Geography

Geography of Fundamentalism in the UK

The anecdotal evidence we have so far suggests that YEC beliefs are more prevalent in the Midlands and North of England (it’s old industrial heartland) than the south.

The Vardy schools are very much rooted in the old industrial heartland of the North East and plans for fundamentalist academies elsewhere so far appear to have been limited to the Midlands.

Of the five main organisations involved in creationism, four (Creation Research (UK) – based in Lancashire, the Biblical Creation Society, based in Rugby, Answers in Genesis, based in Leicester and the Christian Institute, based in Newcastle) are all well outside Southern England. Only the Creation Science Movement, based in Portsmouth, is in Southern England, and it appears to be visibly struggling.

The position with universities is less clear. Of universities who have had or have fundamentalists (that we have identified) on their academic staff, six are in Southern England – Queen Mary, Southampton, Portsmouth, Cambridge, East Anglia and Bristol.

The other 11 – Cardiff, Leicester, Glasgow, Sheffield, (name witheld for legal reasons), Liverpool, Manchester Metropolitan, Manchester, Loughborough, Durham, and Warwick - are outside of Southern England.

There is a ready explanation for this North-South divide. The CoE never did really penetrate the industrial cities that emerged in the industrial revolution. The non-conformists tended to fill the gap (wth the RCC playing a major role in some cities such as Liverppol, Glasgow, etc..) One suspects that it is the non-conformist or Calvinistic movements that are more susceptible to fundamentalism than the mainstream CoE movement.

Likewise in Northern Ireland where fundamentalist creationism seems to be rampant, the Anglican movement is very much in the minority and the Roman Catholic Church the biggest (by far) single denomination. From what we have been told, creationism there is widely believed amongst the Calvinistic and non-conformist denominations.

As an aside, the author of this report has been wondering for some time whether, if he were to undertake a detail study of the individual fundamentalist academics (and, indeed, others), we would find that they tend to have ancestries outside of Southern England.

For example, Andy McIntosh is a distinctly Scottish name; Stuart Burgess’s forename is also distinctly Scottish.

One may also interpret the issue as a Celt v Anglo-Saxon issue. Despite the Synod of Whitby, Celts have never had much truck with the Church of England. There is 1,600 years of rivalry involved, ever since those Hengist and Horsa boys turned up and did the dirty.

Note that both Monty White and Philip Bell are out of Wales. Rosevear is a Cornish name.

Turning the issue on its head, is Australia. All of the best known Australian creationists are Queenslanders or live/have lived in Queensland – Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, Jonathan Sarfati, John Mackay, etc.. Both Creation Research and Creation Ministries are headquartered there.

But, traditionally Queenslanders have often been Catholic. One wonders whether the underlying drive behind fundamentalist Queenslanders has been to get back at a dominant denomination, or, indeed, fear and isolation and the consequent need to prove their religious superiority. Northern Ireland, written in another name, perhaps?