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Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism in America
In Red Dynamite , Carl R. Weinberg argues that creationism's tenacious hold on American public life depended on culture-war politics inextricably embedded in religion. Many Christian conservatives were convinced that evolutionary thought promoted immoral and even bestial social, sexual, and political behavior. The "fruits" of subscribing to Darwinism were, in their minds, a dangerous rearrangement of God-given standards and the unsettling of traditional hierarchies of power. Despite claiming to focus exclusively on science and religion, creationists were practicing politics. Their anticommunist campaign, often infused with conspiracy theory, gained power from the fact that the Marxist founders, the early Bolshevik leaders, and their American allies were staunch evolutionists.
Using the Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a starting point, Red Dynamite traces the politically explosive union of Darwinism and communism over the next century. Across those years, social evolution was the primary target of creationists, and their "ideas have consequences" strategy instilled fear that shaped the contours of America's culture wars. By taking the anticommunist arguments of creationists seriously, Weinberg reveals a neglected dimension of antievolutionism and illuminates a source of the creationist movement's continuing strength. Thanks to generous funding from Indiana University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Using the Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a starting point, Red Dynamite traces the politically explosive union of Darwinism and communism over the next century. Across those years, social evolution was the primary target of creationists, and their "ideas have consequences" strategy instilled fear that shaped the contours of America's culture wars. By taking the anticommunist arguments of creationists seriously, Weinberg reveals a neglected dimension of antievolutionism and illuminates a source of the creationist movement's continuing strength. Thanks to generous funding from Indiana University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
366 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2021
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October 25, 2025
Review Title: Historical Overview of Creationists Link Communism, Socialism, Humanism, and Immorality to Evolution
Author Carl R. Weinberg writes and teaches at Indiana University-Bloomington about the modern United States, with a focus on social movements, culture wars, and politics. This book has a very historical flavor, focusing on prominent voices over the past 100+ years who have written or spoken against communism, socialism, or secular humanism and have linked them to evolution. The chapters are approximately chronological and highlight influential people, movements, and organizations that promote anti-evolution for political reasons.
Introduction: Belaboring Scopes
“All these point to an important untold story: how anti-evolutionists throughout the twentieth century mobilized their followers by linking evolution, communism, and immorality (p13).” “This book advances a different explanation for why and how Christian conservatives have succeeded in demonizing Darwin: they convinced their followers that evolutionary thought promotes immoral social, sexual, and political behavior, undermining the existing God given standards and hierarchies of power (p13).” “Recent ‘evil fruits’ that creationists attribute to the ‘corrupt tree’ of evolution include school shootings, gay marriage, and abortion (p14).”
Chapter 1: Lighting the Darwin Fuse
“The Bolsheviks’ embrace of evolutionary science was sincere, but it also served the practical purpose of undermining traditional religious belief, a process they viewed as essential to building a new socialist society (p37).” “Despite the wild exaggerations of later anticommunist conspiracy theorists, Bolshevik support for evolution and opposition to the organizing power of religion were very real (p38).”
Chapter 2: The Lamb-Dragon and the Devil’s Poison
“They [creationists] seem to focus on the scientific evidence, or lack thereof, for evolution. But what really troubles them are the alleged sociopolitical consequences of evolutionary belief (p55).” “By the late nineteenth century, many Protestant evangelical leaders had accepted the latest scientific discoveries that pointed to an ancient earth (p58).” “At the same time, [George McCready] Price was hardly a champion of full racial equality. He attributed human racial variation to three factors: God’s dispersal of humanity in punishment for the Tower of Babel; the changing environment; and the process of racial amalgamation, taught to him by Ellen White (p61).”
“Price acknowledged that he joined with other Adventists in identifying ‘the great primal hybridizer’ of human races, plants, and animals as Satan. This claim anticipated mainstream evangelical arguments made decades later against the presumably satanic desegregation of the races in America (p62).”
“The satanic snares of the big city, including modern labor unions and their rebellious politics, played a key role in creationist and anti-communist thinking for decades to come (p62).” “In God’s Two Books, Price for the first time made an explicit connection between the ‘moral’ fruits of evolution and socialism (p66).” “[William Jennings] Bryan also joined Price in identifying communism as one of evolution’s evil fruits (p73).” “Bryan wrapped up his sermon as follows: Darwinism undermined Christian belief, promoted world war, and, in his own words, ‘is dividing society into classes that fight each other on a brute basis’ (p73).”
