"Darwin's interpretation of nature was infinitely more damaging to a Christian vision of the world than the revolutions of either Copernicus or Newton. If the theories of these earlier scientists forced certain readjustments in the Christian conception of humanity's place in nature, they did not essentially threaten the Christian drama of Creation Fall, and Redemption. Darwinism challenged the entire biblical account of the human race's unique creation, fall and need for redemption. The doctrine that humanity was the product of a long evolutionary process from lower to higher species appeared incompatible with the traditional interpretation of the Fall. In Darwin's opinion humankind had risen from a species of dumb animal, not fallen from a state of angelic perfection."
-- Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century, Volume 1, 2nd ed., 1997, James Livingston, p. 255.
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