to be heard in a Turkish harem,” he declared in the book, “as to
be
invited to speak within the precincts of a modern state university.” (GE, 35)
Some historians prefer to see the rise of fundamentalism
primarily as a
reaction by conservative ministers to their loss of prestige at the
hands of
intellectuals, and Riley’s Menace of Modernism might be seen as
Exhibit
A for that position.
So confident was
Riley is the
rightness of his views that he offered “to travel any reasonable
distance” to
debate an evolutionist—so long as his opponent had credentials
sufficiently
worthy to justify the trip and the audience—not judges—was allowed to
determine
the winner. I’m unafraid, he said, to go
on college campuses and “meet our opponent on his own ground.” More than two dozen evolutionists did indeed
take Riley up on his offer, including Maynard Shipley, president of the
Science
League of America, and high officials of the American Civil Liberties
Union. Radio, in its infancy, carried
some of the debates live. Riley later
claimed to have compiled a 28–0 record in his
debates
(with the help of active recruitment of fundamentalists to fill seats),
but
newspaper reports indicate that he narrowly lost one debate in
By 1922, the WFCA
was actively
promoting its anti-evolution agenda around the country.
Riley sounded the battle cry: “We
increasingly realize that the whole menace in modernism exists in its
having
accepted Darwinism against Moses, and the evolutionary hypothesis
against the
inspired word of God.” (GE, 48) He
suggested targeting public education, where evolution had gained a
foothold in
biology classes around the country.
“There are hundreds of teachers,” he complained, pushing
evolution on
students and their “teachings take root in the garden of the Lord.” (GE, 48) It was high time, he said, for
Christian taxpayers to stand up and object.
The debates moved
into
legislative halls. In
The WFCA--in
editorials
probably written by Riley--attacked evolution in vituperative terms. The editorials denounced evolution as
inconsistent with the Bible, bad science, and as a threat to peace and
morality. Teachers who pushed this theory
on “the
rising generation” were called evil. By
1923, Riley in an article linked evolution to “anarchistic socialistic
propaganda” and labeled those who would teach it “atheists.” (By the 1930s, Riley’s attacks became even
more over-the-top, as when he warned of an “international
Jewish-Bolshevik-Darwinist conspiracy” and congratulated Adolf Hitler
on his
attempts to confront such a conspiracy in
In the period 1923
to 1924,
Riley spent a great deal of time crusading against evolution in
When the fate of
When evolution
proponents
orchestrated their challenge to the new
FN: The prosecution originally slated Riley
to
testify at
Riley reported on the trial in the WFCA
newsletter. Both reporters and defense
lawyers earned Riley’s wrath. In his attacks, he referred to
“blood-sucking
journalists” and called Clarence Darrow’s methods “unfair” and his
questioning
of
Time proved Riley wrong, and the WFCA’s
obsession
with the evolution eventually doomed the organization.
In 1927, despite a furious effort by Riley
and his followers, the legislature of his home state of
By 1928, Riley became a fringe figure within
his own
denomination. In early 1930s, he
preached a virulent form of anti-Semitism and became a fascist
sympathizer. World War II finally
softened his anti-Semitism. In his last
years, Riley persuaded evangelist Billy Graham to replace him as head
of three
educational institutions—a seminary, a Bible institute, and a
college—he had
established in
Riley listens on July 13, 1925
as the enemy, in the person of defense attorney Clarence Darrow,
defends
modernism and argues that evolution and religion can stand together.
Darrow tells the
courtroom
crowd that the Constitution protects “even the despised modernist, who
dares to
be intelligent.” (T, 83)
Roaming the courtroom in his white shirt and
suspenders, he paints a picture of a blissful
“Here is the state
of Tennessee
going along in its own business, teaching evolution for years, state
boards
handing out books on evolution, professors in colleges, teachers in
schools,
lawyers at the bar, physicians, ministers, a great percentage of the
intelligent citizens of the state of Tennessee [are] evolutionists.
[They] have
not even thought it was necessary to leave their church.
They believed that they could appreciate and
understand their own simple doctrine of the Nazarine, to love thy
neighbor, be
kindly to them, not to place a fine on and not try to send to jail some
man who
did not believe at they believed—and got along all right with it too,
until
something happened….”
“They believed that
all that
was here was not made on the first six days of creation, [but that] it
had come
by a slow process…extending over the ages, that one thing grew out
another. There are people who believed
that organic life and the plants and the animals and man and the mind
of man,
and the religion of man, are the subjects of evolution….[T]hey believed
[that
God]…is still working to make something better and higher still out of
human
beings,…and that evolution had been working forever and will work
forever—they
believe it.”
“And along comes
somebody who
says we all have got to believe it as I believe it. It is a crime to
know more
than I know.”
======================================================
Evolution/Creationism
Controversy