“‘Red Dynamite’ was the title of Price’s chapter on socialism and its connection to evolution (p74).”
Chapter 3: Blood Relationship, Bolshevism, and Whoopie Parties
“Since belief in evolution – or ‘animalistic ancestry’ – led to atheism, and atheism led to communism, teaching evolutionary science had ‘opened the door’ to the acceptance of communist ideas in the United States (p77).” “Now ensconced in his pulpit [in Minneapolis, William Bell] Riley founded the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in 1902 (p80).” "In 1922, Riley convinced the WCFA [World's Christian Fundamentals Association] that it should concentrate on [decrying] evolution (p82)." "Riley and Price agreed that at stake for American Christians in the battle over evolution was nothing less than morality and civilization (p83)." "The 'outstanding leaders' of 'Sovietism' in America, declared Riley, were 'professors in our modern universities who are naturally materialistic in their conception of the universe' (p84)." "During the 1920s, [Fort Worth Baptist pastor Frank] Norris was sure that the devil was in League with the communists and evolutionists (p90)." "His [Norris'] revealing answer is that since the Bible is the foundation of society and since Evolution attacks that foundation, he must reject Evolution (p92)." “For all the connections that antievolutionists made between evolution and politics, they continue to insist that ‘true’ science offered the most effective refutation of Darwin’s ideas (pp106-107).”
Chapter 4: The Wolf Pack and the Upas Tree
“[Dan] Gilbert told readers that the ‘soviet system’ aimed to eradicate morality by teaching ‘animalism’ as both an intellectual philosophy and a ‘way of life’ – that is, as evolutionary science and sexual promiscuity (p125).” “Given [Aimee] McPherson’s near-celebrity status, her ecumenical spirit, and the drama of her illustrated sermons, she may have reached more Americans, in a face-to-face setting, with the message that evolution and communism were allied evils than did Riley, Norris, or Wilrod (p113).” “[Dan] Gilbert managed to explicitly connect Darwinian evolution, Marxist communism, labor movement politics, and biblical prophecy (p137).”
Chapter 5: Beast Ancestry, Dangerous Triplets, and Damnable Heresies
“The defense of racial segregation under the banner of ‘racial purity’ drew from the book of Genesis in ways that offered surprising connections between creationism, ‘massive resistances’ to civil rights, and anticommunism (p140).”
“During the 1940s, [John] Rice devoted substantial attention to promoting proper gender roles for men and women in marriage. … A woman was obligated to obey her husband regardless of his character, his treatment of her, or even whether or not he had accepted Jesus Christ as savior (p143).”
“If Christians wanted to protect the ‘true church,’ [Carl] McIntire wrote, they needed to defend the ‘profit motive, competition, private enterprise, and the individual,’ all of which rested on biblical foundations. … What distinguished McIntire’s approach was his biblical defense of capitalist economic institutions (p147).”
“For Christians who were considering partaking of the evil fruit of theistic evolutionism, Rice made it clear that they needed to choose: evolution or the Bible. The two were ‘irreconcilable’ (p147).”
“Their break [between Billy Graham and John Rice] was precipitated by Graham’s changing stand on evolutionary science and its relation to the Bible (p156).” “Fearing that ‘the masses at large’ thought that one needed to choose between the Bible and modern science, [Bernard] Ramm offered a way out of this dilemma by harmonizing science and scripture in a unique way. Ramm’s work won over Billy Graham, prompting the break with Rice, but by the end of the decade his work also provoked a counterreaction. It led to the publication of Whitcomb and Morris’s The Genesis Flood and a renewal of young-earth creationism that has continued to this day (p157).” Judge Horace Wilkinson believed “that God had separated ‘the different races’ at the Tower of Babel. God kept them separate so that each race could ‘maintain its racial integrity’ (p162).” “Reverend Casey Daniel Jr. (1915-1987) agreed and amplified the pro-segregation message for millions, with a nod to the politics of evolutionary science (p162).”
“By linking civil rights groups with the devil, and through guilt by association tying the communists to the Evil One as well, Daniel had raised the religious stakes as high as possible. If Satan was behind the Brown [v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas] decision, he needed to be stopped at all costs (p164).”
