Religion & Law

Modern Fears

By John Pieret

A thought:

[T]he Presbyterian General Assembly declared in 1910 that there are five fundamental tenets of Christian faith: the miracles performed by Christ; the virgin birth; Christ's bodily resurrection; his sacrifice on the cross, atoning for humanity's sins; and the inerrancy of the Bible. The Bible's indubitable truth is the authority for the need and the promise of salvation. ...

The Presbyterians' Five Fundamentals (from which we get the label "Fundamentalist") were a direct response to the "higher criticism" of the Bible coming from sophisticated theologians and historians of religion in the universities, especially in Germany... Their challenges to the miracle of Revelation came to be coupled with contemporary science's challenges to the Bible's account of the miraculous genesis of species. ...

William Jennings Bryan urged, in 1924:

Commit your case to the people. Forget, if need be, the highbrows both in the political and college world, and carry this cause to the people. They are the final and efficiently corrective power."

How would "the people" of America exercise their corrective power? Through their representatives in legislative bodies. Personal commitment to Jesus Christ may be the axiom of Protestant Christianity, but mainstream churches operate a structure of authority, mediating the Word of God. The 1910 decision by the Presbyterian General Assembly to promulgate the Five Fundamentals is exactly such an authoritative interposition between the individual and God. The context of the declaration -- scholastics' "higher criticism" -- made it clear that laypeople should not presume confidence in their private judgment, but rely instead on the wisdom of their representatives in legislative church assemblies.

Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, sanctifies authority:

It is precisely because Biblical revelation is absolutely authoritative and perspicuous that the scientific facts, rightly interpreted, will give the same testimony as that of Scripture. There is not the slightest possibility that the facts of science can contradict the Bible. (Italics in original)

"Rightly interpreted" is of course the critical issue: Whose interpretation is right? Morris implies that "Baconian science" will produce scientific facts, as indubitable as Scripture. In actuality, a body of men decree the right interpretation.

Authority, and obedience to authority, is the crux of organized scientific creationism. ...

- Alice Beck Kehoe, "Why Target Evolution? The Problem of Authority," Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).