Protestant Fundamentalists’ Political Theology in the Evolution-Creationism Controversy in America’s Public Schools

Abstract

The controversy in American public education over the issue of teaching evolution-creationism is one of the nation’s most serious undertakings. While Protestant fundamentalists exhibited strong opposition against all aspects of modernism, Darwin’s theory has succeeded to prevail in the scientific circles. The result was a long-lasting contention over teaching either evolution or creationism in America’s classrooms. The duty of this article is to examine American Protestant fundamentalists’ strategy to interdict the teaching of Darwin’s theory. On this account, major Supreme Court cases, various legal decisions, and embedded networks of organizations which aim to support creationism can highlight their option to transfer their rejection of evolution to the political field. Consequently, we assert that Protestant fundamentalists in America opted to shift to politics in order to stop Darwin’s theory from mushrooming in America’s public schools. Therefore, we may call in question the reason behind their shift in an attempt to resolve the conflict over teaching evolution or creationism. In this humble article we seek to provide a new understanding to this conflict by connecting its roots to the political theology of Protestant fundamentalists in America.