74 creationism
and American PURITANS. Besides the Old Testament
covenant, they added the covenant of grace (or for-
giveness through Jesus Christ), church covenants, and
governmental covenants. The covenant between God
and his people was to be enlivened and represented in
the church among Christian believers (who pledged
to help each other live a godly life) and the Christian
commonwealth (who pledged to serve God, obey his
laws, and spread his gospel).
When the English Puritans arrived in America, they
wrote and signed the MAYFLOWER COMPACT, a covenant
among themselves, God, the church, and their govern-
ment. America saw itself as a New Israel, God’s people
under special divine blessing and protection as long as
they followed God’s laws, but who were able to lose
God’s provision if they sinned. Early Massachusetts
governor John WINTHROPsaid, “Thus stands the cause
between God and us; we are entered into Covenant
with him for this work.. .. We shall be as a City on a
Hill.” Such a view of Christian America’s unique calling
and responsibility to build a godly society continues in
U.S. culture down to Ronald REAGAN’s presidency. The
fear of U.S. CONSERVATIVEChristians that their country
has broken its covenant with God through immorality,
greed, and secularism fuels the political movement of
the Religious RIGHT.
Covenant theology also known as “federal” theol-
ogy influences modern political theories of social com-
pact, SOCIAL CONTRACT, and FEDERALISM, as well as a
providential view of U.S. history.
Further Reading
Stoever, William K. B. A Faire and Easie Way to Heaven:
Covenant Theology and Antinomianism in Early Massachu-
setts.Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1978.
creationism
A theory of the creation of the world that follows liter-
ally the biblical account (Genesis 1–2) that God created
the earth and all living things in seven (24-hour) days.
This is a direct religious response to Charles Darwin’s
scientific evolution theory that asserts that humans
were formed over millions of years and that they
evolved from lower species rather than being made by
God. The creationist CHRISTIAN view is associated in
America with the CONSERVATIVE, FUNDAMENTALIST PROTES-
TANTchurches (see CHRISTIAN RIGHT). Creationism, then
is one part of the Religious Right political movement,
which regards the atheism of Darwinian evolution as
degrading humanity to the level of beasts and contribu-
tion to the breakdown of American Christian civiliza-
tion. Social problems such as depreciation of human
life (through ABORTIONand EUTHANASIA), secular INDIVID-
UALISM(breakdown of family and church), and ethical
relativism (loss of Judeo-Christian standards in society)
are all linked to the scientific view of human’s creation.
If humans were not created by God with specific divine
purposes and responsibilities, Creationists assert, the
social order would be meaningless, and the social and
moral fabric will become torn.
Creationism (or creation science) became promi-
nent in the United States in the 1920s with George
Price’s book The New Geologywhich challenged the
scientific explanation of the origins of the world and
humanity and termed Darwin’s theory of evolution “a
gigantic hoax.” U.S. Democrat William Jennings Bryan
led a campaign against the teaching of biological evo-
lution in the schools, culminating in the famous
Scopes Trial or the “Monkey Trial” that upheld state
laws prohibiting the teaching of Darwinism.
Biological evolution continues to be taught in U.S.
schools and universities, however, and has become a
kind of orthodoxy in the mainline scientific commu-
nity. In 1981, Arkansas passed a law requiring the
instruction of “Creation Science” alongside the teach-
ing of scientific evolution in the public schools. The
U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional
as imposing religion on the scientific curriculum, but
controversy continues between this biblical religious
view of creation and the secular scientific theory,
which represents a larger split in political and social
thought in the modern United States. (See CULTURE
WARS.)Further Reading
Ashton, John. In Six Days.El Cajon, Calif.: Master Books, 2000.critical theory
A school of thought associated with 20th-century
MARXISMleading to the “New LEFT” political movement
that applied COMMUNISTtheory to culture, psychology,
and society, as well as to economics. Developed in the
“Frankfurt School” in Germany in the 1920s, it
claimed to be an interdisciplinary application of Karl
MARX’s DIALECTICto all aspects of modern life. It was
inherently atheistic and radical, hence its own self-
identification as “critical” of everything in existing
society. Its attack on all structures of order and author-