Chapter 6: Flood, Fruit, and Satan
“In 1961, young-earth creationism exploded onto the American scene with the publication of The Genesis Flood by John Witcomb Jr. and Henry M. Morris (p166).” “The text of Morris’s early works – including Genesis Flood – includes explicit references to communism as a fruit of evolution (p167).” “What is certain is that by the time Morris published his first work of Christian apologetics in 1946, That You Might Believe, he had absorbed the concept that evolution and communism were closely allied evils (p169).”
“Morris may have been in step with Riley, but in the ranks of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) in which evangelical Christians attempted to honor both God and the latest scientific advances, Morris’ young-earth perspective was losing out (p171).”
“Morris expanded his argument, presented briefly in The Genesis Flood, that Darwinism was based on Satan’s rebellion against God (p178).” “[Bolton] Davidheiser’s reviewer [of Evolution and Christian Faith] – Rousas J. Rushdoony (1916-2001) – was not unaware of the relationship between evolutionary biology and politics. Rushdoony later became infamous as the founder of Christian Reconstructionism (p183).” “In 1966, Rushdoony wrote a pamphlet and helped produce an accompanying filmstrip (reviewed by CRSQ), both titled The Necessity of Creationism. The seven-page pamphlet was published and distributed to thousands of readers the next year by the Bible Science Association, which worked closely with CRS and specialized in carrying ‘creationism to the masses’ (p186).” “If Tim LaHaye had any lingering thoughts about the validity of evolutionary ideas, they would have been crushed at Bob Jones, where instructors enforced a militant antievolutionism (p197).”
Chapter 7 Trees, Knees, and Nurseries
“The attribution of a host of evils to evolutionary thought had become a staple of conservative Christianity (p203).” “As conservative evangelicals gained confidence that political efforts could make a difference, the prominence of ‘dominionist’ ideas increased. Once associated with the relatively marginal R. J. Rushdoony, they now became more mainstream (p204).” “In 1980, Florida became just the latest state in which creationists sought to give ‘equal time’ to creationism and evolution in the classroom (p208).” “For all of the attention that Henry Morris lavished on Gould’s Marxism in 1982, anticommunism was starting to lose its political punch (p218).”
“If [John W.] Whitehead and [Francis] Schaeffer succeeded in laying down the legal and intellectual framework for confronting the forces of secular humanism, the task of popularizing that framework fell to Tim LaHaye (p222).”
“They [Tim LaHaye and Californians for Biblical Morality] were joined by a number of allies from outside California, including a charismatic preacher from Lynchburg, Virginia, by the name of Jerry Falwell. CBM provided a model for the formation of Moral Majority Inc. later that year (p222).” “LaHaye’s dystopian vision suggests that the campaign against secular humanism did not break from the anticommunism tradition but adapted it to new circumstances (p223).” “Falwell preached a typical Southern Baptist fundamentalist message that revolved around the inerrancy of scripture, the sinfulness of worldly pleasures, the dangers of communism, and the virtues of racial segregation (p226).” “[James] Kennedy conveyed the same basic message about moral decline that fellow Moral Majority leaders LaHaye and Falwell were spreading, but with a Reformed ‘Reconstructionist’ flavor (p237).”
“But having learned the full scope of evolution’s consequences from Morris, [David] Jeremiah [of Turning Point Ministries] had seen the light. ‘I am now convinced,’ he wrote, ‘that all significant problems of society are the children of an ignorant or indifferent attitude towards creationism’ (p240).”
“Though Riley was long gone, Morris’s ties to Northwestern lived on, as the ICR [Institute of Creation Research] regularly held summer institutes on that St. Paul, Minnesota, campus (p241).” “Over the next seven years, [Ken] Ham carved out a prominent place in the ICR landscape (p244).” “In 1994, Ken Ham struck off on his own, and in 2007 his organization, Answers in Genesis, opened a multimillion-dollar Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, that put the Santee museum to shame (pp245-246).”
Chapter 8: The Nightcrawler, the Wedge, and the Bloodiest Religion
“Founded by Bob Jones University graduates Arlin and Beka Horton in 1974, PCC [Pensacola Christian College] was committed to a young-earth creationist perspective. Its publishing arm A Beka Books was a leading supplier of conservative Christian curriculum materials (pp256-257).” “But Morris’s visit to PCC reminds us that the ICR was part of a network of conservative activists who made a significant impact on the education that millions of young Christians would receive (p257).” “Under the leadership of the Discovery Institute, founded in Seattle in 1990, the new buzzword for those opposing evolutionary science was no longer the Morris-spawned ‘scientific creationism’ but rather ‘intelligent design’ (p257).”
