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The gift of the Scopes Monkey Trial
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July 10, 2009 marks the 84th anniversary of the Scopes Trial (sometimes referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trail) in Dayton, Tennessee. The entire trial lasted just one week but its echoes can still be heard today throughout many parts of the country still grappling with the question of what should be taught when it comes to the origins of humanity. The clash between religion and science all began with an ex-secretary of State named William Jennings Bryan.
William Jennings Bryan, a leader in the anti-evolution movement, began delivering speeches with titles the likes of "The Menace of Darwinism" and "The Bible and its Enemies." His fiery speeches caught the interest of a man in the Tennessee legislature named John Washington Butler. Butler would introduce the Butler bill which proposed a law that prohibited the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." On March 21, 1925 the bill was signed into law making it the first of its kind in the United States to ban the teaching of evolution.
By May of the same year, a Chattanooga newspaper ran an ad announcing the ACLU’s search for a teacher who would be willing to challenge the law. Intrigued by the publicity and dollars that a trial could bring their small town, leaders looked for a willing teacher. Enter 24-year-old John Thomas Scopes. Scopes was approached by Dayton’s town leaders and asked if he would be willing to be indicted so the case may be brought to trial. Scopes was a substitute biology teacher using the text A Civic Biology first published in 1914. The book described evolution as "the belief that simple forms of life on the earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those more complex and that thus ultimately the most complex forms came into existence." William Jennings Bryan joined the prosecution while the famous Clarence Darrow agreed to defend Scopes. By weeks end the jury returned after just 9 minutes of deliberation and delivered a guilty verdict. Scopes was fined 100 dollars.
Central to this age-old argument of course is the question of whether or not man originated through the act of creation, by God, as is put forth in the bible or, if man originated from some lower species; one whose humble beginnings resemble a creature we would associate more closely with a primate. It is always important to examine our world’s paradigms because this is how we grow. If one believes in creationism then one believes that God created man and woman, in his own image, as part of the living, breathing creation of planet earth. Evolution puts forth the idea that we humans started as a lower order of animals and slowly evolved over time until we reached our present-day appearance. Creationists would probably agree that God is spirit and that God exists within each of us. If this is true then it would also hold true that spirit does not select the form that it inhabits, for example a child born with some sort of physical deformity or a limited mental capacity. God loves everyone and outward appearances are inconsequential. The image and likeness of God is one of spirit, not of body. So perhaps then, it logically follows that any human form , even one that appears to look more like a primate, is just as deserving of God’s love as any human whether he or she roamed the earth at the dawn of time or today. Perhaps Scopes and his biology book then are really describing the perfect evolution of the perfect creatures created and beloved by God from the Beginning.
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