“The Monkey Trial: John Scopes and the Battle Over Teaching Evolution”
By Anita Sanchez.
Clarion Books, New York, 2023, 184 pages, Grades 6-9.
Charles Darwin published “The Origin of the Species” in 1859. The book proposed that cells evolved into higher forms throughout time. Eventually, this process produced man. This led to the common refrain that man evolved from monkeys. Darwin was hailed as a courageous visionary, challenging a God-centered account of creation. Over time, his original ideas are no longer accepted by scientists; the idea of evolutionary processes continues to be hotly debated.
In 1925, Mr. John Scopes (1900-1970) taught the theory of evolution to a group of Tennessee students and was charged with breaking Tennessee law. Anita Sanchez writes a compelling account of this highly publicized case in “The Monkey Trial: John Scopes and the Battle Over Teaching Evolution.” Scopes read to his students from a biology book that supported Darwin’s theory of evolution. Tennessee law forbade the teaching of this subject.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) encourages Scopes and wants to legally challenge the law. Local business leaders happily hear of his impending arrest, because they believe the trial will make money by bringing tourists into town. Powerful lawyers like Clarence Darrow, and writers such as H.L. Mencken, see this as an opportunity to push their secular ideas and to ridicule religion. Mencken, in particular, seems to have a deep antipathy toward the South and uses his writing to attack the region for its supposed backwardness and religious ignorance.
The Scopes trial or “Monkey Trial,” as it will become known, serves his purposes. William Jennings Bryan, former United States Secretary of State, agrees to represent the prosecution, trying the unassuming Scopes. The trial will cause national and international waves of interest. Meanwhile, Scopes wonders if he can escape from this circus of pride and hostility. What eventually happens?
Is Scopes found guilty? What strategy does William Jennings Bryan use to prosecute Scopes? Why does Clarence Darrow repeatedly attack the literalness of the Old Testament in his arguments? What happens to John Scopes as a result of the trial? Why are we still hearing the echoes of this trial in our cultural wars today? To find the answers to these and other questions, go to the library and check out “The Monkey Trial: John Scopes and the Battle Over Teaching Evolution” by Anita Sanchez.
In 1893, Pope Leo XIII wrote in Providentissimus Deus that there can be no contradiction between faith and science, since God is the author of both. The problem is that the understanding of both does not mature at the same time. This means that the findings of science are sometimes ahead of the understanding of faith.
Evolution guided by God is not contrary to the Church’s teaching, but that is not the idea proposed by Darwin. It might do us all good to lower the anger and finger-pointing in this matter and let Pope Leo XIII’s ideas come to maturation. Highly recommended.
