Questions Creationists Ask: A Journey from Science Denial to an Evolutionary Perspective
by Terry Defoe
Terry Defoe was educated at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia (BA, Sociology, 1978), Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (M.Div., 1982), and the Open Learning University, Burnaby, British Columbia (BA, Psychology, 2003). Defoe served as a chaplain at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He has been interested in the science / faith dialog for more than 30 years. His intellectual journey took him from young earth creationism to an evolutionary perspective. Details at www.evolvingcertainties.com. In 2018, two years after he retired, he published Evolving Certainties: Resolving Conflict at the Intersection of Faith and Science, which received endorsements from scientists affiliated with the BioLogos Association, including a Foreword from its first president, biologist Darrel Falk of Point Loma University, as well as scientists holding membership in the American Scientific Affiliation, a group Defoe joined in 2019.
Abstract
For many years, the theory of evolution has been at or near the top of the list of controversial issues in the evangelical church. This is especially true among U.S. evangelicals over the last 100 years. A cottage industry has grown up, focused on defending evangelical orthodoxy, which claims that the Bible is inerrant in every topic it deals with, including science. This paper is a brief account of a journey from young-earth creationism to an evolutionary point of view. It includes a summary of the kinds of questions asked, and important insights gained along the way. It is intended as a guide for others who are, or who may be contemplating, travelling that same road.
Introduction
I was ordained in 1982, in a very conservative Lutheran denomination. That denomination, for example, discourages prayers with other Christians because that prayer could indicate greater agreement on doctrinal issues than actually exists. And so, rather than minimizing, or appearing to minimize the doctrinal issues, prayer with other Christians is discouraged altogether.
It’s helpful to consider the kinds of arguments against evolution and biological science that I was hearing during those early years of ministry. A sample of my questions at the time
includes: .
- What exactly does my denomination teach about creation?
- What am I as a pastor expected to uphold and proclaim?
- Is it possible for me to change my mind on any of these things?
- And if it was, would it be possible to indicate that publicly, without reprisal?
At the time of my ordination, I promised to subscribe to my denomination’s views about creation. This topic was not a high priority for me at the time. I was “opted in” but there was no check box allowing me to opt out [while remaining on my denomination’s clergy roster!]
From the earliest days of my ministry I have been an advocate for responsible stewardship – that is, for looking after the gifts that God gives his people. But at this point I hadn’t considered the importance of the responsible stewardship of knowledge as well, and that includes scientific knowledge.
For several years before enrolling in seminary, I had spent time in Pentecostal circles, known in those days as the charismatic renewal. At that time, I had some half-baked ideas about science. I believed, for example, that science was essentially atheistic. I believed that science was a form of idolatry. I bought into the idea that science was inherently antagonistic to religion and that the so-called warfare thesis was an accurate description of the relationship between science and faith.
Cognitive Dissonance
I was ordained in 1982. Seven years later, in late 1989, I began researching the literature on science and faith. As noted above, I had many questions and few satisfactory answers. The answers I did receive from my own denomination were, in my opinion, one-sided and often evasive. The intellectual journey that began back in 1989 continues today, 36 years later.
Psychologists describe “openness to new experience” as an important personality trait – a trait that varies over a spectrum from one individual to another. I score high on that trait which helps to explain why the prospect of embarking on this journey was – and remains – exciting to me. Looking back, I can now see that a major motivator for my research was a serious case of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological theory first proposed by Leon Festinger in 1957, describing the mental discomfort experienced by individuals confronted with new information that conflicts with their existing beliefs. I began my survey of the literature with more questions.
- I wanted to know the age of the earth and about deep time.
- Was life created in six days or over a very long period of time?
- Was creation complete or ongoing?
Flood Geology
I learned that young-earth creationism had its beginning in the nineteenth century in the context of the Seventh-day Adventist [SDA] Church in the U.S. SDA prophet Ellen G. White experienced a vision in which she claimed she had been shown that the Biblical flood caused massive changes in the earth’s geology, including the deposition of countless fossils. White’s predictions were questioned, however, after she predicted – incorrectly – the return of Jesus Christ on October 22nd, 1844. My research revealed that White’s flood geology, which is at the center of creation science, was given its current form at the turn of the 20th century by Canadian self-taught geologist George McCready Price.
Evangelicals typically respond to mainstream science in one of three ways: ignore, attack or engage. I have consistently chosen the latter – engagement — in my ministerial career. Young Earth Creationism, on the other hand, has consistently chosen the second – attack – overtly denigrating science and scientists. And the reason they do this is not so much based on the science itself, its data, or its evidence, but out of loyalty to a Bible doctrine called inerrancy which is a high priority for U.S. Evangelicals.
Presuppositionalism
A critical component of the young earth creationist worldview is presuppositionalism, the view that should science and faith differ, it is always science that’s in the wrong. Young-earth creationism [YEC] is simultaneously an attack on science and a defense of the Bible, as most evangelicals understand it. YEC’s believe that their proprietary interpretation of scripture’s creation accounts is inviolable. They believe that the Bible is a book of science as well as a book of faith.
Biblical science is ancient science, and ancient science is phenomenological—that is, based on what the eye can see and on limited human abilities—without the benefit of technology. Many evangelicals are convinced that the Bible has scientific discoveries written into it, put there by inspiration as a way of reassuring believers that the Bible is in fact inspired. Most YECs believe that science and faith are naturally opposed to one another and that science has a long-term goal of destroying the Christian faith. Psychologists call this catastrophism, that is, making a non-issue into a catastrophe.
Before I entered seminary, I was warned that I ought to be careful about science and not buy into what it was saying about evolution. Evolutionary science, I was told, would seriously erode and could potentially destroy my faith.
As far as evangelicals are concerned, science is either contested or uncontested. Most science is uncontested — it causes evangelicals no theological concerns. Some science, however, is highly contested — typically biological science and the theory of evolution. It seems odd to me that individuals would be against evolution but in favor of almost everything else that science has accomplished. Anything that would challenge their proprietary interpretation of scripture’s creation accounts is contested, while everything else is fair game.
Young-earth creationist leaders are more than willing to take advantage of the lack of scientific literacy among their constituency. In addition, YEC’s often cherry-pick quotes from mainline scientists, ignoring the original context, turning the message into something very different from the author’s original intention. It’s ironic that those who complain loudly about “fake news” will so often be captivated by the “fake science” promoted by YEC.
There is an unfortunate lack of integrity among YEC leadership both in terms of message as well as methodology.
Young earth creationism is a major liability to the Church. Many young people have left the church, convinced that the Church is inflexible and out of touch – living in an alternate reality. Many church leaders avoid responsibility in this area by remaining silent. Young-earth creationism is imprisoned in a pre-scientific worldview. It’s not surprising that what young people learn about science at church is often quite different from what they learn in a university classroom. I call the resulting cognitive dissonance, “science shock.” Science shock leaves young people wondering whether the church can be trusted in other areas if it cannot be trusted in the area of science. Many young people believe that they must choose science or faith. They cannot have both. Many evangelical denominations do not tell the whole story to their people.
Copernicanism
It’s significant that as the Scientific Revolution was gaining momentum in the early 16th Century, Nicholaus Copernicus claimed that the earth was not the center of the universe. He argued that the earth circled the Sun rather than the other way around. Theologians of that day said that Copernicus was wrong because he was proposing a view that disagreed with their interpretation of the Scriptures. They quoted verses such as Psalm 93:1 that describe the earth as immovable –
The lord reigns; he is robed in majesty. The lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. Indeed the world is established firm and secure. It cannot be moved.
Psalm 104:5 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 carry similar thoughts. Copernicus put Christian leaders on the horns of a dilemma. Was he correct? If so, what did that mean for the exegetes and their interpretation? How could they modify their interpretation without causing problems for themselves and the Church?
Divine Intervention
A critical issue in this discussion is the question of divine intervention. Is God involved in creation? I have come to believe that the initial spark of life was God’s work, that it was a singularity, a unique event in history very similar to the singularity called the Resurrection of Christ. In both instances God stepped into history and did something totally unheard of. I’ve come to the conclusion that God is directly involved in maintaining his Creation. And should that maintenance stop, chaos would return. Science in general has no problem with divine intervention because it takes place below the surface and cannot be measured scientifically or falsified. Again, many evangelicals reject modern science, not on the basis of scientific facts and evidence, but on the basis of the social pressure that would be brought to bear should they change their views.
Divine intervention is the key to a proper understanding of the relationship of science and faith. The point of view that I have adopted is similar to a scientific theory called orthogenesis. Orthogenesis proposes that evolution has an innate tendency or driving force that compels organisms to evolve in a straight line progression towards some definite goal or predetermined end point. God has a plan for his creation and that plan is unfolding according to his will.
Living Color
I remember watching a series of YouTube videos about a very special kind of eyeglasses.
These expensive eyeglasses enable individuals with color blindness see color for the very first time. These glasses are expensive so family members we’ll often get together and chip in to be able to buy them. What families will often do is invite the individual to a family meeting. They will give them this gift, ask them to open the package and put the glasses on. The moment they do that, they will often break down, overcome by emotion because they are seeing color for the very first time and they realize what they’ve been missing.
Something similar occurs when individuals abandon YEC pseudoscience and take on an evolutionary point of view. We have seen that the real reason for young-earth creationism is a misguided defense of the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy which causes evangelicals to bend over backwards in an effort to show the world that the Bible is indeed a book of science as well as faith. Inerrancy is a basic evangelical doctrine. But some scholars are proposing that inerrancy ought to be limited to the spiritual truths that the Bible contains. It could very well be that young-earth creationism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Bible is all about.
