Protestant Fundamentalism and the Controversy over Evolution-Creationism in American Public Schools 1925-2005: An Illustration of the American Political Theology
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Date
2023
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Université 20 aout 1955 skikda
Abstract
The recent controversy over teaching Darwin’s evolutionary theory in America’s public
schools has raised staple questions about its true origin. The strategy that Protestant
fundamentalists, as disciples of a large religious group in America, espouse when dealing with
such a conflict between 1925 and 2005 has changed pejoratively over time. By looking within
the United States, Protestant fundamentalists have consistently adduced an uncompromising
view towards an endless debate over evolution-creationism. As a theory that contradicts
common religious beliefs, Charles Darwin’s idea which doubts the existence or non-existence
of a deity along with an introduction to a certain robust explanation of the origin of life, has
made Protestant fundamentalists in the late 19th century fear this outlandish idea. A theory
like Charles Darwin’s one which suggests that human begins like other creatures on Earth,
have a common form of lower ancestor, has frightened them for it threatens a familiar and
infallible biblical exegesis of the universe origin. However, in order to understand their
peculiarity and distinction, the study of Protestant fundamentalists and fundamentalism, as a
phenomenon in relation to evolution, needs new explanations. For such, we opt to examine
the origin of the fundamentalist movement, which arose after the spread of the evolutionary
theory in American public schools, by neither referring to personality nor referring to
psychology abnormalities. Our aim is to introduce a new perspective that permits us to
examine the core beliefs of fundamentalists that shape their behavior. As a result, our
theoretical framework is broadly social psychological which helps us spot light on the nature
of fundamentalism, as a religious movement of societal and very important political
importance in America