July 20, 2015

Summer Heat: Clarence Darrow vs. William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Monkey Trial

By Clarke Morledge
20th century cultural icons: cigarette smoking, agnostic advocate for science, Clarence Darrow vs. defender of the Bible, anti-evolutionist, populist politician, William Jennings Bryan, in the heat of a Tennessee summer.

20th century cultural icons: cigarette smoking, agnostic advocate for science, Clarence Darrow vs. defender of the Bible, anti-evolutionist, populist politician, William Jennings Bryan, in the heat of a Tennessee summer.

Where I live here in Virginia today, it is blisteringly hot.

It reminds me of an event that happened exactly ninety years ago today in Dayton, Tennessee. It was July 20,1925, and the famed political statesman, William Jennings Bryan, had taken to the witness stand, to be scrutinized by one of America’s most famous trial lawyers, Clarence Darrow. At stake was a relatively minor case, where a young, substitute biology teacher, John T. Scopes, had been charged with breaking a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in a state funded school. But the case soon became a media circus, as reporters from all over the country flooded the small courtroom facilities in this rural town, forcing the proceedings to be held outside in the intense summer heat.

Bryan, an evangelical Christian, had assumed the challenge to defend the law, while Darrow, an avowed agnostic, was determined to defeat it. But when Bryan went forward to be examined by Darrow, to warn against the cancer of Darrow’s evolutionary philosophy, the events that unfolded would shake the nation. Darrow, an unrepentant skeptic, peppered Bryan again and again with questions about the Bible. In the end, Bryan was able to successfully defend the law, but Darrow proved to win the cultural sentiment, leading to a spread of anti-Christian ridicule across the country at large. Thus marked the moment where American Christianity divided into the “fundamentalist/modernist” controversy. The “fundamentalist” wing sought to defend that “old time religion,” demonstrating the wisdom of the Bible over and against the false “wisdom” of modern science. The “modernist” wing reacted in the other direction, by essentially cutting the supernatural aspects of the Christian faith out of the Bible, in an effort to supposedly “save” Christianity. During the past ninety years, evangelical scholarship and apologetics have sought to break through the impasse caused by this controversy, thereby moving the conversation forward to persuade a lost generation of the Truth of the Savior.

Unfortunately, much of America’s cultural memory of the Scopes Monkey has been shaped by the subsequent play and movie, Inherit the Wind, that took many liberties in the retelling of the story.  For example, Inherit the Wind overlooks the fact that William Jennings Bryan took great interest in the case because he saw that the type of evolution being promoted in Scopes’ biology textbook advocated for eugenics, which he understood to be utterly immoral. Furthermore, the textbook, Hunter’s Civic Biology, contained the following statement that would hardly pass muster in today’s classrooms:  “At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, …These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest race type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.” Also, William Jennings Bryan was not an advocate of Young Earth Creationism, as he generally thought that the “days” of Genesis 1 referred to long periods of time, not literal 24-hour periods.

As I read the transcript of Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan, I admire Bryan’s intended desire to defend the truth of the Bible. However, I am not very impressed with all of Bryan’s answers. I Peter 3:15 teaches, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” I would hope that if I were in Bryan’s shoes on that witness stand, I would do better. But would I really be prepared to do so, as the Apostle Peter admonishes?

If you were there on that witness stand instead of Bryan, burdened by the summer heat, and the heat of the skeptic’s questions, how would you respond? See the transcript of the proceedings below, and tell me what you would say differently. More on the Scopes Monkey Trial at ChristianHistory.org:

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July 20, 2015

Thoughts on ‘Literality’

By John Paine

Editor’s Note: We received the following comment from David the Older, as part of a running dialog following Clarke’s recent post Terry Mortenson on the Problem of Millions of Years. Due to its length and substance, I decided to publish it as a post in the hope that it will promote thoughtful and charitable dialog on this topic.

_____________

(From David The Older)

A thought on Lyn’s response with regard to “literality.”

Your response to Brother Clarke was very helpful to me in attempting to sort out some things concerning the reading and understanding of Holy Scripture.

First, I want to say that I have no interest in the age of the earth.  To put it another way, I have no interest in the “age of rocks;” I do have an intense interest in the “Rock of Ages.”  And I have an intense interest in truth.