Conclusion
Christian pastors are accountable for the accuracy of what they claim. Church members trust them to convey accurate and reliable information. The information that YEC shares is anything but accurate and reliable. Jesus of Nazareth was correct when he said that putting new wine into old wineskins could easily cause the old wineskins to rupture. Pastors are under intense pressure to adhere to the party line, as it were. Should they change their views publicly, they are liable to be shown the door. As a result, many pastors live in the closet and are very discreet about what they say and to whom they say it.
The more I studied this issue, what science had to say made increasing sense to me. Whenever I considered the possibility of adopting a pro-evolutionary point of view, however, a kind of guilt swept over me based on the thought that I was somehow betraying my ordination vows by taking on a perspective that was unacceptable to my denomination. But that didn’t deter me. I still felt driven to check these things out.
In 2016, I published a book on science and faith titled Evolving Certainties: Resolving Conflict at the Intersection of Faith and Science. That book tells my story. It deals with biblical, literary, and hermeneutical issues. Since the book was published I’ve made many new friends, people who are able to balance their faith with their science, including members of the American Scientific Affiliation which is made up of several thousand PhD scientists from around the world who are evangelical Christians at the same time. I have come to believe that it is certainly possible – and God-pleasing — to balance faith and evolutionary science. Evangelicals have been kicking this can down the road for many years, and needs to deal with this divisive issue once and for all.
There are many who are on a similar journey and many more who are considering it. I would hope that this paper is an encouragement to carry on – and, most importantly, to tell others what you discover along the way. There’s an old Russian proverb that says you should measure your cloth seven times before you cut it because once it’s cut it is done. And that certainly applies to this issue as well. Expect questions and criticism. No dogma ever rolled over and gave up without a fight. As I said in the preface to my book,
I truly believe that faithfulness to a particular theological heritage may require challenging that body of doctrine from time to time. Martin Luther knew this truth and acted upon it, despite great danger to life and limb. At the end of the day, this journey has impressed upon me the critical importance of hermeneutics: accurate interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. If at the end of the day our interpretation of the Scriptures is more accurate, our doctrines have been appropriately reviewed, our respect for science has grown, and our personal faith has been enriched, then the excursion outlined in this book will have been worthwhile.
Evolution and Society since Darwin: Teaching History and Drawing Lessons from the Past
by Kristin Johnson
Kristin Johnson is a professor in the Science, Technology, Health and Society Program at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Her recent books include The Species Maker (an historical novel set in the era of the Scopes Trial), Darwin’s Falling Sparrow: Victorian Evolutionists and the Meaning of Suffering, and Imagining Progress: Science, Faith, and Child Mortality in America. She is currently writing a book about why naturalists taught courses on eugenics.
(Editor’s note: Having read The Species Maker, I can attest that it is a wonderfully thought-provoking novel. With the Scopes Trial as background, Johnson expertly weaves in a good deal of science while providing a very nuanced treatment of the cultural conflicts over evolution and its implications.)
As an historian of biology, I have taught a course entitled “Evolution and Society since Darwin” at a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest for almost two decades. Like all my research and teaching, the course is designed to help students add history to their intellectual toolbox for navigating debates that concern science.
Given history is about human beings, I begin each semester by reminding students that doing good history demands that we attend to both the tragedies and triumphs of the past, especially if we wish to understand the origins of challenges and debates in the present. I warn them that the “bad and the ugly” are at times very bad and very ugly via direct quotations from Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man on the Irish, sex differences, and “lower races,” that the triumphs are extraordinary via a graph of child mortality rates over the past two centuries, and – finally – that we must hold both the good and the bad in our heads at the same time via a graph of U.S. child mortality rates parsed into racialized groups.
Inevitably, despite my reminder, students who adore science (often but not always STEM students) are nervous we will just focus on the racism, sexism, and ableism evident in the history of evolutionary thinking, while those who are wary of the sciences (often but not always humanities students) are concerned we will be turning scientists – like Darwin, with whom the course begins – into heroes. And each group of students is wary of the other.
My primary means of explaining how we can actually get intellectual work done amid such differences and learn something about the past (as opposed to just restating our own beliefs and values with respect to science) is to discuss the difference between normative and descriptive analysis and explain which kind of analysis we will be using and why.
Normative analysis, I explain, is what philosophers, theologians, and (often) scientists do when looking at the past. When reading Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man, for example, normative analysis involves determining whether Darwin’s account of human evolution is right or wrong, using criteria established by the philosopher, theologian, or scientist. Historians, by contrast, pursue descriptive analysis. And as historians (which I tell them they all must be by Week 3), we will be reading excerpts from The Descent of Man neither to condemn nor to praise, but rather to describe, explain, and understand Darwin’s claims about the origin of human beings in historical context. We will focus, I explain, on questions like the following: How and why did Darwin come to the conclusions he did? How did his cultural and social context influence his conclusions and vice versa? How were his ideas received and why?
One example of how the historian’s demand that students be descriptive rather than normative operates in practice is that my students are not allowed to use the word pseudoscience when doing historical analysis. I explain that, while “but this is pseudoscience!” may be an appropriate normative gut response to certain texts, inevitably the word pseudoscience reflects present-day, normative concepts of what science is or should be. Such statements might help us clarify our own definition of what counts as science and why, but the term pseudoscience does not help us understand, for example, why so many biologists not only defined eugenics as a science but included courses titled “Eugenics” within biology curricula.
Once they have this language of “normative versus descriptive” analysis, students are consistently (and impressively) able to navigate their own responses to the past and get to work doing good history. That said, at some point in every class I teach Two Questions – Two Challenges – are inevitably raised as students wrestle with the course’s methodological “ground rules.” At some point, a thoughtful student inevitably asks the First Question: How is it possible to avoid our normative beliefs from influencing our descriptive account of the past? My very unsatisfactory answer (after noting this is one of the most important questions they can ask!) is that sometimes it’s impossible, and – depending on the topic – even ethically undesirable. What matters, I explain, is that now you are aware of the very different goals of descriptive (as opposed to normative) questions and analysis. As a result, you are more likely to notice when normative values, beliefs, and assumptions are influencing your claims.
The Second Question arises as the course proceeds and students are faced with actually applying historical methods to prior belief systems and knowledge claims. It has definitely been posed more often in recent years, as I continue to ask students who are committed to social justice activism amid a polarized political environment to analyze passages like the following descriptively and in historical context.
Man is the rival of other men; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition which passes too easily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem to be his natural and unfortunate birthright. It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation. ~ Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Not surprisingly, students have strong reactions to passages like this, in which Darwin both calls on supposed mental differences between the sexes and speaks casually of “lower races.” To help them navigate Darwin’s thinking, I pair this passage with the work of historian Evelleen Richards (via her classic article “Darwin and the Descent of Woman”). Richards places Darwin’s claims in historical context by systematically describing his campaign to break down the barrier between humans and non-human animals (sex differences existed in other primates, so why not humans?), his personal life (Darwin had few personal experiences that inspired him to question Victorian gender roles), and the pervasive sexist ideology of the Victorian era (one does not gain much historical insight, Richards argues, by labeling Darwin a sexist in a time period in which almost everyone held similar views). Then, using Richards’s work as a model, we try to carry out the same kind of analysis of Darwin’s conclusions regarding (as he writes) “the value of the differences between the so-called races of man.”
As we proceed through The Descent of Man, the Second Question is inevitably asked: What is the point of reading all this? Isn’t explaining just a means of excusing Darwin for being sexist and racist? When we contextualize this book, are we actually justifying beliefs that were evil and wrong?
It’s an excellent question that arises from students’ deep commitment to changing the world and their awareness of the persistence of sexist and racist beliefs in the present. I respond by noting that I could, indeed, have assigned a piece that ridicules Darwin for being ignorant, sexist, racist etc. There are plenty of writings that call Darwin to task for not adhering to the author’s own (religious, scientific, or both) values from the Right and the Left. But then we would not be reading (or doing) historical research. And why does that matter? I remind them of the evidence Darwin confidently cited as evidence that men are by nature superior in intellect than women:
If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, —comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. ~ Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Students are always quite bewildered by Darwin’s use of this list as evidence of a difference in intellectual power between men and women. They quickly highlight the obvious factor Darwin missed: an educational system which deprived women – and any human being who was not white and of a certain class – access to all the things that one needed to obtain ‘higher eminence’ in any field in Victorian Britain. I then ask: Okay, so how can we make sense of the fact that Darwin – who all students agree was a pretty brilliant man – was so blind to something we take as self-evident? Can we learn more from Darwin’s “mistake” beyond the obvious fact that he held different beliefs and values than a student at the University of Puget Sound in 2025?
Students know by this point in the course that they have a lot more work to do than just concluding Darwin was ignorant, stupid, or morally bankrupt. As we leave The Descent of Man and proceed forward in time – from the U.S. eugenics movement and the evolutionary synthesis to debates over sociobiology and Intelligent Design – they know where to go for help: primary sources with the aid of careful historians of science.
What am I hoping my students learn from doing good history? First, here is what I do not think the lesson of descriptive, historical analysis is: “Darwin was a man of his time.” I’ve never understood such statements. After all, what else can anyone be but “of their own time”? Furthermore, assuming that the lesson of historical work is that “Darwin was a man of his time” ignores the fact that some of Darwin’s contemporaries made the same criticisms students make (especially with respect to the hierarchical thinking embedded in much – but not all – of The Descent of Man). John Stuart Mill pointed out, for example, that claims about natural sex differences were absurd unless someone had actually run the experiment of raising boys and girls exactly the same. The existence of criticisms of Darwin’s claims regarding both gendered and racialized differences demands that students add the following questions to their effort to make sense of Darwin’s confident claims: Why did Darwin – who was well aware of the tendency to remember facts and thoughts favourable to his theory and forget those that were unfavourable – set aside some criticisms? Who did Darwin believe he needed to pay attention to and why? Most importantly, whose knowledge counted in debates over the “scientific” status of different groups and why?
