History
The ASA was formed in 1941 by Christian scientists, who were concerned about the quality of Christian evangelism on the subject of religion and science. It was the idea of Irwin A. Moon, who talked Moody Bible Institute president William H. Houghton into inviting a number of scientists of known orthodox Christian views to Chicago to discuss its formation. Those who attended were F. Alton Everest, Peter W. Stoner, Russell D. Sturgis, John P. VanHaitsma, and Irving A. Cowperthwaite, and the ASA was formed from this meeting.
Everest, a conservative Baptist electrical engineer at Oregon State College in Corvallis was its president for its first decade. Under his leadership the ASA grew from 5 to 220 members. By 1961 its membership had grown to 860.
During the 1940s and 1950s, it served as the main evangelical forum for discussing the merits and drawbacks of evolution, and for evaluating the works of prominent creationists such as George McCready Price and Harry Rimmer. The influence of an inner circle affiliated with Wheaton College led it to reject strict creationism in favor of first progressive creationism and then theistic evolution, encouraging acceptance of evolution among evangelicals. This group was led by Russell L. Mixter (later JASA editor from 1965 to 1968), J Frank Cassel, and in the words of Ronald L. Numbers "did for biology what Kulp was doing for Geology". (Also see the section on coverage of evolution in the ASA's journal, below.)
Read more about this topic: American Scientific Affiliation
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