 | Modern geocentrism: Encyclopedia II - Modern geocentrism - History of modern geocentrism
Modern geocentrism - History of modern geocentrism
The Ptolemaic model of the solar system held sway into the early modern age; from the late 16th century onward it was gradually replaced as the consensus description by the heliocentric model. Geocentrism as a separate religious belief, however, never completely died out. In the United States between 1870 and 1920, for example, various members of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod published articles disparaging Copernican astronomy, and geocentricism was widely taught within the synod during that period.
The most recent resurgence of geocentrism began in North America in 1967, when Canadian schoolmaster Walter van der Kamp (1913–1998) circulated a geocentric paper entitled “The Heart of the Matter” to about 50 Christian individuals and institutions. From these seeds grew the Tychonian Society and its journal, Bulletin of the Tychonian Society.
In 1984 van der Kamp retired as leader of the Tychonian Society and Gerardus Bouw, an astronomer with a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University succeeded him. In 1990 Bouw reorganized the Tychonian Society as the Association for Biblical Astronomy and changed the name of the Bulletin to The Biblical Astronomer. Bouw’s book Geocentricity (Cleveland, 1992) has been described as “the most sophisticated defence of geocentricity ever published”.[1]
Previous works include Bouw's earlier With Every Wind of Doctrine (1984), Walter Van Der Kamp's De Labor Solis (1989), and Marshall Hall's The Earth is Not Moving (1991). Other modern geocentrists include Malcolm Bowden, James Hanson, Paul Ellwanger, R G Elmendorf, Paula Haigh, and Robert Sungenis (president of Catholic Apologetics International and especially visible).
Modern geocentrists subscribe to the view that a plain reading of the Bible requires a geocentric worldview in addition to a belief that the Bible contains an accurate account of the manner in which the universe was created. For this reason, modern geocentrists maintain close ties to the creationist and creation science movements which disparage origins science in a similar fashion to the way in which geocentrists argue against modern views of celestial mechanics. Many prominent geocentrists actively promote creationism in the creation-evolution controversy. However, most creationists hold that while the Bible makes explicit historical claims regarding the origin of the Earth and life in the creation account in Genesis, it does not explicitly endorse geocentrism. The most prominent creationist societies (specifically Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research) explicitly reject the absolute geocentric perspective, and creationist journals such as TJ have rejected modern geocentric articles in favor of "geokineticist" articles. [2]
Modern geocentrists believe that they are the true standard-bearers for an appropriate amalgamation of science and religion. In particular, Gerardus Bouw has claimed "Invariably, those [creationists] who do take more than a cursory look [at geocentricity] become geocentrists." Most modern creationists disagree, including Ph.D. astronomers such as Danny Faulkner.[3],[4]
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