Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 04:1 (Fall 1999)
Article: William Jennings Bryan And The Scopes Trial: A Fundamentalist Perspective
Author: Gerald L. Priest

---

DBSJ 4 (Fall 1999) p. 51

William Jennings Bryan And The Scopes Trial:
A Fundamentalist Perspective

Gerald L. Priest*

* Dr. Priest is Professor of Historical Theology at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, MI.

During the last few years of the life of William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925), when the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy was at its height, few men linked science with creationism (or Adamism as some evolutionists called it1 ). Very little scientific formulae and geological evidence for creationism were available in Bryan’s day.2 His critics suggest that, even if the facts were available, he would not have used them. His final and sufficient defense for divine creation was Genesis; God’s answer was enough. Evolutionists were critical of fundamentalists for their “unscientific” approach to the biological origin and development of species, while the latter, under the leadership of Bryan, adamantly maintained that any system which contradicts the biblical account of creation cannot be true. Although the Bible, they said, is not a textbook on science, it nevertheless speaks authoritatively on any subject it addresses because it is divinely inspired and can be clearly understood.3 Whenever it makes statements bearing on scientific questions

DBSJ 4 (Fall 1999) p. 52

(such as the origin of man), it is absolutely trustworthy. To contradict it is to impugn the character of God and undermine Christian doctrine. Bryan, therefore, refused to call evolution a science or even a theory but only a hypothesis.4 This refusal, rooted deeply in a firm commitment to a literal interpretation of Scripture and a personal faith in Jesus Christ, led the Great Commoner into confrontation with evolution proponents, culminating in the famous Scopes trial of July 10–21, 1925.5

Much of what has been written about Bryan’s fundamentalism and his involvement in the trial is superficial, tainted by invective and ridicule of the man’s character and intelligence. The sensational atmosphere connected with the trial coupled with adverse press coverage has tended to give a distorted rather than an accurate view of Bryan,6 the classic

DBSJ 4 (Fall 1999) p. 53

misrepresentation being the play and movie, Inherit the Wind.7 Paul Waggoner points out that cynical analyses of th...

visitor : : uid: ()