I wasn't sure where to post this, as it's not a debate. I found this at the Standord Encylopedia of Philosophy, which also includes as a part of the article a section on Creation Science.
Creationists present themselves as the true bearers and present-day representatives of authentic, traditional Christianity, but historically speaking this is simply not true (Ruse 1988, 2001, 2003; Numbers 1992; McMullin 1985). The Bible has a major place in the life of any Christian, but it is not the case that the Bible taken literally has always had a major place in the lives or theology of Christians. For most, indeed, it has not (Turner 2002). Tradition, the teachings and authority of the church, has always had main status for Catholics, and natural religion approaching God through reason and argument has long had an honored place for both Catholics and Protestants. Catholics, especially dating back to Saint Augustine around 400 AD, and even to earlier thinkers like Origen, have always recognized that at times the Bible needs to be taken metaphorically or allegorically. Augustine was particularly sensitive to this need, because for many years as a young man he was a Manichean and hence denied the authenticity and relevance of the Old Testament for salvation. When he became a Christian he knew full well the problems of Genesis and hence was eager to help his fellow believers from getting ensnared in the traps of literalism.
It was not until the Protestant Reformation that the Bible started to take on its unique central position, as the great Reformers especially Luther and Calvin stressed the need to go by scripture alone and not by the baroque traditions of the Catholic Church. But even they were doubtful about totally literalistic readings. For Luther, justification by faith was the keystone of his theology, and yet the Epistle of Saint James seems to put greater stress on the need for good works. He referred to it as right strawy stuff. Calvin likewise spoke of the need for God to accommodate His writings to the untutored public especially the ancient Jews and hence of the dangers of taking the Bible too literally in an uncritical sense. The radical branch of the Reformation under Zwingli always put primacy on God's speaking directly to us through the heart, and to this day one finds modern-day representatives like the Quakers uncomfortable with too-biblically centered an approach to religion.
It was after the revivals of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Britain and America revivals that led to such sects as the Methodists that a more full-blooded literalism became a major part of the religious scene. In America particularly literalism took hold, and especially after the Civil War, it took root in the evangelical sects especially Baptists of the South (Numbers 1998). It became part of the defining culture of the South, having as much a role in opposing ideas and influences of the North as anything rooted in deeply thought-through theology. Creationism started to become more than just a local phenomenon in the early part of the twentieth century, thanks to a number of factors. First, there were systematic attempts to work out a position that would take account of modern science as well as just a literal reading of Genesis. Particularly important in this respect were the Seventh Day Adventists, especially the Canadian-born George McCready Price, who had theological reasons for wanting literalism, not the least being the belief that the Seventh Day the day of rest is literally twenty-four hours in length. (Also important for the Adventists and for other dispensationalists, that is people who think that Armageddon is on its way, is the balancing and complementary early phenomenon of a world-wide flood.) Second, there was the realized energy of evangelicals as they succeeded in their attempts to prohibit liquor in the United States. Flushed from one victory, they looked for other fields to conquer. Third there was the spread of public education, and more children being exposed to evolutionary ideas, bringing on a Creationist reaction. Fourth, there were new evangelical currents afloat, especially the tracts the Fundamentals that gave the literalist movement its name. And fifth, there was the identification of evolution Darwinism particularly with the militaristic aspects of Social Darwinism, especially the Social Darwinism supposed embraced by the Germans in the First World War (Larson 1997).