The words “literal” or “literally” occurred six times in your response to Clarke.  None of these six occurrences were within Bible verses.  The word “truth” occurred twice in your post, both times embodied within Bible verses.  That got me to thinking about the word literal (and derivatives thereof) and the word truth (and derivatives thereof) and their place in my personal Bible reading/study as a layfolk (that is, a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject).

It came to me that I don’t open my Bible and say to myself that I am going to read it literally.  I don’t think to myself now this text must be read, digested, and processed literally.  The literality of Scripture is simply not at the fore of my mind when I read my Bible.  What then is on my mind, if anything?  What then do I say to myself, if anything?  I say to myself something like this, and what is on my mind is something like this, “David, in your old age, read God’s Word, Scripture, for truth, that is, read the Word truthally (a made-up word).”  Truth is the focus of our Sacred Texts as is stated in many biblical passages. For example:

John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit…

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Indeed, E. J. Young (Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary for 36 years and an Evangelical luminary) entitled his book, which is a “classic … exposition of the biblical doctrine of inspiration,” Thy Word is Truth not Thy Word is Literality.  Allan Harman writes of Young that he “held unswervingly to a high view of Scripture …”  The word literal does not occur in the Bible to my knowledge.  So, I read the Bible firstly and primarily “truthally.”  I want to know what the truth of Scripture is that I might apply that truth in my life to “be conformed to the image of the His Son [Jesus]” as Paul commands in Romans 8:29.

Here is an example of what came to my mind after reading your response to Clarke’s post on Mortenson.  Max Lucado has written many books that Christians find helpful, so I am told.  Actually, I haven’t read any of Lucado’s books for adults.  However, I have devoured his children’s books, some of which are superb.  My favorite Lucado children’s book is You Are Special (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15QuHygLwFU) featuring mythological people including Punchinello, Lucia, Eli, etc.—Lucado’s story is myth.  What do I mean by myth? This.

“Myth is the language of imaginative insight into ultimate reality, which reveals [uncovers]… truth under the form of symbol  …  To know myth, therefore, in the proper sense, is to be initiated into a unique experience of reality [that is, a unique experience of the real/literal].” (Alan Griffiths)

Lucado’s characters are wooden people, call Wemmicks, who were made by Eli the master wood carver.  They live in Wemmicksville.  It is a powerful story/myth/allegory/metaphor/parable (it is not fantasy) about finding our true and abiding identity in a vertical relationship with the Creator God rather than in a horizontal relationship with peers.  Lucado’s narrative is described well by Goodreads:

Max [Lucado] was interested in helping children understand their value – not from the world’s perspective, but from God’s. Wemmicksville is a land created by Eli, the “God” figure of the story. He creates each Wemmick in Wemmicksville uniquely, each with its own look and personality. Each story and video is a new adventure with the citizens of Wemmicksville. Punchinello is the central character, along with his friends Lucia, Splint, and Chip. When Punchinello strays from Eli, he begins to have problems. Only when Punchinello stays close to Eli does he clearly see how to walk through his life in Wemmicksville.

In this heartwarming tale [myth/story], Eli helps Punchinello understand how special he is—no matter what other Wemmicks may think. Children [and adults] will learn a vital lesson—regardless of how the world sees them, God loves each of them just as they are.

Thus, truth can be conveyed to me, to any reader, in either a literal textual genre or in a genre of story/myth/allegory/metaphor/parable, or, further, the text may be both literal and story/myth/allegory/metaphor/parable at one and the same time.  Consider the account of the man who had two prodigal sons in Luke 15.  Luke’s text does not say, that is, does not say, that this is a parable!  The text begins with only this: “And he [Jesus] said, “There was a man who had two sons …”  Nowhere in the narrative does Jesus call this account a parable.  So, should we read this narrative literally or parabolically/metaphorically/mythically/etc?  We really don’t know with certainty whether this narrative is literal or parabolic.  But—Does it make any difference here to the truth value of Jesus’s teaching?  I propose that the truth value in this case, and perhaps in other cases in Scripture, is independent of literary genre.  Now, Alan Griffiths’s definition of myth must be recalled: “Myth [maps] into ultimate reality [that is, a literalness] … To know myth … is to be initiated into a unique experience of reality [that is, a literalness].”  So there is a necessary and essential reciprocal mapping between myth and reality.  This is different than fantasy; I am speaking of myth, not fantasy.

