Yes I agree. This forum is to discuss classical Christianity. I think I should move to the Buddhist forum.
I saw the clip of the movie’s conclusion. Since the movie is a fictionalized version based on an actual event. it is hard to make any great declarations that connect the movie with reality. In reality, the teacher accused of teaching evolution actually lost the case, that is, he was fined for doing what the law at the time said not to do…
In reality, the attorney for the teacher put the attorney for the state – that is, the attorney defending the law forbidding teaching of evolution – on the witness stand. On the stand, the state’s attorney admitted to not believing in six literal days of creation and also made various defenses of a general creationist view of things. Some of these arguments seem difficult to uphold but he made them.
Shortly after the trial was concluded, the state’s attorney died and the attorney for the organization representing the teacher crowed triumphantly that “we killed him” – meaning that his interrogation of the attorney had led to his sudden death.
I am not sure what lesson to get from all this beyond the matter that the subject is a sensitive one for many people both then and now. God is not “too high up and too far away” to the “creationist” lawyer. This is the screenwriter’s editorializing, and it seems pointless and mushy at best. …By the way, the surname is Bryan, not Bryant…
I have been thinking about this over the last few days, and realized that William Jennings Bryan’s stance is a bit confusing to us because it comes from another era. I believe @TedDavis has commented on this elsewhere, but the difference is that back then, the eugenics and ubermensch concepts were alive and well, and threatened to use “Darwinism” (completely opposite to Darwin’s own point of view) to exclude the poor. WJB ran on platforms not directly because of his belief in inerrancy, but opposed evolution because he believed it ran counter to his Christian ideas of support for the poor. It’s a lesson to me–it’s easy to impose one’s prejudices on science because of any reason–both for inerrancy and for humanitarianism.__ One could say that works its way out in popular culture and politics, even now.
From Wikipedia: William Jennings Bryan - Wikipedia
Kazin writes that “scholars have increasingly warmed to Bryan’s motives, if not his actions” in the Scopes Trial, due to Bryan’s rejection of eugenics, a practice that many evolutionists of the 1920s favored.[140]
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Randy, if that is so then the movie portrays WJB as more of an unthinking literalist than he deserves. Of course it is a movie and therefore much more about telling a story than being a faithful recreation of history. As I think about it now, there really aren’t any sympathetic characters amongst the religious in that movie. I guess I thought most people here would probably dismiss them as YEC’s as I do, but of course you don’t really dismiss YECs. You try to win them over.
I guess the reason I brought it up was because I liked the way the non believing lawyer’s beliefs were portrayed. It is rare for me to find another non believer who isn’t dismissive toward every shade of God belief.
My bias is in favor of agnosticism, both for non believers and believers alike. Admitting that no matter how hard you work at your metaphysics and history, in the end you have to admit your position is at least in part speculative, no matter how much everyone around you agrees with you.
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I think that your point of agnosticism is the honest one; we can take a leap of faith, but we are all agnostic about ultimate truth. Admitting that is the only way to dialogue. And thank you–that is the intent I got from the OP, that it’s so important that we eschew judgmentalism. It was a good theme.
During the trial, WJB put some statements out that sounded quite dogmatic and narrow minded, as well. It was intriguing to me that he was so multifaceted that he came at it from a very liberal point of view. It even gave me a bit of hope that, prejudiced as he was, we can see evangelicals identified with caring for the poor, as he did; but it’s also a caution to me that even in that situation, I can be flawed. Science doesn’t bow to any sort of agenda.
Thanks for the meditation! I hope I didn’t distract from the main purpose too much.
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Mark and @Randy (and others),
The fictional portrayal of the Scopes trial in the stage and film versions of “Inherit the Wind” is just that–fictional. The play arose out of concerns for free speech in the McCarthy era and, like another play from the same period (“The Crucible,” loosely based on the Salem witch trials), it takes great artistic liberties with the actual historical events, in order to make specific political points. Drama is fiction, and any such works have license to present fanciful things as if they were actually true. We all need to keep that in mind.
For a well-written commentary on several specific ways in which “Inherit the Wind” deviates from historical fact(s), see Carol Iannone’s piece here: The Truth About Inherit the Wind by Carol Iannone | Articles | First Things. The only caution I would add is, don’t take at face value her claim that Inherit the Wind “flagrantly distorts the details, and neither the fictionalized names nor the cover of artistic license can excuse what amounts to an ideologically motivated hoax.” Certainly there are flagrant distortions in almost every part of the film, but it’s unfair IMO to call any work of art a “hoax.” It’s no more of a “hoax” than Shakespeare’s versions of English history, which (of course) advance his own views of humanity and politics by creating his own versions of the kings, military heroes, and other people who actually did exist. Do we really believe that Henry V addressed his forces in polished iambic pentameter?