Wrestling with these questions help us understand what critics of hierarchical thinking were up against (whether the critics or the hierarchical thinking were rooted in evolution, creationism, or complex combinations of both). Wrestling with these questions also culminates in a pretty compelling argument for diversity and inclusion in STEM, on the grounds that more socially representative scientific communities are better at noticing when good scientists are falling short of their extraordinary ideals. Description can elide into Normative indeed!
So, what do I hope students learn from my course? I have done my job if, by the end of “Evolution and Society since Darwin,” students adopt historical methods within their toolbox for navigating science in the present. And I don’t mean by becoming historians or reading history books for the rest of their lives. Rather, I mean that they have learned methods for (and embraced the value of doing) two things: First, the value and means of at least trying to “get in the mind” of another human being, and Second, the importance of noticing how one’s own values, beliefs, and assumptions are influencing how one sees the world.
I believe learning how to do good, evidence-based history (as opposed to myth-based history that turns the scientists of the past into either heroes or villains for present-day purposes) improves science education because STEM students must practice interrogating when and how their own assumptions and values influence their response to claims and debates. I have done my job if a student starts asking: “What am I assuming that, 50 years from now, people will look back upon and declare unscientific or pseudoscience? What am I taking for granted? What am I ignoring? How do my context, experience, and hopes influence what I notice and believe?” And if they realize they can and should apply these questions not just to science, but to any controversy in which the stakes in understanding one’s own position and that of one’s opponents are high.
This work matters to me in today’s polarized political environment because I believe history trains students how to construct better maps of both their own positions on science and positions with which they disagree. Ultimately, doing history is an exercise in dislodging our gut responses to stances (as rational/irrational, good/evil, logical/crazy, informed/ignorant, etc.) in the name of developing more complicated analyses than simplistic dichotomies allow. The demands (including descriptive analysis of historical context) upon which this complex analysis relies is not a demand that students be neutral with respect to knowledge claims or policies of either the past or the present. Rather, it is a methodological position driven by a belief that, like medical diagnosis, the claims of those interested in defending and improving science and scientific institutions must be as informed and as accurate as possible in order to be effective.
Roosevelt the Good Neighbor vs. Trump the Nihilist
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, was the focus of this rightingamerica interview. And check out Rod’s new webpage!
Our nation stands at the crossroads of nihilism and neighborliness. In service to the present, history always stands ready to guide us in haphazard times.
The “good neighbor” policy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelet contrasts sharply with President Donald Trump’s “You are my enemy” policy. Roosevelt’s policy, rooted in a biblical concept of the goodness of humanity shines in the darkness of Trump’s nihilism.
Before I continue with my comparison of Roosevelt to Trump, I must make a few historical disclaimers concerning Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy had its limits, as Roosevelt, the consummate politician, was too pragmatic to literally make literal the politics of Jesus. Unlike MAGA evangelicals insistent cry of President Trump as “God’s chosen one,” Roosevelt was at heart a master politician with a shrewd understanding of pragmatism.
At times he acted more like “Big Brother” than good neighbor. Roosevelt’s vision of a national neighborhood allowed him to accrue power in the federal government and in the office of the presidency. Moreover, in his New Deal programs, Roosevelt often appointed the most fiscally conservative directors he knew would keep spending at a reasonable level. His pragmatism shows him as less than a national “Good Samaritan” neighbor.
He also underwrote the instantiation of democratic global ideological hegemony under the guidance of a strong United States.
Moreover, Roosevelt’s hierarchies reveal the contours and limits of his neighborhood. His neighborhood didn’t include advances in Civil Rights. African American homes were more likely to have photographs of Eleanor than Franklin in their living rooms, and for good reason. And it was Roosevelt who authorized the notorious internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
All this said, I would contend FDR’s “good neighbor” policy comes closer than any other attempt to bring about the kingdom of Jesus summarized in Jubilee.
Rhetorical scholar Mary Stuckey, in The Good Neighbor: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Rhetoric of American Power, puts it this way: “To the extent that FDR had a philosophy, his political principles can usefully be understood as enacting the principles of neighborliness, articulated through the Golden Rule, and directed at ameliorating national problems of social and economic inequality.”
In contrast, President Trump is a demolition expert. He has announced plans to meet with his budget chief to determine which “Democratic agencies” he could try to cut, relishing the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to achieve his agenda. He has canceled $16 billion in infrastructure improvement in New York as revenge for Democrats not supporting his agenda. A New York Times headline speaks volumes: “White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes.”
While MAGA evangelicals claim national revival is coming, President Trump releases the four horsemen of the political apocalypse: free-market fundamentalism, militarism, authoritarianism, and social mayhem.
He keeps promising MAGA national salvation, but it’s the opposite of salvation. “Demolition” is his primary theme. Having unleashed MAGA’s uninhibited feelings of fear, anger, and hatred, he now makes moves to destroy the administrative state. Robert L. Ivie says, “It is a seductive spectacle of the wrecking ball well adapted to a media culture of fast-paced, combative entertainment.”
Trump uses the wrecking ball to defund the social safety net and nondefense agencies, to dismantle regulations, to increase deportation of immigrants, and to wipe out DEI.
The contrast could not be starker or more critical. I believe “the good neighbor” policy is the most important theological and political question in existence.
Being a good neighbor was a required virtue in my childhood. My father crawled under the houses of our neighbors to “fix” their plumbing – no charge. He was a good neighbor. Food showed up at the door of a sick family because people were good neighbors. People helped one another “get in” the crops, find a lost calf, or return a herd of hogs lost in the swamp.
Today, not so much. Gated communities, vicious policies, busy lives, self-centeredness, social media – all conspire against good neighbor practices. But the deeper malady in the mix is nihilism – a belief in nothing and an urge to destroy everything. Nihilism insists that life is meaningless. There is nothing to approve of in the established social order. Destruction on an apocalyptic scale seems the only way to deal with a depraved culture, or so claim our nihilists.
The Theological and Biblical Neighbor
Anyone with even residual Christian training knows the theological importance of being a good neighbor. The neighbor concept is important enough to find a place in 2 of the 10 commandments – “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16) and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17).
Scripture pays serious attention to economics in relationships to the neighbor.
“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. Deuteronomy 15:7
The good neighbor vision is one of abundance: there’s enough for everyone. The nihilist vision is one of scarcity. Empathy and sharing are out of the question for MAGA evangelicals. They are currently having a “pity party” attacking the idea of empathy.
A Good Neighbor Blast from the Past
The width of Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy encircled the globe. The length of his good neighbor policy went the long distance of caring for the poor. The depth of his good neighbor policy reached into the slums and rural backwoods of the nation. The height of his good neighbor policy reached the throne of grace to protect and empower all citizens.
According to Roosevelt, the government was your neighbor. This is a far cry from President Reagan’s belief, “The government is the problem.” And an even longer distance from Trump, “I really believe in getting even,” and “I hate my enemies.” In a dark and threatening moment, Trump told our nation’s military leaders to prepare for combat against “the enemy within” – fellow Americans.
Roosevelt conceived of the nation as one large neighborhood. It ought not to be hard to tell the difference between the people who believe the nation is a neighborhood and a president who thinks America is a hell hole, a miasma of murdering immigrants, a horde of deep state operatives, a collection of losers, a dark and foreboding crime wave.
I believe that America holds the potential for a majestic, diverse national neighborhood with a vision premised on rights, freedoms, and democratic participation as hinted at in its founding documents.
I am persuaded by the power of neighborliness. This nation has been at the end of its rope before, and in the Great Depression, the virtues of Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy were evident.
But as American historian Robert McElvaine says, “the values of community, cooperation, prudence, and sacrifice that enjoyed such an upsurge in the thirties have since then been almost completely submerged by those of acquisitive individualism.”
The virtues of cooperation and community – the good neighbor virtues – have usually been more associated with women than men. The system that failed in the 1930’s was a “manly man” system of every-man-for-himself, the-devil-take-the-hindmost competition and acquisitive individualism. Its collapse discredited the more male approach to the world.
For example, toxic masculinity threatens America. Instead of being neighbors, we become anti-social Darwinists – “only the strong survive.” A chest-thumping, shoot-from-the-hip fantasy of bootstrapping individualism and unfettered capitalism will not produce good neighbors. This manly man charade isn’t big on cooperation. It breeds competition and division.
The toxic “manly man” – rooster crowing on the top rail – has never received a more public hearing than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s address to America’s military leaders. He condemned wokeness: “We are done with that shit.” He defied the Geneva Convention and said US troops would kill noncombatants, an offense previously understood to be a war crime. He held up a male fitness requirement and pranced around like he was the ruler of the world.
In the 1930’s the American people lost faith in their institutions. Roosevelt rebuilt that trust. Today, a large segment of the American people have lost faith in our institutions. The ideology of nihilism is tearing down what little faith is left.
Roosevelt, in speaking so often, and so personally, to the American people, encouraged them to look to the federal government and to the president for help. The belief that Roosevelt stood with the nation’s working people against the capitalists and others who profited from the misery of the poor—was pervasive and deep. One Roosevelt supporter said the president is the first person in the world who knows “my boss is a sob.” Stuckey argues this was central to the Roosevelt presidency.
