God's Own Scientists: Creationists in a Secular World

by Christopher P. Toumey and Professor Christopher P. Toumey

Toumey focuses the tools of his discipline on a group whose distance from the twentieth-century American mainstream is measured not in decades or miles but rather in existential understandings about reality. Toumey studies both the national scientific creationism movement and the operation of a local creationist study group in his state's Research Triangle in the mid-1980s, seeking to understand the underlying beliefs--about morality, the Bible, science itself--that modern scientific creationism embodies, as well as the reasons this "system of cultural meanings" helps many conservative Christians "make sense of the realities, anxieties, changes, and uncertainties of life in the United States in the late twentieth century." A perceptive and respectful analysis by a nonbeliever

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813520444
• ISBN13: 9780813520445
• Release Date: April 1994
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Must reading on the creation/evolution controversy

Christopher P. Toumey brings a social anthropologist's perspective to the topic of "scientific creationism." He explins the origin and nature of the national creation science movement, and explores how the movement influences conservative Christians at the local level. If you've ever wondered what the differences are between the Creation Research Society, the Creation-Science Research Center, and the Institude for Creation Research, you'll find these and other national creationist organizations sorted out here. The most interesting part of the book, though, is the section that describes how the creation/evolution controversy played out in North Carolina in the early 1980s, in the context of local politics, both secular and Baptist. Also fascinating is the glimpse given of a local creation-science study group, whose members come across as considerably less dogmatic and more sympathetic than one might have expected. Toumey covers some of the same ground as the more exhaustive and scholarly "The Creationists" by Ronald Numbers, but in a more readable and entertaining style. With controversy over the teaching of evolution in the public schools once again generating headlines, Toumey's book is must reading for anyone interested in this issue.