“Even before Kitzmiller, it was clear the Discovery Institute had not only religious inspiration but also a political vision straight out of the ICR creation museum (p259).”
“The [Wedge] document’s emphasis on ‘free enterprise’ as a product of belief in God, paired with its anti-Marxism, was an important – and often unrecognized – component of the Discovery Institute’s political agenda (p261).” “Ultimately, AiG [Answers in Genesis] aimed to mobilize visitors for right-wing political action (p263).” “‘If atheistic evolution is true,’ [Ray] Comfort told the crowd, ‘and we are past primates with no moral accountability – then fornication is nothing but our species following our instinct to procreate. … If there is no God, anything goes’ (p263).”
“But [Bill] Nye failed to recognize he was firing blanks in a political battle [when he brought science to the debate with Ken Ham].”
“He [AiG collaborator Jerry Bergman] has compared the supposed persecution of creationists in the US to the early stages of Nazi persecution of German Jews (p267).” “Like Jay Richards, [Chad] Hovind [nephew of Kent Hovind] wrote his book because he perceived that an increasing number of young Christians were rejecting capitalism (p268).” “By 2016, conflicts over these issues [changing social, political, and moral standards] shook up the American political system and gave Red Dynamite a new lease on life into the Trump era (p270).”
Epilogue: The Baby Christian and the Dark Place
“The persistence of Red Dynamite politics emerged from a strategic alliance between conservative Christians and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (p272).” “Today’s conservative Christians are no different. They are also determined to achieve their ends – to resist reformist and revolutionary social change – by any means necessary. As Donald Trump moved towards Republican front-runner status, he began to gather around him a number of conservative Christians with solid antievolution credentials (p275).”
“The improbable result thirty years after the end of the Cold War: red-baiting, antisocialist, anti-Marxist politics stood at the center of a Republican presidential campaign (p282).”
My concluding thoughts:
Red Dynamite illustrates an important observation that a significant driver for anti-evolution proponents was countering socialist political ideologies. The persistence of antievolutionism in conservative Christian spaces remains strongly rooted as antievolutionists blame evolution for many of the woes in society, including gun violence, gay rights, feminism, abortion, and more. This deeply rooted perception also drives resistance to universal healthcare, DEI, and efforts like masking and vaccination to reduce the spread and severity of diseases like COVID, influenza, and measles.
I found it contradictory that Norris lobbied for biblical creation to be taught in public schools since taxpayers, teachers, parents, and children were Christians, but then he also blamed crime on evolution. How could that be when the taxpayers, teachers, parents, and children were all Christians, not evolutionists? Anti-evolutionist Christian pastors and leaders claim that evolution only produces corrupt fruit and that creationism produces good fruit. Yet we have seen many of these anti-evolutionist Christian pastors and leaders facing credible accusations of moral failures, sexual abuse scandals, pedophilia, grooming, and pornography. One can hardly blame evolution when the arguments against it aren’t even accurate.
This book is helpful to understand the history and continued promotion of anti-evolutionism in conservative churches, organizations, and politics. This book will appeal to people seeking to understand the right-wing political rejection of evidence-based science and medicine, as well as other social topics like feminism, immigration, DEI, CRT, gun control, LGBT, racism, and Christian Nationalism issues. The book provides sufficient support revealing the connection between conservative political perspectives and the rejection of Marxism, communism, socialism, secular humanism, and evolution. I understand the rise of Christian Nationalism, dominionism, and the persistence in anti-science in spite of abundant scientific evidence after reading this book.
Author Carl R. Weinberg writes and teaches at Indiana University-Bloomington about the modern United States, with a focus on social movements, culture wars, and politics. This book has a very historical flavor, focusing on prominent voices over the past 100+ years who have written or spoken against communism, socialism, or secular humanism and have linked them to evolution. The chapters are approximately chronological and highlight influential people, movements, and organizations that promote anti-evolution for political reasons.
Introduction: Belaboring Scopes
“All these point to an important untold story: how anti-evolutionists throughout the twentieth century mobilized their followers by linking evolution, communism, and immorality (p13).” “This book advances a different explanation for why and how Christian conservatives have succeeded in demonizing Darwin: they convinced their followers that evolutionary thought promotes immoral social, sexual, and political behavior, undermining the existing God given standards and hierarchies of power (p13).” “Recent ‘evil fruits’ that creationists attribute to the ‘corrupt tree’ of evolution include school shootings, gay marriage, and abortion (p14).”