This battle between evolutionists and Fundamentalists came to a head in the mid 1920s in Dayton Tennessee, when a young school teacher John Thomas Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in class, in defiance of a state law prohibiting such teaching. Prosecuted by three-times presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and defended by noted agnostic lawyer Clarence Darrow, the Scopes Monkey Trial caught the attention of the world, especially thanks to the inflammatory reporting of Baltimore Sun journalist H. L. Menken. Matters descended to the farcical when, denied the opportunity to introduce his own science witnesses, Darrow put on the stand the prosecutor Bryan. In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. This conviction was overturned on a technicality on appeal, but there were no more prosecutions, even though the Tennessee law remained on the books for another forty years
Creationists present themselves as the true bearers and present-day representatives of authentic, traditional Christianity, but historically speaking this is simply not true (Ruse 1988, 2001, 2003; Numbers 1992; McMullin 1985). The Bible has a major place in the life of any Christian, but it is not the case that the Bible taken literally has always had a major place in the lives or theology of Christians. For most, indeed, it has not (Turner 2002). Tradition, the teachings and authority of the church, has always had main status for Catholics, and natural religion approaching God through reason and argument has long had an honored place for both Catholics and Protestants. Catholics, especially dating back to Saint Augustine around 400 AD, and even to earlier thinkers like Origen, have always recognized that at times the Bible needs to be taken metaphorically or allegorically. Augustine was particularly sensitive to this need, because for many years as a young man he was a Manichean and hence denied the authenticity and relevance of the Old Testament for salvation. When he became a Christian he knew full well the problems of Genesis and hence was eager to help his fellow believers from getting ensnared in the traps of literalism.
It was not until the Protestant Reformation that the Bible started to take on its unique central position, as the great Reformers especially Luther and Calvin stressed the need to go by scripture alone and not by the baroque traditions of the Catholic Church. But even they were doubtful about totally literalistic readings. For Luther, justification by faith was the keystone of his theology, and yet the Epistle of Saint James seems to put greater stress on the need for good works. He referred to it as right strawy stuff. Calvin likewise spoke of the need for God to accommodate His writings to the untutored public especially the ancient Jews and hence of the dangers of taking the Bible too literally in an uncritical sense. The radical branch of the Reformation under Zwingli always put primacy on God's speaking directly to us through the heart, and to this day one finds modern-day representatives like the Quakers uncomfortable with too-biblically centered an approach to religion.
It was after the revivals of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Britain and America revivals that led to such sects as the Methodists that a more full-blooded literalism became a major part of the religious scene. In America particularly literalism took hold, and especially after the Civil War, it took root in the evangelical sects especially Baptists of the South (Numbers 1998). It became part of the defining culture of the South, having as much a role in opposing ideas and influences of the North as anything rooted in deeply thought-through theology. Creationism started to become more than just a local phenomenon in the early part of the twentieth century, thanks to a number of factors. First, there were systematic attempts to work out a position that would take account of modern science as well as just a literal reading of Genesis. Particularly important in this respect were the Seventh Day Adventists, especially the Canadian-born George McCready Price, who had theological reasons for wanting literalism, not the least being the belief that the Seventh Day the day of rest is literally twenty-four hours in length. (Also important for the Adventists and for other dispensationalists, that is people who think that Armageddon is on its way, is the balancing and complementary early phenomenon of a world-wide flood.) Second, there was the realized energy of evangelicals as they succeeded in their attempts to prohibit liquor in the United States. Flushed from one victory, they looked for other fields to conquer. Third there was the spread of public education, and more children being exposed to evolutionary ideas, bringing on a Creationist reaction. Fourth, there were new evangelical currents afloat, especially the tracts the Fundamentals that gave the literalist movement its name. And fifth, there was the identification of evolution Darwinism particularly with the militaristic aspects of Social Darwinism, especially the Social Darwinism supposed embraced by the Germans in the First World War (Larson 1997).
This battle between evolutionists and Fundamentalists came to a head in the mid 1920s in Dayton Tennessee, when a young school teacher John Thomas Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in class, in defiance of a state law prohibiting such teaching. Prosecuted by three-times presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and defended by noted agnostic lawyer Clarence Darrow, the Scopes Monkey Trial caught the attention of the world, especially thanks to the inflammatory reporting of Baltimore Sun journalist H. L. Menken. Matters descended to the farcical when, denied the opportunity to introduce his own science witnesses, Darrow put on the stand the prosecutor Bryan. In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. This conviction was overturned on a technicality on appeal, but there were no more prosecutions, even though the Tennessee law remained on the books for another forty years
