America’s founders said our rights come from the Creator. It is He who has endowed us with our rights. Therefore, they stand secure. But what if there were no Creator? What then?
Some in our society seem to think that the Creator has somehow been disproved by science, that evolution is a proven fact, that the Scopes Monkey Trial 100 years ago this month helped settle the matter. Case closed.
But is that really the case? Popular history tells us that science teacher John Thomas Scopes was put on trial for daring to teach evolution in his classroom in Dayton, Tennessee – an act prohibited by law in that predominantly Christian state.
In reality, Scopes was a football coach and only taught the science class as a substitute because the regular teacher did not want to violate the law.
In reality, the whole Scopes trial was a publicity event to try and put Dayton on the map.
In 1988, I was privileged to co-produce a television documentary hosted by Dr. D. James Kennedy called “The Case for Creation.” It was sort of like a Scopes trial in reverse. In fact, we were able to film Dr. Kennedy’s standups in the courtroom where the trial was held at Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton.
Dr. Kennedy observed, “ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow said it was the height of bigotry to teach only one view of origins.”
He paused and continued: “You know, I agree with him. But today, it is the creationists who are being discriminated against, and the bigotry is on the side of the evolutionists.”
One of our segments in the documentary told the back story of the case. When the ACLU learned about the Butler Act, they offered free legal defense for any teacher willing to defy this new law. Some local businessmen saw the opportunity to help bolster business and traffic for Dayton.
When the big guns got involved, this became national news. The big guns were Clarence Darrow, the skeptical ACLU-affiliated attorney from Chicago, and William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for president. Bryan, a firm believer in the Bible, was probably best known for his fiery speech on how the common man in Gilded Age America was being crucified on a “cross of gold.” A post from George Mason University describes Bryan’s message as “the most famous speech in American political history.”
Thus, the Scopes trial brought a big showdown in a far corner of the Bible Belt. The case became the first trial to be broadcast on radio in the nation.
One of the persons I interviewed for “The Case for Creation” documentary was Bud Shelton, who was 17 at the time of the trial. He was put on the stand as a witness because he had been in the class Scopes taught.
He didn’t remember much about the class or the courtroom part. What he did remember was the carnival atmosphere of their small city because of the trial.
Shelton told our viewers, “They erected hot dog stands and various other things, you know, to sell souvenirs and that sort of thing, and they thought, well, they were going to make it big. But that didn’t materialize.”
What did materialize was an attempt to mock the Bible. Clarence Darrow did everything he could to belittle biblical fundamentalism, as personified in William Jennings Bryan. Skeptical newsman H.L. Mencken added fuel to the fire by commenting in a very slanted way against Bryan and the Bible.
When Bryan wanted to cross-examine Darrow, the latter had his client, Scopes, plead guilty and pay the $100 fine. This brought the trial to an abrupt end – not allowing Bryan to even deliver a closing argument.
Although Bryan died shortly thereafter, in his few remaining days, he was able to help create a Bible-believing college that exists to this day – Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee.
For the 1988 documentary, I interviewed one of their professors, the late Dr. Richard Cornelius, co-author of the book “Scopes: Creation on Trial.”
Cornelius told our viewers that popular histories of the Scopes trial have distorted the event – such as the film and play, “Inherit the Wind.” Noted Cornelius, “It may be a very arresting drama, but it’s very inaccurate history. And in fact, the two authors of it, Lawrence and Lee, say in their preface that this is not the Scopes trial.”
Perhaps the most telling anecdote of the whole trial came about 10 years after it took place, said Cornelius. Clarence Darrow revisited Dayton, Tennessee, and saw a church being constructed, and he quipped, “I guess I didn’t do much good here after all.”
Rumors that God is dead – that the Creator was somehow killed off in the Scopes trial, which ended a hundred years ago to the day I write these words – are greatly exaggerated.