Adventists displaying creationism in Latin America
Seventh-Day Adventist creationist museums are outpacing evangelical ones and rapidly spreading in Latin America, writes Irina Podgorny in the current issue of the religion and science journal Zygon (March). Along with fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, Seventh-Day Adventists have played a key role in teaching and promoting biblical creationism in its U.S. birthplace. But they have been far more ambitious than other groups in extending creationism around the world, especially in Ibero-America as of late. Much of this trend is due to the spread of evangelical Protestantism and Adventism in Latin America in recent decades, where there is an enthusiastic following for creationism. Creationist museums, which may be either homegrown (some family-owned) or more elaborate establishments in the U.S. and UK, do not explicitly spread religious teachings; more often they exhibit specimens and fossils that supporters say support a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis and the idea of a “young earth.” Brazil, which has been a stronghold of evangelical creationism, has seen most of these new museums, but they have also been established in other Latin American countries, most recently in Argentina.
The Adventist Geoscience Research Institute (GRI), based in Loma Linda, CA, is the nerve center creating these new museums (and also increasingly doing research in Latin America). Sometimes these museums are in direct competition with secular ones supported by the state, as in the case of a new creationist center in the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos center, which includes a church and a school, is located on Charles Darwin Avenue and appeals to the same objects related to Darwin that the neighboring Darwin Foundation does. Like other Adventist creationist museums, there is little direct mention of creationist or Adventist teachings, although there is a room dedicated to teaching a healthy lifestyle as visitors exit. These museums seem to play two roles, as they tone down their creationist orientation when they receive funding for publishing science textbooks, appeal to students and the public, and even show support for micro evolution. But for the Adventist community they make more explicit mentions of God’s creation and display materials and offer lectures on intelligent design, making more explicit their rejection of macro evolution or chance in favor of God ruling the process.