> "I believe the denial of evolution is something characteristic for american evangelicals."
It's pretty easy to trace the history of this belief.
In the late 1800s, a movement sprang up primarily in the US called "Liberal Christianity", which at its most extreme treated the Bible as essentially a useful and unreliable fairy tale. In response to this, a countermovement called "Christian Fundamentalism" arose, which at its most extreme treated the Bible (typically King James Version) as completely literal and completely perfect, and viewed any study of external data (like manuscripts or culture) with great suspicion. Fundamentalism became fairly influential in American Evangelical circles, even among those who did not explicitly adopt the title Fundamentalist.
As a result of the rise of Fundamentalism, the idea of a literal six-day creation becameentrenched in the US, which directly led to the rejection of the theories Darwin had recently proposed regarding speciation.
When I say the literalist belief became entrenched, I do not mean to say it was nonexistent before, only that it was rare. Various non-literal understandings of the creation account can be found throughout Christian history. For example, Augustine's treatise on Genesis 1 [0] is quite allegorical.
[0] http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.toc.html - from where the word "Genesis" first appears on the page, down to where the list of names starts, you can click through to read each individual paragraph/section.
It's pretty easy to trace the history of this belief.
In the late 1800s, a movement sprang up primarily in the US called "Liberal Christianity", which at its most extreme treated the Bible as essentially a useful and unreliable fairy tale. In response to this, a countermovement called "Christian Fundamentalism" arose, which at its most extreme treated the Bible (typically King James Version) as completely literal and completely perfect, and viewed any study of external data (like manuscripts or culture) with great suspicion. Fundamentalism became fairly influential in American Evangelical circles, even among those who did not explicitly adopt the title Fundamentalist.
As a result of the rise of Fundamentalism, the idea of a literal six-day creation becameentrenched in the US, which directly led to the rejection of the theories Darwin had recently proposed regarding speciation.
When I say the literalist belief became entrenched, I do not mean to say it was nonexistent before, only that it was rare. Various non-literal understandings of the creation account can be found throughout Christian history. For example, Augustine's treatise on Genesis 1 [0] is quite allegorical.
[0] http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.toc.html - from where the word "Genesis" first appears on the page, down to where the list of names starts, you can click through to read each individual paragraph/section.