I wouldn’t put it in quite such Manichean terms, but I do see what to me is a fairly clear dividing line.
There are those theists who see God as having created the universe, but accept scientific explanations for the details, rather than asserting that God is overtly ‘tinkering’ to bring about the natural world.
Then there are those that see, in opposition to scientific explanations, God as having engaged in overt and specific creative acts, be it of all life (YEC), individual species (Progressive Creationism) or individual features of organisms such as bacterial flagella, quinine resistance in maleria, etc (Behe et al).
(Parenthetically, I would see Fine Tuning arguments as largely orthogonal to this divide.)
Given that the second group seems united in their opposition to evolution, tend to use similar arguments, and have overlapping membership, it seems reasonable to desire a common label for them. Given that their commonality includes belief in specific supernatural creative acts, the label “Creationism” seems appropriate.
Yes, that will continue to lead to a small degree of confusion due to the existence of ‘Evolutionary Creationists’ – but that group knew they would be engendering confusion when they took, as part of their self-identification, a label that had for several decades denoted opposition to evolution. I see no more reason to avoid use of the label because of them than to avoid use of the label “scientist” because the followers of Christian Science self-identify as ‘Christian Scientists’.
And that seems unavoidable for the moment. So the best one can do is use the definition most appropriate for a given context, and also be clear which definition someone else is using. If the organizers of that conference had ensured that any invited creationists met my definition, they would have ended up with the debate they were expecting.
Well, that makes it much less likely that Behe or Denton would shown up even if asked.
That is my reasoning, as well. In addition to the facts that, as @John_Harshman has remined us, ID is primarily a political movement, and disavowing the terms “creationist” is a crucial part of their political strategy.
It seems to me, as I have said before, that the core of “creationism” is putting supernatural causation as a proximate, rather than merely an ultimate, cause of living things. A good definition can’t be specifically Christian as it would exclude all the non-Christians who believe the same blasted nonsense. But it also needs to have some sort of carve-out for those who see gods as ultimate cause, “ground of all being,” yadda yadda and other purely verbal, non-fact-bound irrelevancies, because without that, one sweeps in a lot of people who aren’t science denialists at all.
They would probably have ended up with a different debate, since they were likely expecting YECs. But still a debate, at least.
Not “disavowing”, exactly. They just avoid it in their branding. But within the big tent they do include many creationists who are perfectly willing to own the word. Nor is the DI opposed to evolution as a group. They just demand that if it happens it has to have God in it somewhere. Many of them accept lots of evolution, including universal common descent and natural selection up to a point.
The Wedge document spells it out: The goal is to create an environment in which it is widely held that our world cannot be fully understood without appealing to Scripture and religious authority in ALL fields of life. Not just science but law, government, morality, the arts, education, etc… They even mention “product liability.” Which I have never understood, but whatever.
I seem to recall that the Ark of the Covenant had some very stern warning labels, but under California law those wouldn’t bar liability unless they were in a certain type size. Clearly a Biblical approach here would be helpful.
Well, it should have had warning labels, at least. Warning: do not open if you’re a Nazi. But it seems perfectly safe if stored in a wooden crate in a giant government warehouse. I’m getting this information from a documentary I saw that featured a Dr. Jones.