So, distinctions/differences among the ideas of literality, history, story, allegory, metaphor, myth, parable, and language itself may not be quite as simple as I once thought, particularly as we are in pursuit of God’s truth.  The vehicles for conveying truth are varied. And truth may encompass more than one dimension of reality—for example, John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” I remember the words of Paul in II Corinthians 4:18:

“… we look not to the things that are seen [e.g., the material, rocks, flesh] but to the things that are unseen [spirit]. For the things that are seen are temporal/transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

For the Christ-follower, there is an abiding reality that is beyond visible, tangible, material phenomena, beyond the “literal.”  I see such a reality in Paul when he says in II Corinthians 12:

“2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter [Why can they not be uttered?—Perhaps, I suggest, to the limitations of language].”

And then there are those lines in the hymn Break Thou the Bread of Life:

“Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee Lord …”

Thanks for challenging me to think carefully concerning the truth value that is embodied in text of our Scriptures, which is inspired (God-breathed) and the final authority in matters of belief and behavior. Evangelicalism (i.e., Christian, biblical orthodoxy) is defined by this commitment to inspiration and authority and a commitment to the historic creeds such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed (as well as perhaps the Statement of Faith of the National Association of Evangelicals)—within these boundaries there is interpretative (hermeneutical) elasticity as evidenced by the multiplicity of conservative, orthodox denominations/traditions and even different views within denominational frameworks.

Postscript from the world of physics related to Paul in II Corinthians 4:18:

HydrogenGasHere is an example from physics bearing on myth and literality and truth value. I will now argue (briefly) that myth in literature is similar to theory in physics. As myth communicates truth in a literary form, so theory communicates truth in physics.  Consider this illustration. If you pass an electrical current through hydrogen gas, a brilliant reddish glow is observed, as shown at the side.  This is the literal appearance of electrically energized hydrogen atoms.  Erwin Schrodinger (Nobel Prize for Physics 1933) asked the proverbial question, “Is there more here than meets the eye?”  That is, is there an unseen reality behind the visible experience (the seen red glow) of energized hydrogen atoms? Schrodinger’s answer to these questions is embodied in his mathematical creation for a hydrogen atom shown below.

SchrodingerEquation

It is an abstract/symbolic “narrative”—that is, it is mythical in that it is a non-material reality generated in the mind that God gave to all men within the bounds of common grace in the creation. Upon solving Schrodinger’s equation one quantitatively generates all the unseen electronic energy states of the hydrogen atom and thus understands that the visible reddish glow is the composite of four electron transitions that release energy in the region of the color spectrum that we can see with our eyes. This is analogous to St. Paul speaking of seen and unseen realities in II Corinthians 4, of which the unseen (non-sensate) reality is the abiding, essential, eternal reality. Furthermore, the complete set of solutions to Schrodinger’s equation provides an elegant explanation for the periodic table of the elements which is foundational to all of chemistry. Physicists are interested in the truth concerning God’s material creation—they want to know the “mind of God” as many have put it. From my perspective God allows human beings created in His image to learn and know the truth of the physical world by both literal and symbolic/mythical/metaphorical pathways. Both pathways are crucial. If there is no literal hydrogen atom, there is no Schrodinger equation. If there is no Schrodinger equation, there is no understanding of the essential, abiding, eternal nature of the hydrogen atom. It may be a serious over-simplification to say that we read our sacred Scriptures literally and leave it at that, just as it is a serious over-simplification to say that we know all about a hydrogen atom by simply observing its sensate, material appearances. There is a reality that is behind the literal both in spiritual world and in the material world, both of these worlds being created by God. For more in this vein it is instructive to read C. S. Lewis’s essay Myth Became Fact in God in the Dock. It is available on the web–katrinageiger.weebly.com/…/myth_became_fact-god_in_the_dock.doc.

