Truth or Consequences

A Nazi soldier shoots a Jewess and her child

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days"--2 Timothy 3

Perhaps its was a judicial blunder on July 21, 1925 that opened the door for Charles Darwin's atheistic theory of evolution to be taught as fact in America's public schools. On that date, the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial culminated in Tennessee with a science teacher named John Thomas Scopes being convicted by a jury of violating that state's Butler Act by teaching Darwin's dubious theory in a public school classroom.

Despite the jury's decision, the verdict was overturned on a technicality because Judge John T. Raulston inadvertently fined Scopes $100 for violating the Tennessee law instead of the jury. With Scopes overturned, fundamental Christians throughout the South began crusading for anti-evolution laws to be enacted by their states to prevent the moral nemesis of evolution being taught as factual science in their public schools. But their actions proved too little and too late.

Certainly at the time, the sensational trial and its verdict that was subsequently overturned on Raulston's error didn't seem to pose any risk to fundamental Christianity in America and its biblical teaching concerning creation. However, it attracted huge attention from America's growing secular population that increasingly saw biblical creationism as an outdated myth that had been disproved by Darwin with his theory, On the Origin of Species that was published in 1859. In his questionable book, Darwin argued for a natural explanation of physical life that had allegedly originated in some primordial pond millions of years in the ancient past.

Darwin claimed that God was a myth and that human life was nothing more than the end product of millions of years of biological evolution. If Darwin was right, then God, his commandments and transcendent moral laws contained in the Bible were reduced to human constructs that could be changed or eliminated by powerful governments and their leaders. Even worse, if God was indeed a myth, then no one could held morally accountable for their actions in this world and there wasn't any judgment or subsequent eternal damnation in the afterlife for those who violated God's laws. In other words, if God didn't exist then wicked men such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin fared no worse in death than Pope John Paul II or Mother Teresa.

Darwin's bogus theory was eventually dismantled with the advent of microbiology that revealed a vast, complex network of genetic material called DNA that was contained in the cells of every living being. That complex material couldn't possibly have evolved over millions of years because it all had to be in place together for a cell to live and function. That scientific fact destroyed Darwin's argument that claimed that an impersonal force called Natural Selection determined the survival of life. If Natural Selection is true then no life could possibly exist because an evolving cell wouldn't be fit for survival. Thus, Natural Selection destroys its own argument.

Tragically, Darwin's theory has been music to the ears of atheists who were desperate to escape moral accountability for their actions. And sadly, the growth and popularity of Darwinism is directly related to the decline of Christianity's influence in America and across the world that began in the late 19th Century. When Christians should have been ready to combat such deadly lies, they were soundly asleep while secular humanists infiltrated America's schools and culture to promote Darwin's theory. Had America's Christians heeded the apostle Jude's words to "contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 1:3) by keeping the faith relevant to the culture, then it's doubtful that Darwinism would've gained the foothold that it did in America and subsequently poisoned the culture.

The lesson of the Christian Church's abdication of its responsibility to protect the world from evil should never be forgotten. Mass murderers who credited Darwin with shaping their worldviews include Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. They committed their atrocities because the Christian Church lost its influence in the world. Without the fear and knowledge of God, evil men flourish. The Scopes Monkey Trial should have provided a wakeup call to the Christian Church in America in 1925. But it didn't. And that's truly a tragedy of epic proportions.