Chapter 1: Lighting the Darwin Fuse
“The Bolsheviks’ embrace of evolutionary science was sincere, but it also served the practical purpose of undermining traditional religious belief, a process they viewed as essential to building a new socialist society (p37).” “Despite the wild exaggerations of later anticommunist conspiracy theorists, Bolshevik support for evolution and opposition to the organizing power of religion were very real (p38).”
Chapter 2: The Lamb-Dragon and the Devil’s Poison
“They [creationists] seem to focus on the scientific evidence, or lack thereof, for evolution. But what really troubles them are the alleged sociopolitical consequences of evolutionary belief (p55).” “By the late nineteenth century, many Protestant evangelical leaders had accepted the latest scientific discoveries that pointed to an ancient earth (p58).” “At the same time, [George McCready] Price was hardly a champion of full racial equality. He attributed human racial variation to three factors: God’s dispersal of humanity in punishment for the Tower of Babel; the changing environment; and the process of racial amalgamation, taught to him by Ellen White (p61).”
“Price acknowledged that he joined with other Adventists in identifying ‘the great primal hybridizer’ of human races, plants, and animals as Satan. This claim anticipated mainstream evangelical arguments made decades later against the presumably satanic desegregation of the races in America (p62).”
“The satanic snares of the big city, including modern labor unions and their rebellious politics, played a key role in creationist and anti-communist thinking for decades to come (p62).” “In God’s Two Books, Price for the first time made an explicit connection between the ‘moral’ fruits of evolution and socialism (p66).” “[William Jennings] Bryan also joined Price in identifying communism as one of evolution’s evil fruits (p73).” “Bryan wrapped up his sermon as follows: Darwinism undermined Christian belief, promoted world war, and, in his own words, ‘is dividing society into classes that fight each other on a brute basis’ (p73).”
“‘Red Dynamite’ was the title of Price’s chapter on socialism and its connection to evolution (p74).”
Chapter 3: Blood Relationship, Bolshevism, and Whoopie Parties
“Since belief in evolution – or ‘animalistic ancestry’ – led to atheism, and atheism led to communism, teaching evolutionary science had ‘opened the door’ to the acceptance of communist ideas in the United States (p77).” “Now ensconced in his pulpit [in Minneapolis, William Bell] Riley founded the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in 1902 (p80).” "In 1922, Riley convinced the WCFA [World's Christian Fundamentals Association] that it should concentrate on [decrying] evolution (p82)." "Riley and Price agreed that at stake for American Christians in the battle over evolution was nothing less than morality and civilization (p83)." "The 'outstanding leaders' of 'Sovietism' in America, declared Riley, were 'professors in our modern universities who are naturally materialistic in their conception of the universe' (p84)." "During the 1920s, [Fort Worth Baptist pastor Frank] Norris was sure that the devil was in League with the communists and evolutionists (p90)." "His [Norris'] revealing answer is that since the Bible is the foundation of society and since Evolution attacks that foundation, he must reject Evolution (p92)." “For all the connections that antievolutionists made between evolution and politics, they continue to insist that ‘true’ science offered the most effective refutation of Darwin’s ideas (pp106-107).”
Chapter 4: The Wolf Pack and the Upas Tree
“[Dan] Gilbert told readers that the ‘soviet system’ aimed to eradicate morality by teaching ‘animalism’ as both an intellectual philosophy and a ‘way of life’ – that is, as evolutionary science and sexual promiscuity (p125).” “Given [Aimee] McPherson’s near-celebrity status, her ecumenical spirit, and the drama of her illustrated sermons, she may have reached more Americans, in a face-to-face setting, with the message that evolution and communism were allied evils than did Riley, Norris, or Wilrod (p113).” “[Dan] Gilbert managed to explicitly connect Darwinian evolution, Marxist communism, labor movement politics, and biblical prophecy (p137).”
Chapter 5: Beast Ancestry, Dangerous Triplets, and Damnable Heresies
“The defense of racial segregation under the banner of ‘racial purity’ drew from the book of Genesis in ways that offered surprising connections between creationism, ‘massive resistances’ to civil rights, and anticommunism (p140).”
