#96

# 94, Uncertainty and Fear

Uncertainty and fear ruled much of the Christian world in the nineteenth century. Many felt their faith and world were being destroyed. This emotional reaction was the same psychologically as the reaction of fundamentalist Muslims in the twentieth century to Western modernization’s effect on their religion and world.

The two biggest fears were Higher Criticism’s scientific study of the Bible and from 18559 on, Darwinism. Throughout this century, Christians were more concerned with Higher Criticism’s interpretation of the Bible than with Darwin’s evolution. Evolution became the church’s main whipping boy in the twentieth century. Intransigent conservatives have to have something to fear and fight against or they can’t survive psychologically.

Darwin (1809- 82) initiated a new phase in the history of science. Instead of just collecting facts, which had been the previous style of science, he put forward an hypothesis: animals, plants and humans were not created fully formed but had slowly changed over a long period of evolutionary adaptation to the environment. Humans had evolved from the same proto ape as the gorilla and Chimpanzee.

At first many Christians, even some leading Southern Baptists as Augustus Strong, accepted evolution as a possibility of how God created us. Frankly, I like living with an evolutionary background as the work of God and in a universe that is constantly evolving. It is a world of Magic to me!

But throughout the nineteenth century the main bone of contention between liberal and conservative Christians was Higher Criticism. The modern world had a rational bias. This made it hard, almost impossible for many Western Christians to appreciate the role and value of mythology and legend. They lost their ability to see the power and truth of myth. This always makes for a sad state of being for we live by our myths whether we are aware of them or not. It is best to be aware.

Many clergymen blamed the Higher Criticism for widespread drunkenness, infidelity, and the rising crime and divorce rates. In 1886 the great American revivalist preacher Dwight Moody (1837-99) founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to combat the Higher Criticism movement. This represented a crucial Christian fundamentalist characteristic, building a safe haven in a godless world.

Conservative Christians began to band together and fight the liberals in their denominations. The Bible conference movement became a very popular phenomenon. Conservatives were willing to put out good money to hear words of certainty and familiarity. But certainty can only be found by looking to the God within us in whom we live, move and have our being (Acts 17: 28).