"Christians who believed the earth was flat tried to distort and misinterpret the clear teaching of Scripture in order to 'save face' with the 'scientific' community."
More like they had to move the goalposts, when on 4th October 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik 1, amirite? And in a single stroke, science - and Soviet science, at that - destroyed Genesis in the Bible cosmologically. Presumably by fundies at that time claiming that on October 3rd, God changed the 'dome' that was the 'firmament' into an atmosphere.
Then of course, on 12th April 1961, they sent up Yuri Gagarin. Presumably the day before, God changed the Earth from a flat disc into a sphere, amirite? Just so that, when he looked through the window of his Vostok 1 capsule, he'd see a spherical Earth. Oh, and when he was in orbit, he said:
'I looked and looked, but I didn't see God'
Thus the final clinching proof. Not only that the Earth wasn't flat, nor had a 'dome' above it, thus destroying Genesis (and thus the Bible) cosmologically, but the fact there was no great deity residing in the heavens.
Not for nothing were you in the US so terrified of the Soviet space programme. And not just because of the political ramifications, and potential military applications, of they being the first into space.
With the continued Russian co-operation - and construction - of the International Space Station, and of course data sent back from deep space probes sent in the 1970s and beyond, to say nothing of when the Large Hadron Collider does what it was built to do, you fundies are going to have to move the entire pitch, never mind the goalposts.
I'm surprised you fundies haven't got metaphorical arms like Atlas's from having to continually shift your theological positions, what with all the discoveries made in the last century or so. Darwin's discoveries & those onwards have effectively destroyed Genesis in the Bible biologically.
