Gary, Sam is correct. I’m quite aware of Roberts’s lukewarm reception of orthodox Darwinian theory; what I’m more interested in is the way basic concepts of descent, heredity, and (as Herbert Spencer put it) survival of the fittest subtly interacted with religious thought, the sort of thing Sam alludes to in Lovejoy’s work. _Lots_ of GAs, like Widstoe (and I haven’t read as much of him as I should – thanks for the heads up, Matt), felt compelled to differentiate between ‘false’ and ‘true’ evolution, the latter being something like eternal progression. The mere fact that they did this shows the influence evolutionary ideas had on the ways they thought about human development and destiny, even if they rejected Darwin’s views on human origins – exactly like McKay apparently did. Roberts himself was skeptical of Darwin, but his work with concepts like pre-Adamic man and his theories about spirit birth and the pre-existence show him wrestling with these sorts of ideas.

Kevin – I’ve read everything Sherlock’s written, but have yet to delve into Begara’s; Margaret has convinced me that the BYU crisis seems like a more interesting case study than I originally thought – thanks.

I’m not certain about Jettboy’s categorization. While most folk that believe in evolution are going to be skeptical of the world-wide flood, I don’t think there is any correlation to how they view the historicity of, say, Jesus walking on water or the historicity of the First Vision.

One thing you might want to look into is the 1911 evolution crisis at BYU involving the Chamberlin brothers. Some sources for this are:

Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 129-34;

Richard Sherlock, “Campus in Crisis: BYU: 1911,” Sunstone 4 (January/February 1979): 10-16, here; and

Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1985), 134-71, here.

If you’re not familiar with it, here is an .online article by Gary Bergera.

This caused quite an uproar among the students themselves, and if you were to do some research in the BYU student newspaper of the time, The White and Blue, you might find some of the low-level impact you are interested in.

There are two things that Evolution has done in the way Mormons think about religion. The first is that it has caused a split between “Progressive” and “Literalist” theologians, making it very hard for the two to communicate without serious disagreements. More than that, it has been the war cry for literalists to decry the lack of faith in miracles and authority. At the same time, it has given the more progressives an excuse to paint literalists as simple minded and sheep. How a Mormon views theology can often be tied to how they view Creation and Evolution. And, not all the views are one or the other(more commonly with a recognition of both as legitimate and even compatible).

The second thing it has done, paticularly for those who are more progressive theologically, is to reinterpret miracles. Starting with the Creation, going to the Flood, and touching on less well known miracle stories a more scientific approach is used. They don’t particularly deny the miracles (although some literalists don’t see the difference) as much as try to make more sense out of them. They don’t go so far as make them purely spiritualized or symbolic, but they do question the accuracy. What is written in the Scriptures about miracles (especially the world changing ones) are viewpoint specific to the writers or witnesses. In other words, the Creation narratives do not specify the exact methods; but only describe the most basic outlines that a non-scientific person could understand.