“During the 1940s, [John] Rice devoted substantial attention to promoting proper gender roles for men and women in marriage. … A woman was obligated to obey her husband regardless of his character, his treatment of her, or even whether or not he had accepted Jesus Christ as savior (p143).”
“If Christians wanted to protect the ‘true church,’ [Carl] McIntire wrote, they needed to defend the ‘profit motive, competition, private enterprise, and the individual,’ all of which rested on biblical foundations. … What distinguished McIntire’s approach was his biblical defense of capitalist economic institutions (p147).”
“For Christians who were considering partaking of the evil fruit of theistic evolutionism, Rice made it clear that they needed to choose: evolution or the Bible. The two were ‘irreconcilable’ (p147).”
“Their break [between Billy Graham and John Rice] was precipitated by Graham’s changing stand on evolutionary science and its relation to the Bible (p156).” “Fearing that ‘the masses at large’ thought that one needed to choose between the Bible and modern science, [Bernard] Ramm offered a way out of this dilemma by harmonizing science and scripture in a unique way. Ramm’s work won over Billy Graham, prompting the break with Rice, but by the end of the decade his work also provoked a counterreaction. It led to the publication of Whitcomb and Morris’s The Genesis Flood and a renewal of young-earth creationism that has continued to this day (p157).” Judge Horace Wilkinson believed “that God had separated ‘the different races’ at the Tower of Babel. God kept them separate so that each race could ‘maintain its racial integrity’ (p162).” “Reverend Casey Daniel Jr. (1915-1987) agreed and amplified the pro-segregation message for millions, with a nod to the politics of evolutionary science (p162).”
“By linking civil rights groups with the devil, and through guilt by association tying the communists to the Evil One as well, Daniel had raised the religious stakes as high as possible. If Satan was behind the Brown [v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas] decision, he needed to be stopped at all costs (p164).”
Chapter 6: Flood, Fruit, and Satan
“In 1961, young-earth creationism exploded onto the American scene with the publication of The Genesis Flood by John Witcomb Jr. and Henry M. Morris (p166).” “The text of Morris’s early works – including Genesis Flood – includes explicit references to communism as a fruit of evolution (p167).” “What is certain is that by the time Morris published his first work of Christian apologetics in 1946, That You Might Believe, he had absorbed the concept that evolution and communism were closely allied evils (p169).”
“Morris may have been in step with Riley, but in the ranks of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) in which evangelical Christians attempted to honor both God and the latest scientific advances, Morris’ young-earth perspective was losing out (p171).”
“Morris expanded his argument, presented briefly in The Genesis Flood, that Darwinism was based on Satan’s rebellion against God (p178).” “[Bolton] Davidheiser’s reviewer [of Evolution and Christian Faith] – Rousas J. Rushdoony (1916-2001) – was not unaware of the relationship between evolutionary biology and politics. Rushdoony later became infamous as the founder of Christian Reconstructionism (p183).” “In 1966, Rushdoony wrote a pamphlet and helped produce an accompanying filmstrip (reviewed by CRSQ), both titled The Necessity of Creationism. The seven-page pamphlet was published and distributed to thousands of readers the next year by the Bible Science Association, which worked closely with CRS and specialized in carrying ‘creationism to the masses’ (p186).” “If Tim LaHaye had any lingering thoughts about the validity of evolutionary ideas, they would have been crushed at Bob Jones, where instructors enforced a militant antievolutionism (p197).”
Chapter 7 Trees, Knees, and Nurseries
“The attribution of a host of evils to evolutionary thought had become a staple of conservative Christianity (p203).” “As conservative evangelicals gained confidence that political efforts could make a difference, the prominence of ‘dominionist’ ideas increased. Once associated with the relatively marginal R. J. Rushdoony, they now became more mainstream (p204).” “In 1980, Florida became just the latest state in which creationists sought to give ‘equal time’ to creationism and evolution in the classroom (p208).” “For all of the attention that Henry Morris lavished on Gould’s Marxism in 1982, anticommunism was starting to lose its political punch (p218).”
“If [John W.] Whitehead and [Francis] Schaeffer succeeded in laying down the legal and intellectual framework for confronting the forces of secular humanism, the task of popularizing that framework fell to Tim LaHaye (p222).”
