Darwinism, Fundamentalism, and R. A. Torrey

by Michael N. Keas
R. A. Torrey (1856–1928), a leading world evangelist at the turn of the twentieth century, played a prominent role in the emergence of fundamentalism, which aimed to defend Christianity against liberalism. The writers of The Fundamentals (1910–1915), including Torrey, proposed harmony between science and Christianity by accepting the standard geological ages and by offering some criticisms of Darwinism. Torrey advanced the work of The Fundamentals beyond 1915 through the monthly periodical of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, The King’s Business (1910–1970). Although Torrey offered occasional criticism of Darwinism in The King’s Business and his other publications, he urged evangelicals and fundamentalists to focus on biblical inerrancy and a repudiation of naturalism more broadly. There is much to be emulated from early fundamentalism before it flung itself into the humiliation of the 1925 Scopes trial—a disastrous move that Torrey did not support. R. A. Torrey is worth remembering in 2010, the centennial year of The Fundamentals.

 PSCF 62, no. 1 (2010): 25–51