American Theater: The Scopes Trial Introduced

The intellectual climate of Europe did not have significant effects upon the United States for several decades, but in the early years of the 20th century the controversies over theological liberalism and the encroachment of scientific naturalism were becoming more strident. A group of conservative Protestant theologians published a collection of scholarly essays around 1910 called The Fundamentals in defense of basic Christian doctrine. Ironically, the term "fundamentalism" came to be associated with anti-intellectual fanaticism and slavish adherence to woodern literalism, possibly because around the same time popular American religion was characterized by revivalism and experientialism. There was unhappily also a certain amount of chicanery in preachers and evangelists, providing fodder for literary critiques such as Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry. In academic settings, well-known seminary professors who strayed far from theological orthodoxy were subjected to censure and heresy trials, although most of these bore no fruit except notoriety. Theologically liberal pastors, such as Harry Emerson Fosdick, in large metropolitan churches preached sermons advancing a humanist reinterpretation of Christianity and gained a wide following.

In many parts of the country, there was resistance to teaching Darwinism in the public schools. In Tennessee in the early 1920s lawmakers passed the Butler Act, which forbade teaching Darwinism. The governor signed the bill, doubting it would ever be enforced--in fact, it never really was--so it was really more an act of political pandering than anything. But it created an opportunity for some to advance their own agenda. The wider context was the sensational legal atmosphere that existed in the 1920s. There had been some notorious criminal trials that were followed closely by the public. The Scopes Trial fed that appetite for legal drama.