“They [Tim LaHaye and Californians for Biblical Morality] were joined by a number of allies from outside California, including a charismatic preacher from Lynchburg, Virginia, by the name of Jerry Falwell. CBM provided a model for the formation of Moral Majority Inc. later that year (p222).” “LaHaye’s dystopian vision suggests that the campaign against secular humanism did not break from the anticommunism tradition but adapted it to new circumstances (p223).” “Falwell preached a typical Southern Baptist fundamentalist message that revolved around the inerrancy of scripture, the sinfulness of worldly pleasures, the dangers of communism, and the virtues of racial segregation (p226).” “[James] Kennedy conveyed the same basic message about moral decline that fellow Moral Majority leaders LaHaye and Falwell were spreading, but with a Reformed ‘Reconstructionist’ flavor (p237).”
“But having learned the full scope of evolution’s consequences from Morris, [David] Jeremiah [of Turning Point Ministries] had seen the light. ‘I am now convinced,’ he wrote, ‘that all significant problems of society are the children of an ignorant or indifferent attitude towards creationism’ (p240).”
“Though Riley was long gone, Morris’s ties to Northwestern lived on, as the ICR [Institute of Creation Research] regularly held summer institutes on that St. Paul, Minnesota, campus (p241).” “Over the next seven years, [Ken] Ham carved out a prominent place in the ICR landscape (p244).” “In 1994, Ken Ham struck off on his own, and in 2007 his organization, Answers in Genesis, opened a multimillion-dollar Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, that put the Santee museum to shame (pp245-246).”
Chapter 8: The Nightcrawler, the Wedge, and the Bloodiest Religion
“Founded by Bob Jones University graduates Arlin and Beka Horton in 1974, PCC [Pensacola Christian College] was committed to a young-earth creationist perspective. Its publishing arm A Beka Books was a leading supplier of conservative Christian curriculum materials (pp256-257).” “But Morris’s visit to PCC reminds us that the ICR was part of a network of conservative activists who made a significant impact on the education that millions of young Christians would receive (p257).” “Under the leadership of the Discovery Institute, founded in Seattle in 1990, the new buzzword for those opposing evolutionary science was no longer the Morris-spawned ‘scientific creationism’ but rather ‘intelligent design’ (p257).”
“Even before Kitzmiller, it was clear the Discovery Institute had not only religious inspiration but also a political vision straight out of the ICR creation museum (p259).”
“The [Wedge] document’s emphasis on ‘free enterprise’ as a product of belief in God, paired with its anti-Marxism, was an important – and often unrecognized – component of the Discovery Institute’s political agenda (p261).” “Ultimately, AiG [Answers in Genesis] aimed to mobilize visitors for right-wing political action (p263).” “‘If atheistic evolution is true,’ [Ray] Comfort told the crowd, ‘and we are past primates with no moral accountability – then fornication is nothing but our species following our instinct to procreate. … If there is no God, anything goes’ (p263).”
“But [Bill] Nye failed to recognize he was firing blanks in a political battle [when he brought science to the debate with Ken Ham].”
“He [AiG collaborator Jerry Bergman] has compared the supposed persecution of creationists in the US to the early stages of Nazi persecution of German Jews (p267).” “Like Jay Richards, [Chad] Hovind [nephew of Kent Hovind] wrote his book because he perceived that an increasing number of young Christians were rejecting capitalism (p268).” “By 2016, conflicts over these issues [changing social, political, and moral standards] shook up the American political system and gave Red Dynamite a new lease on life into the Trump era (p270).”
Epilogue: The Baby Christian and the Dark Place
“The persistence of Red Dynamite politics emerged from a strategic alliance between conservative Christians and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (p272).” “Today’s conservative Christians are no different. They are also determined to achieve their ends – to resist reformist and revolutionary social change – by any means necessary. As Donald Trump moved towards Republican front-runner status, he began to gather around him a number of conservative Christians with solid antievolution credentials (p275).”
“The improbable result thirty years after the end of the Cold War: red-baiting, antisocialist, anti-Marxist politics stood at the center of a Republican presidential campaign (p282).”
My concluding thoughts:
Red Dynamite illustrates an important observation that a significant driver for anti-evolution proponents was countering socialist political ideologies. The persistence of antievolutionism in conservative Christian spaces remains strongly rooted as antievolutionists blame evolution for many of the woes in society, including gun violence, gay rights, feminism, abortion, and more. This deeply rooted perception also drives resistance to universal healthcare, DEI, and efforts like masking and vaccination to reduce the spread and severity of diseases like COVID, influenza, and measles.