However, it’s fair to point out that perhaps twenty years ago a number of school districts used “Inherit the Wind” in American history classes, without informing students of the disconnects between actual events and their portrayals in the film. That’s plain historical malpractice. I rarely hear about this today. I’ll have additional comments in a separate reply to @MarkD below.
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Your comments (just quoted in my previous post) about Bryan and YECs as portrayed in “Inherit the Wind” is a specific example of how that film distorts the actual events and facts–though (as I pointed out) for artistic reasons that don’t need historical justification, since it doesn’t pretend to be a documentary.
In fact, Bryan was an OEC, not a YEC, and I can name hardly any any conservative Protestant leaders at the time who were YECs, not even the self-styled “fundamentalists” (Bryan never actually identified himself as such, though he was surely very sympathetic with many of their views).
As you say, religion is depicted entirely in a negative, highly stereotypical, manner. In more ways than one, it’s a black and white film from start to finish. If a filmmaker today did likewise, but switched the characters to opposite sides, there’d be great cries from the Hollywood crowd who’s probably boycott the film as “propaganda” for evangelicals or conservatives. I use this film currently in a couple of courses, even though I find its portrayal of religion offensive and (for me) beyond belief. It’s an artifact of its own time, and I believe students benefit from seeing it as such.
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Yes, Bryan launched his anti-evolution campaign after The Great War (in 1922), in large part b/c he opposed various forms of “social Darwinism” with which various groups and individuals had linked evolution. He actually said very little about eugenics per se (which was really about putting Mendel, not Darwin, into practice on behalf of political and social agendas), but he did bitterly oppose cutthroat capitalism and German militarism, both of which were often connected with evolution at that time.
However, Bryan had long been opposed to evolution also on biblical and theological grounds. For some evidence of this, read his famous stump speech, “Prince of Peace,” which long predates his anti-evolution campaign: William Jennings Bryan, The Prince of Peace; if you search for “Darwin” you will find the juicy parts.
Now, on a related matter:
The trial arose directly out of a deliberate effort to put the new TN law on trial in higher courts. In order to do that, first it was necessary to convict a teacher of violating it. John Scopes was recruited by his own boss (the head of the school board in Dayton, TN) to admit at trial that he had taught evolution when he substituted for the regular biology teacher for a few weeks. He agreed to stand trial, was convicted, and then the law was actually upheld by the state Supreme Court, while at the same time his conviction was overturned on a technicality–namely, the judge rather than the jury had set the fine (a procedure that both sides permitted, so it shouldn’t have been overturned, but that’s what happened).
In other words, @bluebird, everyone in the courtroom wanted a conviction–including Scopes and his attorneys. Otherwise, the whole point of having that trial would have been null and void.
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That’s interesting. Do you teach a course on religion in the media then? I’ve got to say I am very pleased for the opportunity to discuss matters of religion in the context of the arts as I’m out of my depth where science is concerned though I find it interesting.
Like I was telling Randy what made the film memorable was finding an agnostic atheist character portrayed as open to the idea of God but skeptical of traditional Christian conception as prior to and responsible for everything else which exists. My own experience with other atheists online is that most have the same reaction to thinking more about what supports God belief as an adolescent boy has to the prospect of catching cooties. So for Spencer’s character to voice the idea he does about the Christian view of God struck a chord for me that I very rarely encounter. I think that blinded me to the negative, stereotypical manner in which believers were being portrayed. I share your disapproval of it now that I’m focused on it.
You make me wonder just when the YEC movement got started.
No, I’m an historian of science. I teach a bunch of courses about that general topic, and the related (for me) topic of Christianity and science.
The modern YEC movement began in the 1960s, when John Whitcomb and Henry Morris published The Genesis Flood (1961). Here’s a piece I wrote partly about this: Ken Ham’s Alternative History of Creationism - BioLogos
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Well that movement sure took off like a wildfire, didn’t it? I wonder how much origins/creation figured into Christian faith practice before that time?
Also thanks for the link. I’m reading it and have forwarded it to my younger YEC brother. I hope we’ll be able to discuss it.
Yes I understand that…
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