The Critical Neighbor Question
The war over immigrants makes “Who is my neighbor?” the most critical of all American political questions. Leviticus 19 shows the Jews arguing over this question for generations. In the oldest tradition of the text, the “neighbor” is one’s fellow Jew. Many generations removed from this provincial concept, the neighbor becomes a much larger circle: the neighbor becomes the alien who lives in Israel (Leviticus 19:33 – 37).
This is the same argument Americans are having now. For some, the neighbor is the next door neighbor, the kin, the people who are alike. For others, the neighbor bond extends to the alien who resides with us. This Levitical argument dominates our political debate.
Any talk about neighbors must deal with Jesus. He commands his followers to be neighbors to the world. The parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear that the best neighbor may be a non-Christian, a foreigner, an immigrant, a person of color, or a poor person.
The “Good Neighbor” of Leviticus and “Good Samaritan Neighbor” of Jesus needs to ring across America. Let good neighbors ring in small villages and townships, down dirt roads in Mississippi and Vermont, across the wide expanse of the Kansas prairie as well as our vast urban centers.
In the bayous of Louisiana, on a Saturday night, at a neighborhood restaurant you will find a large group of Cajuns “passing a good time” – eating shrimp, drinking beer, and dancing in the moonlight. Everyone dances. With everyone. Grandparents with grandchildren. It’s a celebration of family, life, pure goodness.
There are (at least) two forces competing for our souls: nihilism and neighborliness. One focuses on authoritarianism, bullying, threatening, dissolving alliances, insulting, demeaning, and hurting others. The other instigates a virtuous people intent on compassion, kindness, cooperation, mutual respect. If we can have more “good neighbors” and fewer nihilists, we’ll all be better off.
On the Cusp of Another Missouri Execution
by William Trollinger
As I write this on Monday morning, Lance Shockley is scheduled to be killed at Potosi Correctional Institution by the state of Missouri at 6pm on Tuesday for the 2005 murder of Highway Patrol Sergeant Carl Graham, Jr..
Perhaps Missouri’s Governor Mike Kehoe will relent in response to very serious questions about whether Jason Shockley (who has consistently maintained his innocence) actually committed this crime, as there is no definitive evidence – DNA, fingerprints, eyewitness testimony — linking him to this killing. This is combined with the inadequacy or ineptitude of his defense attorney, who refused to question the jury’s foreman regarding the evidence that the latter was seriously biased and engaged in misconduct during deliberations. More than all this, the judge imposed a death sentence when the jury was deadlocked on punishment (something only a judge in Missouri and Indiana is free to do).
(Side note: at least 201 innocent people have been executed in the United States since 1973 – and this is the bare minimum. More than this, people of means are almost never executed, because they have the funds to hire good legal counsel, and are not dependent on overworked public defenders.)
Perhaps Gov. Kehoe will take into account the fact that Shockley has been a exemplary Christian guide and mentor both to his fellow inmates and to prison staff. Since he has been moved to pre-execution solitary confinement, this has included spending “a few hours a week sitting in the middle of the wing preaching, praying, and reading Scripture while his fellow prisoners sit on floor of their cells to listen through the food ports in their doors.”
Perhaps Gov. Kehoe will act in keeping with his Catholic faith, as the Church has long opposed capital punishment. Perhaps he will take into account Pope Leo XIV’s observation that ”Somone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life.’”
Perhaps.
28 years ago – September 24, 1997 – I was sitting in the front row of the “friends and family” viewing box at Potosi, where Shockley’s friends and family will be seated tomorrow evening.
Upon moving in 1984 to Missouri – my first death penalty state – I submitted my name to Death Row Support Project, to become a pen pal with someone who had been sentenced to death. That’s how I connected with Samuel McDonald, CP-17 (signifying that he was the seventeenth man placed on Missouri’s Death Row).
Unlike Lance Shockley, there was no question that Sam – in a drug-induced haze — shot Robert Jordan, an off-duty police officer. But in keeping with Shockley, Sam’s public defender was inept, getting into shouting matches with the judge. More than this, the judge would not permit testimony that Sam – a decorated Vietnam War veteran — had returned from the war not only addicted to heroin, but also suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome (for which there was a raft of evidence).
So it was that he was sentenced to die.
I first connected with Sam via letters. Then there were visits to the penitentiary. Then, after I moved out of state to take another teaching position in 1988, it was phone calls, usually every other weekend. We talked sports, politics, religion; we had a lot of laughs, making fun of each other. But there were also serious conversations. I commiserated with him when his son was shot and paralyzed. He commiserated with me when my mother died of cancer, attending to my grief perhaps more than anyone outside my family.
In short, we became very close friends. . . . and he gave to me at least as much as I gave to him. And I worked hard to forget that Missouri was determined to kill him. But all that came to an end in the spring of 1997, when the Supreme Court refused to stay his execution, and the governor of Missouri ignored my letter and many, many other pleas, and refused to consider clemency.
And Sam asked me to serve as one of his six witnesses.
So there I was, sitting in the front row of the viewing booth with members of Sam’s family. And the guards raised the blinds. There was Sam on a gurney, looking at us and speaking rapidly (we could not hear what he was saying). Then the drugs kicked in, Sam shuddered, and then he was still.
And as I write, I hope against hope that this scene is not repeated tomorrow evening.
For two remarkable personal accounts regarding Lance Shockley, see here and here.
And for an additional indignity that Lance Shockley – “a Christian minister behind bars” – must endure, see here.
The Politicization of Science: A Crisis of Trust and Truth
by Terry F. Defoe
Terry Defoe was educated at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia (BA, Sociology, 1978), Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (M.Div., 1982), and the Open Learning University, Burnaby, British Columbia (BA, Psychology, 2003). Defoe served as a chaplain at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He has been interested in the science / faith dialog for more than 30 years. His intellectual journey took him from young earth creationism to an evolutionary perspective. Details at www.evolvingcertainties.com. In 2018, two years after he retired, he published Evolving Certainties: Resolving Conflict at the Intersection of Faith and Science, which received endorsements from scientists affiliated with the BioLogos Association, including a Foreword from its first president, biologist Darrel Falk of Point Loma University, as well as scientists holding membership in the American Scientific Affiliation, a group Defoe joined in 2019.
Introduction: Science Under Attack
Science in the United States is facing an unprecedented challenge. Scientific authority and methodology are being undermined by a coalition of like-minded individuals whose goal is to transform science into the servant of political masters. This ongoing conflict is not new. Issues causing conflict in the past have included:
- The safety of leaded gasoline
- Linking tobacco consumption with lung cancer
- In-vitro fertilization
- Genetically modified organisms
- The efficacy and safety of vaccines
Politicized science is science under new management, so to speak. Politicization suppresses the ability to speak scientific truth to pseudoscientific power. Politicized science gives young earth creationism a little breathing room and allows the fossil fuel industry to continue with business ( and profits ) as usual. It allows the fossil fuel industry, in addition, the ability to reassure the general public, and U.S. voters in particular, that they can sleep soundly at night, knowing that global warming is just another radical left hoax. The tacit alliance between science-denying evangelicals and captains of a major polluting industry, working together, effectively muzzles scientists who have amassed a great deal of data buttressing their warnings of the catastrophic damage global warming is about to unleash on us all..
Corporate Profitability and Christian Fundamentalism
The fossil fuel industry is aware that widespread acceptance of climate science would lead to policies that would negatively impact profits. They share an interest in undermining scientific authority with a significant proportion of U.S. evangelicals. They have a far greater impact working together then working alone. For decades, most American Evangelicals have been uncomfortable with the scientific consensus on the development of living organisms through time, and the fact that the earth is far older than young earth creationists (hence the name) have been claiming. This alliance of convenience allows science-denying evangelicals to avoid the task of updating their creation theology to match scientific reality.
This alliance exploits the evangelical Christians’ lack of scientific literacy and the fossil fuel’s industry desire to put science on a short leash with regard to environmental stewardship. The fossil fuel industry has the funding, and Evangelicals have the numbers to make this work especially well. Numerous studies reveal that approximately 30 million individuals in the United States do not accept the theory of evolution. With the election of Donald Trump to a second term, this vested interest coalition continues to have a leader who openly supports their agenda, giving them a platform to test out and implement their ideas. Science that has lost its voice and its moral authority becomes science in name only, subservient to political masters rather than to the data. For now, and for the foreseeable future, pseudoscience is in the ascendancy in the U.S.
The Politicization Toolkit
This informal alliance, which could be called “The Coalition” has been working tirelessly in its quest to politicize U.S. science. It has developed a set of sophisticated tactics designed to influence public opinion and erode trust in scientific institutions. This is accomplished, for example, through challenging scientific findings and the deliberate manipulation of scientific information. Scientific data is misrepresented in such a way as to appear to support the coalition’s preferred positions. This typically involves emphasizing uncertainties and downplaying scientific consensus. A classic example from the past is a campaign waged by the tobacco industry, casting doubt on the link between smoking and cancer. These techniques are used because they have been found to be effective in establishing doubt in scientific findings and eroding trust in science generally.
Attacks on Scientists and Institutions
Should scientific findings challenge political or economic interests, the scientists who communicate such information often face personal attacks and smear campaigns. Dr. Anthony Fauci, for instance, faced intense public vilification during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did Dr. Rochelle Walensky, former CDC Director. These attacks are designed to discredit the messenger and by extension the message itself. This fear-based tactic is an effective tool in keeping other scientists from speaking out as they would normally do. The personal and professional cost for scientists who dare to challenge prevailing political narratives is high. Scientists may face threats, harassment, and career repercussions which would not normally be a concern.
