The Scopes Trial in History and Legend
Posted by tom | Jul 5, 2009Check out the below email from the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science for a few on-line resources regarding and an upcoming lecture on The Scopes Trial in History and Legend. Hope to see some of you Monday, 7pm, Pine Street Church, Harrisburg, PA. If you're not able to make it, but interested in my notes, let me know.
The topic moves from Europe in the late 1600s to America in the 1920s, as we consider what really happened at the Scopes trial -- one of the two or three most famous trials in American history. Two huge "stars" of the day, former presidential candidate and the great defense attorney Clarence Darrow, faced off in a large courtroom in Dayton, TN, as hundreds of reporters and a live radio broadcast communicated events world-wide. It was a media circus before such things were common. The trial was very loosely presented in a Broadway play of the 1950s, "Inherit the Wind," and a subsequent film in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy as Darrow and Frederic March as Bryan. Anyone familiar with either the play or the film will find that the real story makes an interesting comparison -- this is a case in which facts are actually better than fiction.
The best single source for information about the trial and surrounding events is the Pulitzer-prize winning book by historian and legal scholar Edward J. Larson, "Summer for the Gods." (You can preview the book at google books.) Dr. Larson has spoken twice at Messiah, including at an event held just a few days after his book was named a prize winner. A superb web site is http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scopes/scopes.htm.* Another excellent site is http://www.bryan.edu/historical.html. Bryan College, established a few years after the trial, maintains that site and provides ongoing events related to the trial. This past February, I spoke at a Darwin bicentennial event at Bryan College, delivering the lecture that I will do at Pine Street Church on July 13. That evening, you will see powerful anti-evolution cartoons from the 1920s, drawn by the leading fundamentalist cartoonist, E.J. Pace (for some information about Pace go to http://www.christiancomicsinternational.org/pace_pioneer.html), and hear about how liberal Protestants responded in pamphlets that were very widely read at the time, pamphlets that were paid for partly by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and partly by dozens of American scientists who agreed with the liberal clergy that evolution and religious faith were compatible. My current research project is related to this controversy, and most of the information I will present on July 13 is based on that project.
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Separately from the Monday evening lectures, Ted Davis will be leading the adult Sunday School class at Pine Street during the month of July, starting on July 5 at 9:40 am, in the same room as the Monday lectures. This is a completely different program. Instead of lectures about the history of science and Christianity, there will be a series of short video programs about contemporary science/faith issues, with discussion. The videos are from a brand new series, "Test of Faith," produced by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University in England. These materials are only now starting to be sold in the UK and are not yet available in the US; we have permission from Faraday to use them, to provide what is probably their American premier showings. A short trailer and information about the videos and the print materials that accompany them are available at http://www.testoffaith.com/default.aspx.
*Note: I heard Edward J. Larson speak at F&M in October 2007. "Summer for the Gods" is on my too read shelf, anyone interested in reading it along with me and having an on-line discussion?
