The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment

Guest, Mathew

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383355.001.0001

The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment

Guest, Mathew

Authors

Professor Mathew Guest m.j.guest@durham.ac.uk
Head Of Department

Contributors

Stephen Barton
Editor

David Wilkinson
Editor

Abstract

This chapter considers the significance of creationist belief in the contemporary Western world. The history of creationism is traced from the roots of fundamentalist Protestantism, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century sympathy for creationist beliefs is measured via attitudinal survey data from the United Kingdom and the United States. What follows is an analysis of creationism as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing from empirical examples and the work of scholars such as Peter Berger and Nancy Ammerman, the chapter discusses how creationist ideas function within the social contexts in which they are affirmed, debated, and challenged, paying particular attention to how they acquire plausibility among those who hold them. It concludes by arguing that contemporary creationism may be understood as an expression of what Christian Smith calls "engaged orthodoxy," i.e., the evangelical tendency to engage combatively with the challenges of the modern world and to draw strength and cohesion from the resulting sense of conflict.

Citation

Guest, M. (2009). The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment. In S. Barton, & D. Wilkinson (Eds.), Reading Genesis after Darwin (217-236). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780195383355.001.0001

Publication Date	Nov 19, 2009
Deposit Date	Jan 6, 2010
Publicly Available Date	Mar 2, 2016
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Pages	217-236
Book Title	Reading Genesis after Darwin.
Chapter Number	13
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780195383355.001.0001
Publisher URL	http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195383355.do

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Copyright Statement
This is a draft of a chapter that was accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the book 'Reading Genesis after Darwin' edited by Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson and published in 2009.