The Outrage Machine
The wildcard in this situation is social media. One scholar has dubbed social media as “The Outrage Machine.” For those who concoct false information and seek to distribute it far and wide, social media is manna from on high. Those who use these platforms to distribute disinformation take advantage of the fact that they are designed to trigger emotional reactions, reward sensationalism, and reinforce pre-existing biases. Social media makes it difficult for nuanced scientific findings to be heard. On social media misinformation spreads faster than the truth, leading to an erosion of public trust in scientific expertise and a rejection of evidence-based practices.
Dark Money
Dark money is, by definition, funds provided by donors who do not want to be recognized. The Coalition spends approximately one billion dollars each year with the explicit goal of interfering with the public understanding of climate change. Dark money funds media campaigns and pseudo-experts in organizations that create a false appearance of scientific debate. The Cornwall Alliance, for example, is a group that publishes anti-environmentalist propaganda, including a manifesto called “Resisting the Green Dragon” (Wanliss, 2014) which employs extreme rhetoric designed to scare people away from environmentalism. The Cornwall Alliance, with its fire and brimstone style, exemplifies the manner in which these groups, playing to their evangelical base, use scriptural justification to demonize and resist scientific consensus. The Cornwall Alliance has labeled climate action an attack on civilization itself.
The Consequences of Politicization
The politicization of science has serious consequences for policy making. When science is viewed through a partisan political lens, objective truth loses its status. Scientific consensus on critical issues like climate change or public health is rejected in favor of pseudo-scientific ideological beliefs, which may in fact cause harm or even death. Francis Collins, former head of the National Institute of Health, estimates that the number of unnecessary deaths in the U.S. from Covid-19 is around 230,000. These individuals failed to take heed of advice about vaccines, masks, and social distancing. When the general public loses trust in scientific institutions, implementing effective policies (whether to combat a pandemic or transition to clean energy) becomes orders of magnitude more difficult.
The politicization of science poses a significant threat to evidence-based policy making. Policy decisions are increasingly made with a political agenda in mind rather than by the normal scientific process of assessing reliable data. Politicization also skews the allocation of research funds from government and other funding bodies. Funding priority is given to research that aligns with a particular political ideology, potentially neglecting very important areas of inquiry.
The Trump Administration and Project 2025
The second Trump administration has been a tireless advocate of science denial. The first Trump administration served as a testing ground for radical right wing ideas, and the second Trump administration is implementing those concepts on a grand scale. A planning document known as Project 2025 explicitly outlines plans to dismantle and restructure the federal government, including science agencies. Project 2025 reveals that a primary goal of this process is to bring these agencies under direct political control, which will ensure that their findings and communications will align with administration goals and agenda. This unprecedented situation clearly impedes scientific investigation and potentially reduces or eliminates research that could threaten the faith and fossil fuel alliance.
Conclusion
The politicization of science in the United States is well underway. And the ability of science to address pressing issues facing humanity is being stifled. In the next few years, the United States faces a crisis of truth and trust driven by a powerful alliance between economic and faith-based groups. By manipulating information, threatening scientists, and leveraging the power of this alliance, the scientific narrative is already being controlled to a degree that has not been seen before. (Heeney, 2015)
In order to resist blatant attacks on science, such as those communicated by the Cornwall Alliance, it is imperative that scientific literacy be raised across the board. Scientific autonomy must be defended and eventually restored. Political leaders must be encouraged to defer to scientific expertise in formulating important social policy. The future of evidence-based policy making and humanity’s collective well-being depend on the ability to distinguish objective truth from political ideology. In order to achieve that end, political leaders must be held accountable for the decisions they make. This is not merely a debate over policy; it is a battle for the soul of our society — a battle that must be waged with courage, clarity, and a powerful commitment to the truth.
Marching Toward Sheol: The Sad Fate of MAGA Evangelicals
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, was the focus of this rightingamerica interview. And there are more books to come!
What would it have been like to be the pastor of the church at Sardis in the late 60’s A.D.? You ask the secretary, “Any mail?” “Not much, but you do have a letter from Jesus,” she says. Pastor exclaims, “Jesus Christ!” Secretary deadpans: “Yes, that one!”
Opening the letter, the pastor reads:
I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. (Revelation 3: 1-3)
Sardis is the best metaphor I have found for what has happened to MAGA evangelicals. They are on the point of death because they did a deep dive into the shark-infested waters of secular politics.
MAGA evangelicals constitute a movement, giddy with new political power, alive with emotions of anger, fear, and revenge, and determined to rule, but for all this activity, they are a dying tribe.
My purpose here is a rhetorical analysis of how MAGA evangelicals engage in self-harming practices. They are drinking to the dregs a poisoned potion of dreadful affects slowly killing them. The three self-harming practices explored in this article are cruel optimism, sad passions, and white male victimization.
Perhaps no group has ever marched inexorably toward Sheol as MAGA evangelicals with such confidence and certainty. I contend their certainty is a bluff. They are still trying to look strong and tough, but in the recesses of their minds, they know we all live in the cross pressures of an age no longer enamored with what is true. We all live in Flannery O’Connor’s Christ-haunted world.
The 21st century up to this point has battered the citadel of evangelical certainty. The alarms have been sounding for some years now, and evangelicals have been awakened in the dead of night to how precarious their precious certainties have become. They are broken cisterns, cracked pots, and echoes of a former glory.
They are nervous, sensitive, touchy as well as too loud, harsh, and hyperbolic. If they really believe what they claim why do they have to be so angry, so loud, and so arrogant?
Evangelicals, perhaps unconsciously, have revived an ancient religious practice of self-flagellation. This is an emotional self-flagellation but it may be even more painful than the physical beating of one’s back with a whip.
Cruel Optimism
One evangelical response to an encroaching secular culture has been a defensive mechanism known as “cruel optimism.” Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago, argues that cruel optimism describes the process of survival people undertake when they are under pressure.
Despite the obvious efforts to destabilize democracy, demolish human rights, and ignore the rule of law, cruel optimists return again and again to their recommitment liturgies and ceremonies. When the president faces trouble he calls the faithful back to remember the fierce enemies he faces: the media, the courts, and the deep state. Even as the rights of all Americans fade slowly away, the cruel optimists keep believing Trump is always right and knows best and will lead them to the Promised Land. They are blind to the deception of his facile promise of national salvation.
For centuries, wealthy, white American males have dominated the nation. The promises of upward mobility, job security, political and social equality, and durable intimacy all belonged to white males. When this hegemony faced severe challenges, white males responded with cruel optimism – the “relation of attachment to compromised conditions of possibility whose realization is discovered either to be impossible, sheer fantasy, and toxic.”
Cruel optimism comes about when individuals remain attached to “conditions of possibility” or “clusters of promises” which are embedded in desired objects or ideas, even when those same objects or ideas inhibit people from acquiring or fulfilling such items or promises.
Evangelical frustration at not achieving all their dreams is the essence of cruel optimism. Their optimism is cruel because it longs for an unreachable, unknowable, non-existent Promised Land. It is cruel to promise people an America created as God’s “city on a hill” and God’s new people. It is cruel to hold out to people an unreachable dream. Such optimism sounds like a typical Sunday morning in a megachurch where the preacher offers Ted Talks of superficial confidence and self-belief.
MAGA cruelty toward gays, women, and immigrants is not only a form of murder; it is suicide.
Sad Passions
The second form of evangelical self-flagellation is the dominating presence of what political theorist Shannon Sullivan calls the “sad passions.” This is the hidden source of evangelical negativity and passion for being against almost all social causes. Here’s the rub: The sad passions produce a kind of death in life. They have a name that suggest they are alive, but they are actually dead to the joyful passions and flourishing of life.
Sullivan argues that cruelty, hate, fear, envy and anger are sad because these emotions are largely reactive to the Other’s existence. As such, people who are constituted by these passions experience a kind of death-in-life that can occur when a body no longer actively strives to persevere in its being but allows itself to be constituted merely by reactions to other’s conatus. The sad passions crowd out joy, love, hope, kindness, patience, empathy, and compassion. Instead of being alive in the fullness of their God-given lives, they are consumed by distaste and disgust of others.
Why should a middle-aged heterosexual couple in Dayton, Ohio be driven to constant outrage over a gay couple getting married? There are not gay couples in their gated community, their megachurch, their social clubs, or among their friends. And yet in church, at political rallies, with their friends they can’t stop talking about gay marriage. Gays live rent-free in their minds.
Such MAGA evangelical lamenting appears in the Psalms: “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping”(Psalm 6:6). In the dark they cry that God has “fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves” (Psalm 80:5 – 6).
The sad passions dominate evangelical minds and keep them in a state of perpetual anger, cruelty, harshness, and resentment. The sad passions expand as emotional parasites harming the evangelical body.
Victimization
MAGA evangelical males have cast themselves as “victims” in the tragedy they play out every day. Affluent, powerful white men attempt to act as if they are the “new blacks.” They call it reverse discrimination and cry about “wokeness,” CRT, and persecution.
Wealthy televangelists and megachurch preachers purchase private jets and luxury mansions and cars while simultaneously claiming to be victimized for their far right preaching. From attacks on feminism, transgenders, and immigrants to Albert Mohler insisting that women pastors would be the death of the SBC, victimization burns fast and furious among MAGA males.
Casey Ryan Kelly’s Apocalypse Man examines contemporary white masculine victimhood and its compulsion toward death and self-destruction. White male identity politics dominated the 2024 presidential election in disquieting ways. The MAGA campaign suggested the only way to preserve masculinity was through the destruction of feminized society.