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July 15, 2015

Biblical Literacy Quiz

By John Paine

Up for a challenge? Here’s a fast-paced, 20-question online quiz you can take to test your biblical literacy. Click on the image below, then just fill in the dots to get your score at the end. The links at the Biola Magazine site are pretty revealing about biblical illiteracy—spend some time browsing. There is much work to be done. (We’re certain that Veracity readers will be way above average, but give it a shot anyway.)

Biblical Literacy Quiz

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July 13, 2015

Science and Creation: The Question Behind the Question

By Clarke Morledge

When Christians are discussing difficult topics, such as the “how” of creation, a number questions come to the forefront. For example, we may be talking about something like the problem of animal death before the Fall of humanity, but I often wonder if there are other issues lurking below the surface.

Our lead pastor, Travis Simone, and I discuss this topic in general in the latest installment of TableTalk during our summer Bible study series on Genesis 1-11. What do you think? Is there a question behind the question here? Have I correctly identified the right question, or is there something else?

Technical note: because of a glitch in the beginning, the audio is present throughout, but the video only shows up 3 minutes (3:00) into the session. So, please be patient!

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay (Habakkuk 2:3).

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July 10, 2015

Terry Mortenson on the Problem of Millions of Years

By Clarke Morledge

Here on Veracity, we have highlighted the work of Terry Mortenson, a speaker for the popular Young Earth Creationist ministry, Answers in Genesis. He spoke in Williamsburg several years ago on topics related to creation.

A lot of people, particularly atheists, ridicule Young Earth Creationists as being idiotic and stupid. I find this to be most uncharitable. Though I was not able to meet Terry Mortenson personally during his time in Williamsburg, I nevertheless found him to be quite charming, likable, and very articulate.

Terry Mortenson believes that modern science, even as practiced by Old Earth and Evolutionary Creationists, is built on inherently anti-biblical assumptions. Therefore, Christians should reject the concept of “millions of years” because it threatens to undermine the Bible. Science, as generally practiced today, can not be relied upon to give us true, genuine knowledge of the world that reflects God’s glory. In other words, God’s creation is NOT the 67th book of the Bible.

I would assume that Dr. Mortensen would take issue with how I understand the teaching of Psalm 19. My questions for Terry Mortenesen are not based on science, per se. That is a very involved discussion that would require me cracking open those dusty textbooks from my days in college. My concern is about the Bible. How would he read passages like Romans 1:18-23 (ESV)?

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Here, the Apostle Paul, is talking about pagans who have no access to  God’s Law as set forth in Holy Scripture (he addresses the Jews who have God’s Law in Romans 2).  Paul’s main message is that the pagans have looked at the evidence for God in creation and then rejected God, worshipping creatures instead of the Creator. A lot of atheists and other skeptics probably fit in this category rather well today. But as I have highlighted above, Paul seems convinced that what can be known of God as Creator can be seen in the things that have been made. Not only that, but this knowledge from the created order has been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world. Paul makes no mention of the pagans having a Bible to give them knowledge of God as Creator. Rather, it would appear that Paul assumes that general knowledge of God can be truly known by people because He has made it plain to them. If I take this literally, it would imply that there is a Christian basis for doing science simply by observing nature, expecting that as a different source of information, it essentially will not and cannot conflict with what we read in Sacred Scripture.

How does this square with Terry Mortenson’s view that you must first look to the first few chapters of Genesis to establish the basis for building science? Dr. Mortensen is quite correct that it is easy for scientists to misinterpret the scientific data that God leaves us in Creation. Good point!

However, those who hold to more of an “Old Earth” perspective contend that it is possible for people to misinterpret the Bible, as well, thereby creating an apparent conflict between modern science and Christian faith that need not exist. According to this perspective that accepts the general narrative of modern science, misinterpreting the Bible can actually create an unnecessary barrier to having faith in God.

Every “Old Earth” scientist I know who loves Jesus is persuaded that “millions of years” is correct, not because they are uncritically consuming “anti-biblical” assumptions. They accept “millions of years” because, in their observations, the evidence God has placed there demands it. If convincing evidence could be demonstrated to overthrow “millions of years,” they would accept a “young earth” in a heartbeat.

So, is Dr. Mortenson correct? Tell me what you think in the comments section below after you view this short video.

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