Reverend Luther Tracy Townsend (September 27, 1838 - 1922) was a Methodist minister and professor at Boston University, and the author of a number of theological and historical works.

[3][4] It was here he gained a reputation as a defender of traditional evangelical beliefs and a critic of Darwinism and evolution.

[5] Townsend resigned his position at Boston University in 1893 to focus on writing and lecturing,[6] and was a delegate to the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

[6] In Collapse of Evolution, Townsend blamed evolutionary theory, among other things, for what he saw as the downward moral trend of society, and warned that if the theory was accepted it would lead to an increase in war, murder, and that the world would be "an asylum for an idiotic race and a mad house with padded cells without anyone to lock or unlock its doors.

"[7] He was a member of the Victoria Institute, a creationist organization,[2] and was one of the most well known clerical opponents of evolution at the time.