This rhetorical move of creating an almost supernatural array of enemies releases MAGA evangelicals from virtue. They can turn empathy into a vice and replace it with resentment, victimization, and revenge. Empathy purveyors make the nation “soft.” Robert E. Terrill has argued that Trump unburdens his evangelical supporters of all social obligations that might constrain the pursuit of their self-interest. Even Jesus gets the shaft from these hard-nosed evangelicals determined to “lord it over” everyone. Jesus isn’t “working” for evangelicals, and this gives permission for hatred and rage as acceptable expressions of the faithful.
Paul Elliott Johnson, in “The Art of Masculine Victimhood: Donald Trump’s Demagoguery”, exposes Trump’s demagoguery defined by a reliance on victimized, White, toxic masculinity. Johnson has argued that Trump’s incoherent vacillations between strength and victimhood enable his white audiences to disavow hegemonic whiteness and align themselves with a marginalized, politically-exiled deprived group. MAGA white evangelicals seem convinced they are the victims of structural racial oppression.
The primary visual of the MAGA male is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, with his bare-chested tattoo of the cross on his chest and his tough looks and language. This is the Hegseth announced, “We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns, no more climate change obsession, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more dudes in dresses. We’re done with that shit.”
Kelly connects the victimhood among white masculine discourse to the death drive through the concept of melancholia. Demographic and societal shifts that compel white men to relinquish even a fraction of their hegemonic power incite a desire to return to a prior state where white men supposedly possessed real power and lived where “men could be real men”.
The problem is that this moment never existed. Kelly suggests that melancholia captures what white masculinity perceives as a loss of power and purpose but is truly a lack or absence. This is the lie white males now tell to comfort one another. This lack leads to a victimized status. This apocalyptic vision of white masculinity sees no future beyond violence toward the Other and its own self-destruction. It is a way of walking the high wire without a net.
The sadomasochistic rhetoric of MAGA evangelicals is emotional self-flagellation. They are flogging themselves with pain, hurt, being left out, of being victims. Apocalyptic males end up, eventually at Masada (Jewish Zealots), Guyana (Jim Jones cult followers), or Mount Carmel, Texas (Branch Davidians). They are on the road to death, self-inflicted apocalyptic death.
The house of pain inhabited by MAGA evangelicals inclines toward death and tracks toward the shades. None who live here will ever escape or regain the paths of life (Proverbs 2:18 – 19).
Ironically, only a wise woman can save MAGA evangelicals now: the wise woman of Proverbs. She can rescue them from the evil way, from men whose speech is twisted, who delight in perversity; whose paths are tortuous, whose tracks are labyrinthine (Proverbs 2:12 – 15).
The wise woman of Proverbs has taken her stand on the high road beside the house of Death. She cries out, “It is to you, O men, that I call” as she offers her hand to all who wish to be rescued.
I fear the extended hand of the wise woman will be rejected by the ostentatious masculine posturing that dominates the house of Death.
Right-Wing Extremist Violence is More Frequent and More Deadly than Left-Wing Violence − What the Data Shows
By Art Jipson and Paul J. Becker
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at The Conversation. We are grateful to republish it here.
After the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump claimed that radical leftist groups foment political violence in the U.S., and “they should be put in jail.”
“The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, asserting that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.
Top presidential adviser Stephen Miller also weighed in after Kirk’s killing, saying that left-wing political organizations constitute “a vast domestic terror movement.”
“We are going to use every resource we have … throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” Miller said.
But policymakers and the public need reliable evidence and actual data to understand the reality of politically motivated violence. From our research on extremism, it’s clear that the president’s and Miller’s assertions about political violence from the left are not based on actual facts.
Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.Trump aide Stephen Miller says the administration will go after ‘a vast domestic terror movement’ on the left.
Political Violence Rising
The understanding of political violence is complicated by differences in definitions and the recent Department of Justice removal of an important government-sponsored study of domestic terrorists.
Political violence in the U.S. has risen in recent months and takes forms that go unrecognized. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxing.
Kirk’s assassination illustrates the growing threat. The man charged with the murder, Tyler Robinson, allegedly planned the attack in writing and online.
This follows other politically motivated killings, including the June assassination of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. and former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.
These incidents reflect a normalization of political violence. Threats and violence are increasingly treated as acceptable for achieving political goals, posing serious risks to democracy and society.
Defining ‘Political Violence’
This article relies on some of our research on extremism, other academic research, federal reports, academic datasets and other monitoring to assess what is known about political violence.
Support for political violence in the U.S. is spreading from extremist fringes into the mainstream, making violent actions seem normal. Threats can move from online rhetoric to actual violence, posing serious risks to democratic practices.
But different agencies and researchers use different definitions of political violence, making comparisons difficult.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security define domestic violent extremism as threats involving actual violence. They do not investigate people in the U.S. for constitutionally protected speech, activism or ideological beliefs.
Domestic violent extremism is defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as violence or credible threats of violence intended to influence government policy or intimidate civilians for political or ideological purposes. This general framing, which includes diverse activities under a single category, guides investigations and prosecutions.
Datasets compiled by academic researchers use narrower and more operational definitions. The Global Terrorism Database counts incidents that involve intentional violence with political, social or religious motivation.
These differences mean that the same incident may or may not appear in a dataset, depending on the rules applied.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security emphasize that these distinctions are not merely academic. Labeling an event “terrorism” rather than a “hate crime” can change who is responsible for investigating an incident and how many resources they have to investigate it.
For example, a politically motivated shooting might be coded as terrorism in federal reporting, cataloged as political violence by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, and prosecuted as homicide or a hate crime at the state level.
Patterns in Incidents and Fatalities
Despite differences in definitions, several consistent patterns emerge from available evidence.
Politically motivated violence is a small fraction of total violent crime, but its impact is magnified by symbolic targets, timing and media coverage.
In the first half of 2025, 35% of violent events tracked by University of Maryland researchers targeted U.S. government personnel or facilities – more than twice the rate in 2024.
Right-wing extremist violence has been deadlier than left-wing violence in recent years.
Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.
Illustrative cases include the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered; the 2019 El Paso Walmart massacre, in which an anti-immigrant gunman killed 23 people. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.
By contrast, left-wing extremist incidents, including those tied to anarchist or environmental movements, have made up about 10% to 15% of incidents and less than 5% of fatalities.
Examples include the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front arson and vandalism campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, which were more likely to target property rather than people.
Violence occurred during Seattle May Day protests in 2016, with anarchist groups and other demonstrators clashing with police. The clashes resulted in multiple injuries and arrests. In 2016, five Dallas police officers were murdered by a heavily armed sniper who was targeting white police officers.
Hard to Count
There’s another reason it’s hard to account for and characterize certain kinds of political violence and those who perpetrate it.
The U.S. focuses on prosecuting criminal acts rather than formally designating organizations as terrorist, relying on existing statutes such as conspiracy, weapons violations, RICO provisions and hate crime laws to pursue individuals for specific acts of violence.
Unlike foreign terrorism, the federal government does not have a mechanism to formally charge an individual with domestic terrorism. That makes it difficult to characterize someone as a domestic terrorist.
The State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list applies only to groups outside of the United States. By contrast, U.S. law bars the government from labeling domestic political organizations as terrorist entities because of First Amendment free speech protections.
Rhetoric is Not Evidence
Without harmonized reporting and uniform definitions, the data will not provide an accurate overview of political violence in the U.S.
But we can make some important conclusions.
Politically motivated violence in the U.S. is rare compared with overall violent crime. Political violence has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarization.
Right-wing extremist violence has been more frequent and more lethal than left-wing violence. The number of extremist groups is substantial and skewed toward the right, although a count of organizations does not necessarily reflect incidents of violence.
High-profile political violence often brings heightened rhetoric and pressure for sweeping responses. Yet the empirical record shows that political violence remains concentrated within specific movements and networks rather than spread evenly across the ideological spectrum. Distinguishing between rhetoric and evidence is essential for democracy.
Trump and members of his administration are threatening to target whole organizations and movements and the people who work in them with aggressive legal measures – to jail them or scrutinize their favorable tax status. But research shows that the majority of political violence comes from people following right-wing ideologies.
In the Wake of the Fatal Shooting of Charlie Kirk: What’s Next for Turning Point USA, the Far Right, and American Evangelicalism?
by Tucker Hoffmann
Tucker J. Hoffmann is a Graduate Student at the University of Georgia achieving his master’s degree in communication studies through the Rhetorical Studies program. Tucker started studying Charlie Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, beginning in his undergraduate career at the University of Dayton under the tutelage of Dr. Susan Trollinger. With the guidance of Dr. Barbara Biesecker, Tucker is currently in the process of writing a thesis that analyzes Kirk’s book, The Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives can Win the Battle on Campus and Why it Matters.
When asked to write a piece for rightingamerica about the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, my immediate internal reaction was to ask myself, “What more could be said? What more needs to be said?”
As I come into my own as a rhetorical scholar at the University of Georgia with aspirations of achieving a doctoral degree and embarking on a successful career in higher education, I understand that my role is not to forecast the future. What invigorates and excites me about this discipline is understanding the process by which the spoken word invokes action. Put plainly; words matter, words (can) make things happen. That being said, by no means could I formulate a sound argument and analysis that somehow proves what is going to happen to Turning Point USA after their founder has been fatally shot. It is impossible to tell how the rhetorical maneuverings of the organization and its personnel are going to change, if at all. What I find most pressing, what I hope will bring insight to you as the reader, and the most I can say at a moment in time like this, is to offer a series of questions and comments I have as someone who has treated Turning Point USA as an object of study for quite some time.
Comment #1: “This is Not Who We Are”
Like most young people, I’m sickened by the nation-altering events we have endured seemingly every week. As a 23-year-old, I fit in the generation that was born in the immediate wake of 9/11, was a child during the recession beginning in 2008, and began my young adult years as the world closed in 2020 (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of deaths that came with the virus). None of these struggles, however, mark my general age demographic more than ongoing rampant gun violence in schools and universities.