I found it contradictory that Norris lobbied for biblical creation to be taught in public schools since taxpayers, teachers, parents, and children were Christians, but then he also blamed crime on evolution. How could that be when the taxpayers, teachers, parents, and children were all Christians, not evolutionists? Anti-evolutionist Christian pastors and leaders claim that evolution only produces corrupt fruit and that creationism produces good fruit. Yet we have seen many of these anti-evolutionist Christian pastors and leaders facing credible accusations of moral failures, sexual abuse scandals, pedophilia, grooming, and pornography. One can hardly blame evolution when the arguments against it aren’t even accurate.
This book is helpful to understand the history and continued promotion of anti-evolutionism in conservative churches, organizations, and politics. This book will appeal to people seeking to understand the right-wing political rejection of evidence-based science and medicine, as well as other social topics like feminism, immigration, DEI, CRT, gun control, LGBT, racism, and Christian Nationalism issues. The book provides sufficient support revealing the connection between conservative political perspectives and the rejection of Marxism, communism, socialism, secular humanism, and evolution. I understand the rise of Christian Nationalism, dominionism, and the persistence in anti-science in spite of abundant scientific evidence after reading this book.
December 18, 2021
Church's response
A long war between evolution model by Darwin and churches in America. This book tried to make connection between Christianity and science in the previous age.
A long war between evolution model by Darwin and churches in America. This book tried to make connection between Christianity and science in the previous age.
May 15, 2022
This is a terrific history of American evangelicalism through the lens of creationism and anticommunism. It really works well as a companion to Matt Sutton's American Apocalypse, which covers much the same ground through the lens of apocalypticism.
At any rate, Weinberg makes a strong argument that fear of communism supercharged the creationist movement because evolution was seen not as scientifically flawed but as morally dangerous. Creationism, in other words, is the product of a long-standing moral panic over the supposed effects of evolution, including and especially communism.
Weinberg details the history of Marx and Darwin and their ships-in-the-night interaction – important context not just because their philosophies seem to be compatible in lots of interesting ways, but because of later evangelical misinformation about the men's affinity for each other's work. Understanding the reality of their relationship is a helpful inoculation against the overheated rhetoric that would follow.
From there, Weinberg details the history of evangelicalism, focusing on creationists more than others, but also showing how young-earth creationism and anticommunism went hand in hand, beginning with the first young-earth creationist, George McCready Price. He also shows how the fear of communism led many conservative Christians into dark places, supporting fascism and eugenics, among other programs deemed essential to preserving a certain American culture.
Anyway, Weinberg's book is well written, fascinating, and I'd argue still important and relevant, even if the evolution debates have died down a bit. As long as evangelicalism remains a powerful force in American life, understanding the fears that motivate the movement will be vital, and Weinberg contributes significantly to that understanding.
At any rate, Weinberg makes a strong argument that fear of communism supercharged the creationist movement because evolution was seen not as scientifically flawed but as morally dangerous. Creationism, in other words, is the product of a long-standing moral panic over the supposed effects of evolution, including and especially communism.
Weinberg details the history of Marx and Darwin and their ships-in-the-night interaction – important context not just because their philosophies seem to be compatible in lots of interesting ways, but because of later evangelical misinformation about the men's affinity for each other's work. Understanding the reality of their relationship is a helpful inoculation against the overheated rhetoric that would follow.
From there, Weinberg details the history of evangelicalism, focusing on creationists more than others, but also showing how young-earth creationism and anticommunism went hand in hand, beginning with the first young-earth creationist, George McCready Price. He also shows how the fear of communism led many conservative Christians into dark places, supporting fascism and eugenics, among other programs deemed essential to preserving a certain American culture.
Anyway, Weinberg's book is well written, fascinating, and I'd argue still important and relevant, even if the evolution debates have died down a bit. As long as evangelicalism remains a powerful force in American life, understanding the fears that motivate the movement will be vital, and Weinberg contributes significantly to that understanding.
February 3, 2022
Really more history of the development of the modern religious right, this book argues for the intersection of creationism and anti communism (red dynamite). The analogy felt forced at times, but the anecdotes about the role creationism plays in the development of the modern religious right are interesting.
May 7, 2022
An interesting political history of religion and evolution with relevance to current events (COVID-19, abortion rights, the teaching of evolution, climate change denial, etc.)
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