1. The History of Presbyterianism in the United States
Part 3: A Determined Unbelief
C – Evolution as Propaganda
Andrew Frye, Worldview Academy
and the Rev. David G. Barker

2. Master Timeline United States Europe United States (cont.)
1620 – Mayflower lands
1730s-1743 – 1st Great Awakening
– American Rev.
– 2nd Great Awakening
1830 – Book of Mormon
– 3rd Great Awakening
– American Civil War
1870 – Scottish Common Sense
1889 – Moody Bible Institute
1891 – Briggs’ address
1909 – Scofield Reference Bible
1910 – Pres. G.A.: 5 Fundamentals
– World War I
1922 – “Shall Fund.s Win?”
1923 – The Auburn Affirmation
1925 – The Scopes Trial
1929 – Westminster Theo. Seminary
1936 – Orthodox Presbyterian Ch.
1936 – John Mackay, Princeton Sem.
1643 – Westminster Confession of Faith
– Age of European Enlightenment
& of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy
1770s-1900 – Rise of German Higher Criticism
– French Revolution
1827 – Plymouth Brethren begin meeting
1833 – Slavery Abolition Act of England
Charles Darwin – Origin of Species
– Darby travels to the United States
1919 – Rise of Neo-Orthodoxy
United States (cont.)
1937 – Death of J. Gresham Machen
- Bible Presbyterian Ch. (McIntyre)
1955, 1960 – Inherit the Wind
1966 – RTS, Jackson, MI
1967 – Confession of ‘67, Book of Confessions
1973 – PCA
1983 – Union of UPCUSA & PCUS

3. What has Changed Since the Scopes Trial in 1925?
The scientific evidence confidently cited in the Scopes trial - “Piltdown Man” and “Nebraska Man” - had been dismissed as fraud and incorrect respectively. Other scientific evidence for evolution has come and will, before long, also be abandoned. Nothing in evidence of evolution has stood the test of time.
“If Darrow had wanted, he probably could just as easily have made the leading evolutionary scientists of the day look foolish.” (P. Johnson)

4. What has Changed Since the Scopes Trial in 1925?
The scientific evidence confidently cited in the Scopes trial - “Piltdown Man” and “Nebraska Man” - had been dismissed as fraud and incorrect respectively. Other scientific evidence for evolution has come and will, before long, also be abandoned. Nothing in evidence of evolution has stood the test of time.
But now the humility of sincere scientific endeavor has given way to outright contempt for that which would try to oppose it. Fantasy must be put in its place. If we cannot yet prove evolution to be true we can at least demonstrate Christianity to be false.

5. Births per Thousand in the United States
Margaret Sanger
1916 – 1st Birth
Control Clinic in U.S.
Senator Joseph McCarthy
1921 – Founded Planned Parenthood

6. What has Changed Since the Scopes Trial in 1925?
So justified is this mandate that revisionist history is considered appropriate to continue the “education” of the public. In 1960, Hollywood releases Inherit the Wind with top stars of the day to do just that. The impact can still be vehemently felt today - people have learned not from history or from the truth but from their fear and prejudice and, ultimately, their unbelief.
“The play has had so much impact that its story is more important than what really happened. The play is not primarily about a single event; it is about the modernist understanding of freedom.”
(P. Johnson)

7. Inherit the Wind
The Arrest (2:55-4:50)

8. Inherit the Wind Jan. 10, 1955 – Inherit the Wind opens on Broadway.
1960 –Film version of Inherit the Wind opens at a drive-in movie theater in Dayton. Scopes returns to the town for the premiere and is given the key to the city.
Starred Hollywood heavyweights Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Fredric March.

9. Matthew Brady arrives in Hillsboro (14:13-16:09)
Inherit the Wind
Matthew Brady arrives in Hillsboro (14:13-16:09)

10. Inherit the Wind Jan. 10, 1955 – Inherit the Wind opens on Broadway.
1960 –Film version of Inherit the Wind opens at a drive-in movie theater in Dayton. Scopes returns to the town for the premiere and is given the key to the city.
Starred Hollywood heavyweights Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Fredric March.
Bryan’s character was portrayed as having a ‘head-in-the-sand’ approach to life by refusing even to read Darwin’s writings. In fact, Bryan was highly educated and he had read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species 20 years before the Scopes trial.
Some versions portrayed Bryan as a Republican – he was a Democrat.

11. Inherit the Wind
Bryan’s movie character claims that sexual intercourse is the ‘original sin’. In the actual trial, there was however no mention made about sex at all.
Contrary to the play, Scopes issued no plea for empathy, there was no fiancée and the real Scopes was never arrested.
Who’s rude? Bryan was courteous at all times in his handling of witnesses, as the trial transcript reveals. Darrow, on the other hand, was at times condescending and contemptuous in his treatment of witnesses, jurists, opposing lawyers and even the judge.

12. The Speech of Henry Drummond (1:17:24-1:20:16)
Inherit the Wind
The Speech of Henry Drummond (1:17:24-1:20:16)

13. The Battle for the Mind of America (43:46-46:26)
Inherit the Wind
The Battle for the Mind of America (43:46-46:26)

14. Persecution in an angry town?
Christian townspeople are presented as ignorant country folk brandishing pitchforks and burning effigies
Darrow - ‘I don’t know as I was ever in a community in my life where my religious ideas differed as widely from the great mass as I have found them since I have been in Tennessee. Yet I came here a perfect stranger and I can say what I have said before that I have not found upon any body’s part—any citizen here in this town or outside the slightest discourtesy. I have been treated better, kindlier and more hospitably than I fancied would have been the case in the north’

15. Persecution in an angry town?
H.L. Mencken’s first dispatch sent to his newspaper: ‘Nor is there any evidence of that poisonous spirit which usually shows itself when Christian men gather to defend the great doctrine of their faith. … On the contrary, the Evolutionists and the Anti– Evolutionists seem to be on the best of terms, and it is hard in a group to distinguish one from the other.’

16. Matthew Brady’s Pathetic Death (1:59:55-2:02:28)
Inherit the Wind
Matthew Brady’s Pathetic Death (1:59:55-2:02:28)

17. Final Scene?
May 17, 1967 – Tennessee repeals the Butler Act, the law that banned the teaching of evolution in public schools.
1968 – In Epperson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court strikes down an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution.
Oct. 21, 1970 – John Scopes dies at the age of 70.
1987 – In Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court rules that a Louisiana law requiring public schools to give "balanced treatment" to creationism and evolution is unconstitutional.

18. Who Decides?
“Historians are not just dispassionate chroniclers. By their selection, ordering, highlighting, attribution and analysis of facts they fashion a particular version of the past. And they also play a part in the disputes of the present, by legitimizing or undermining the rationales, heroes and myths which influence current debates. Historical figures are forever being conscripted for fresh cultural battles.” - The London Times, "Truth, trust and rewriting history" 4/4/02
“History is philosophy teaching by example.” Lord Bolingbroke, 18th cen. British writer
Every action of history, every work of art or literature, every theory and act of government is affected by or reflects a worldview.

19. How Propaganda gets propagated
“[H]istory is always written by winners. … As Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?’” (Prof. Teabing in The Da Vinci Code, p. 256) Rather than being a truth of the historical record, it is the perpetual lie of the intentionally misleading.

20. New Covenant Presbyterian Church
Preaching God’s Sovereign Grace
to a World of Need
128 St. Mary’s Church Rd., Abingdon, MD