In the discourse surrounding the fallout of Kirk’s assassination, the phrase “this is not who we are” is heard frequently. I find that increasingly hard to believe. The events of September 10th encapsulate exactly who we are. We are the nation where a political leader will get shot, not because we do not value the sentiment of the “freedom in the marketplace of ideas” (whatever that means), but because we as a people have a proclivity to engage in violence of all stripes, and especially gun violence. Unfortunately, I believe that the precedent of simply “putting up” with swaths of people massacred by gun violence is solidified thanks to pro-gun lobbying groups. My pessimistic demeanor has led me to the conclusion encapsulated in social media posts made by the March For Our Lives movement on the day of Kirk’s death: “Gun Violence Spares No One,” even those who said that a “few” gun deaths are “worth it.”
Question #1: In terms of leadership, what is next for Turning Point USA?
When CEOs or executives are indisposed and can no longer fulfill their duties to the organization or company they work for, there is a plan of succession. When dictators are in power, there is always someone “waiting in the wings” to take up power once the great leader falls. What I do not see, in my years of keeping up with TPUSA and its activities, is someone who is vying for power behind Charlie Kirk.
I believe this void of power will be filled by someone, eventually, at an extreme cost to those who oppose the organization and its views. Whether we like it or not, Charlie Kirk was an extremely charismatic, articulate, and punchy public speaker whose words traversed physical and digital spaces to “prove” that the way to right the wrongs of America as it stands today is through his organization. I fear that whoever steps into his role at TPUSA will try to replicate him, in the process amplifying the calls for violence in the name of Kirk’s martyrdom. As a critic of Kirk, I can safely say that he was extremely skilled in hiding the dangerous nature of his speech. What I cannot say for certain is that his successor can do the same.
The alternative view, one that I find less reasonable of a conclusion based on the comments made by in large by his supporters, is that the organization will wither away. Without a leader, the organization fractures on a chapter-by-chapter basis, each claiming to be the truest interpretation of Kirk’s advocacy and the closest to carrying out his legacy.
The reason I say this is somewhat unreasonable is the strength of network between chapters. To the best of my knowledge, Turning Point has a network of regional personnel that hierarchically mediate and assist chapter activity with the national organization. I thus find it hard to believe that there would be an intra-organizational schism. Also, I believe that a TPUSA schism is unreasonable because of the organization’s top-down programming. Because all the pamphlets, stickers, posters, buttons, and even chapter bylaws and constitution (as outlined in the official TPUSA chapter handbook) come from the national headquarters, it would be extremely hard for a single chapter to go rogue.
Comment #2: “You Can’t Compromise with Evil.”
During the prayer vigil for Kirk in Washington D.C., Trump Senior Advisor Kari Lake pleaded with the parents of the crowd to “not send their children to these indoctrination camps” – referring to colleges – and boldly proclaimed that her audience of conservative pundits, congresspeople, and activists “can’t compromise with evil” when it comes to advancing their political goals.
What I hope comes to light for those concerned with democratic governance is the lengths to which the ever-increasingly right will go in describing their condition. For them, as Mother Jones Magazine and NBC News report, what is happening in the United States is nothing less than an all-out holy war. Even the widowed Mrs. Kirk stated in her eulogy to her husband
“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country. In this world, you have no idea. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.”
For the academy and the concerned citizens of our pluralistic society to be responsive to the times we find ourselves in, we have to take the words of Mrs. Erika Kirk and others not as metaphors, but as very real calls for action.
Question #2: What is Happening to the Far-Right? What does this mean for American Evangelical Christianity?
While the immediate response of many pundits and talking heads was to blame the “radical-left” for the shooting of Kirk, it has come to light that the 22-year-old assassin may not have been the radical leftist that he was proclaimed to be; instead, it seems he was a young man who found himself chronically online in deep echo chambers of the internet. Regardless of the assassin’s motives or ideological commitments, I do believe there is something rupturing within the American far-right. On one side, a highly antisemitic lobby that collapses Jewish identity into the state of Israel, and on the other, a lobby in lock step with the US foreign policy of ever-ongoing support of the state of Israel. What I find more startling than this inter-ideological fighting is what binds the two groups: their commitment to their interpretation of the Word and, more obviously, the role/figure of Christ in their ongoing holy war.
As some may find it hard to believe, there are pockets of people (usually organized online) that have ideological commitments further right than the ones held by the late Charlie Kirk. In these areas, you’ll find fully fledged neo-Nazis and overt white supremacist operatives. They go by many names, but the most prevalent one is the term “groyper”, a term used to describe the Christian nationalist fanbase of conservative commentator Nicholas J. Fuentes. On his daily broadcast via Rumble, Fuentes commented:
I didn’t like him, he didn’t like me. We had a lot of differences ideologically, politically, and we fought viciously. He did a lot to stifle my career and suppressed me in many ways. And I antagonized him a lot and mocked him and ridiculed him and attacked his credibility. He was my opponent, but I would never wish death upon him or anything like that. And Charlie Kirk never had a kind word to say about me in his life. Now that he has died, I’ll say some kind words about him.
Where Fuentes and Kirk agreed, however, was “abortion…[and] feminism. We agreed about many of the other moral social ills of the country.” He goes on to praise Kirk for his life spent proclaiming the life and gospel of Jesus Christ and, for Fuentes, “that is why he was killed. Everyone will be persecuted for the sake of Jesus Christ. Anyone, everyone fighting and winning that spiritual battle for Christ and for his kingdom will be persecuted for his sake. And I don’t believe Charlie Kirk was any different.”
The reason I say all this is because I want to illuminate the startling realization that the spheres of theological discourse and political discourse are, in my opinion, collapsing into one another. If they were ever distinct in the first place would require a dissertation-amount of writing and research to be done. What I can say for now, however, is that in the case of Kirk’s death we are hearing political speech from the pulpit and a homily of retribution from the campaign trail. I fear for what is to come when we consider the impact of this type of speech when it comes to our own subjectivity as Christians of every denomination, and on Americans who are not affiliated with Christianity at all.
While I can’t forecast the future, I can say that it does not look good.
Distorting History in Behalf of a Creationist Myth: William Jennings Bryan and Racism
by William Trollinger
Jerry Bergman is at it again. And it’s as bad as ever.
A prolific writer for the Answers Research Journal and similar creationist outlets, Bergman has gone to great lengths to promote the Darwin-to-Hitler trope, which has been vigorously critiqued by the Anti-Defamation League and mocked by a host of scholars. Then there is the even more absurd Darwin-to-Vietnam War trope, as presented in his scarcely readable article, “The Central Role of Darwinism in the Vietnam War.”
Now Bergman has moved on to The Other Side of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which Glenn Branch has described as the worst book ever written about this topic. This book has as its subtitle, “As Its Heart the Trial was about Racism,” an astonishing claim to make, given that there was virtually no mention of racism and eugenics in the trial. More than this, there is also virtually no actual evidence for this argument in the book; instead, what we have from Bergman is (to quote Branch), “hagiographizing, conspiracy theorizing, and mudslinging.”
Paucity of evidence notwithstanding, Bergman continues undaunted. In his July 2025 Creation-Evolution Headlines article, “1925 Scopes Trial 100-Year Anniversary: Evolutionists are Still Teaching Myths,” Bergman repeats his argument that racism is “The Issue at the Core of the Scopes Trial.” In this piece he confidently asserts that William Jennings Bryan “was unapologetically pro-democracy and anti-racism.” In making this claim Bergman uses Goshen College historian Willard Smith’s 1969 Journal of Negro History article, “William Jennings Bryan and Racism,” an article which Bergman describes as the “definitive study on Bryan and racism.” Quoting from the first paragraph of Smith’s article, Bergman observes that “Bryan believed democracy ‘is founded upon the doctrine of human brotherhood – a democracy that exists for one purpose, [that is, for] the defense of human rights. It would be extremely difficult to select from his political career, lasting from 1890 to his death in 1925, a concept which he emphasized more than this.’”
Even for Jerry Bergman, this is extraordinarily egregious cherry-picking. In the very next sentence of Smith’s article – a sentence that, not surprisingly, Bergman chooses not to quote or mention or reference – the author says that, given Bryan’s repeated emphasis on democracy, “it is surprising and ironical to discover a contradiction in his life that certainly did not square with his much-vaunted talk about democracy and rule by the people.” And that contradiction involved “Bryan’s attitude toward race relations,” particularly, Bryan’s attitude toward black Americans, attitudes that were “acceptable to the strict segregationist” (127).
Smith went on to document that:
- Bryan claimed that “social equality should be opposed on the ground that amalgamation of the races is not desirable . . . and amalgamation [including racial intermarriage] would be the ‘logical result of social equality’” (139-140).
- Bryan condemned President Theodore Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington to the White House, as this would suggest social equality between the races. Bryan also attacked “Roosevelt’s appointments of Negroes to office, again [taking] the southern white’s point of view’” (139, 141).
- There is no evidence that Bryan opposed Woodrow Wilson’s segregating of government workers (143).
- “When an anti-lynching bill was before Congress in 1922, [Bryan] thought its passage would be a ‘grave mistake which the North would regret as much as the South” (144).
- In 1923 Bryan gave a speech at the Southern Society in Washington, D.C., in which he proclaimed that:
Where two races are forced to live together, the more advanced race “will always control as a matter of self-preservation not only for the benefit of the advanced race, but for the benefit of the backward race also.” Negroes have made great progress when associated with the whites. “Slavery was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when – and only when – brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy . . . Anyone who will look at the subject without prejudice will know that white supremacy promotes the highest welfare of both races.” (Emphases mine.)
As Smith went on to document, while Southern whites (of course) received the speech favorably, blacks, on the other hand, “took a dim view of the matter, and at least a few let Bryan know how they felt about it” (144-145).
Smith concludes his article by asking why, given Bryan’s “great emphasis on the common people, democracy, and rule by the people” (146), did he hold these views regarding race? Smith does not give a definitive answer to this question, but he does rightly note that Bryan was certainly not unique among Progressives:
One of the ironies of American history is that at the same time that progressivism was reaching its height – the second decade of the twentieth century – Negro rights, in terms of the expectations of the Civil War and reconstruction period, were reaching a new low. At the same time that new legislation and new amendments to the constitution were reforming our society and making our government more responsible to the will of the people (at least the white people), other developments were occurring which eroded the rights of colored people and made much less meaningful the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. In these respects, Bryan was simply one of the crowd. (127-128)
Ah yes. In his “definitive study on Bryan and racism,” Willard Smith had it right. William Jennings Bryan was simply your everyday, early 20th-century white racist. Less racist than some, no question, and that needs to be acknowledged. That said, he was still a racist who – as Bryan himself made very clear – firmly held to white supremacy.
But if you want to claim that the Scopes Trial was at heart a battle between racism and anti-racism, if you want to celebrate William Jennings as a champion of human brotherhood and racial equality – well, then you need to do what Bergman has done here, and what he seems to do as a regular course of action. Distort the historical record for ideological purposes. Truth be damned.
P.S. Not surprisingly, Bergman is silent about the fact that at Bryan’s death the Ku Klux Klan commemorated “The Great Commoner” by setting afire tall crosses. Here in Dayton Ohio the cross bore this inscription: “In memory of William Jennings Bryan, the greatest Klansman of our time, this cross is burned; he stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord.” While there is no evidence that Bryan was a member of the KKK, it is fair to say that if he had actually stood for racial equality – as opposed to standing for white supremacy – there would have been no Klan ceremonies honoring Bryan.
P.P.S. Bergman also uses his article to claim that in our book, The Bible and Creationism (Jerry, it is an article, not a book), Catholic University professors Susan Trollinger and I (Jerry, we are University of Dayton professors, not Catholic University professors, but we know that our Catholicism is anathema to you and so this needs to be highlighted) engage in “censoring creationism” (wow, Jerry, we had not realized that we have the power to suppress young Earth creationism!) by pointing out that “fully 1 in 4 Americans reject evolution a century after the Scopes Monkey Trial spotlighted the clash between science and religion.” This uncontroversial observation qualifies as censorship? Censorship of what? Is this just another example of fundamentalists manufacturing evidence that they are being persecuted in America?
Yet More Fabricated History: Herbert Wendt’s Search for Scopes
by Glenn Branch
Glenn Branch is deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that defends the integrity of American science education against ideological interference. He is the author of numerous articles on evolution education and climate education, and obstacles to them, in such publications as Scientific American, American Educator, The American Biology Teacher, and the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, and the co-editor, with Eugenie C. Scott, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools (2006). He received the Evolution Education Award for 2020 from the National Association of Biology Teachers.
Unsurprisingly, in the spate of articles and commentaries commemorating the centennial of the Scopes “monkey” trial in 2025, there have been a lot of complaints about misconceptions and misinformation about the history — some justified; some not. To add to the chorus, here is a protracted complaint in particular with regard to the discussion of the Scopes trial in a relatively obscure book — In Search of Adam: The Story of Man’s Quest for the Truth about His Earliest Ancestors (1956), a translation of the Ich suchte Adam: Die Entdeckung des Menschen (1954). Herbert Wendt (1914–1977) was a German science writer specializing in zoology, anthropology, and archaeology, according to the German edition of Wikipedia, which adds that he attained international recognition with Ich suchte Adam, which was translated into twenty foreign languages. In Search of Adam was the August 1956 selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club.
Well, In Search of Adam may or may not be a good book overall, but its discussion of the Scopes trial, occupying the first four pages of chapter 14, is terrible. Wendt starts by reminding the reader that evolution extends to humans, adding, “By July 21, 1925, the day on which the Dayton Monkey Trial ended, scientists in various parts of the world were on the point of solving some of the remaining puzzles about Adam,” providing examples of various relevant scientific work in 1925, including Raymond Dart “brooding over the ‘Taungs’ [a legitimate variant of “Taung”] child.” Wendt claims that “all these men heard of the Dayton affair,” although he provides no evidence of it. And he imputes to them, again with no evidence, acceptance of the Conflict Model of science and religion, writing, dramatically, that they remembered with trepidation the “legions of pioneers who had fallen on the battlefields of science. And they glanced at the calendar. Yes, it really was July 21, 1925.”
A bit of dramatic license might be excused, especially in setting the stage. But when Wendt turns his attention to the details of the Scopes trial in the next paragraph, Scopes is claimed to be “a young elementary schoolteacher”: he was, of course, a high school teacher. The Butler Act itself is claimed to have prohibited “any mention in public educational establishments of Darwin’s theory and the fields of learning associated with it”; it was not nearly so broad, forbidding teachers only “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Scopes is also claimed to have aspired “to give American farmers’ boys some idea of the struggle for survival and the ape man of Java”; it’s unclear whether Scopes actually ever taught evolution in Dayton, or wanted to, although he accepted evolution and objected on principle to the Butler Act.
Continuing, Wendt writes,
A puritanical inspector of schools had called attention to the infringement of the law by Mr. Scopes. A worthy provincial judge, who had probably never even heard of Darwin, meditated over the case for weeks. He searched the statutes of Tennessee, found that Scopes really had defied a prohibition, and eventually resolved to give the lad who told innocent children fairy tales about monkeys the lesson he richly deserved.
Of course, Scopes was recruited as a willing defendant in a test case of the Butler Act, at the behest of locals (including Walter White, the Rhea County superintendent of schools, who later joined the prosecution team — although he actually wasn’t admitted to the bar till 1944) who wanted to put Dayton, Tennessee, on the map. They were, of course, briefly successful, as Wendt correctly notes: “Dayton became world-famous overnight.” But he adds, “Real estate prices rocketed.” Did anybody really move to Dayton on account of the trial?
When the scene shifts to the courtroom, Wendt continues to err. He says that the trial lasted twelve days: although it began on July 10 and ended on July 21, 2025, the court was not in session on the weekend, so it actually lasted eight days. The expert witnesses for the defense are claimed to have been “answered by bellows of laughter from the farmers” (i.e., the audience): only one expert witness spoke in court, and there are no reports of laughter at his testimony. Scopes is claimed to have “attempted to justify his conduct to the jury” and then “canned-food tins, empty bottles, and lumps of filth were hurled at his head”; he spoke only once in court, during his sentencing, and there are no reports of anyone throwing anything at anybody in the courtroom. “The hard-boiled defense counsel” — Wendt is referring to Clarence Darrow; none of his colleagues is ever acknowledged — “found his carefully prepared speech completely ruined by shouted oaths and personal insults”: pure fiction.
Discussing the aftermath of the trial, Wendt outdoes himself in invention. “No sooner had sentence been pronounced than thousands of men and women in Dayton fell to their knees and sang psalms”: there are no reports confirming such a spontaneous chorale. “Next day an epidemic of typhoid fever broke out among the tightly packed masses of people in Dayton and there were more than a hundred deaths.” Ironic if true! And, by now surprisingly, not entirely false. In her Reframing Scopes (2008), Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette quotes a letter from Helen Miles Davis to her husband Watson Davis, who covered the trial for Science Service, warning, “Don’t get typhoid, which, I see[,] has broken out near there.” A footnote adds, “The disease was a concern for all present in Dayton that summer.” Davis himself relinquished a hotel reservation in Dayton to a minister who later contracted typhoid and died shortly after the trial. He was, however, a Unitarian minister, which undermines the irony.
As for Scopes, he “was obliged to give up his schoolteaching”: he was actually offered a new contract to teach in Dayton, but declined in order to pursue graduate studies in geology at the University of Chicago. “His monkey trial had made him so popular that his future was assured”: although he received a lot of offers to capitalize on his fame, he declined them. He suffered a fair amount from his notoriety, too. In 1927, he was recommended for a graduate fellowship, which he was eventually denied: the president of the university administering the fellowship advised him to “take your atheistic marbles and play elsewhere.” “He became not a biologist, but a car salesman”: it is altogether unclear what Wendt is thinking here. Scopes never completed his Ph.D.; he was a petroleum geologist throughout his career, during which, he wrote, “There were no high lights [sic] and I had the same number and the same kind of experiences as anyone else who did that type of work.”
Wendt fails to mention the fact that, in 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scopes’s conviction, on a technicality, while leaving the Butler Act on the books. Instead, he rushes onward to offer a summary. In the last paragraph of his discussion, he writes, “The affair at Dayton was a last grotesque revolt against the new conception of history [i.e., evolution] which America itself, apart from its remote recesses, had long since generally accepted”; the Scopes trial was not a “last” revolt, unfortunately, but writing in the mid-1950s, before the rise of creation science and intelligent design, Wendt can be excused for using the adjective. “The world laughed, and soon forgot the trial”: certainly not, especially in its centennial year. “And the natural scientists, profoundly shocked, once more stated emphatically that a picture of humanity which left out of account its historical and biological basis resembled a tree without roots or a house without a substructure”: at last, a point of agreement!
In Search of Adam poses no threat to the status of Jerry Bergman’s The Other Side of the Scopes Trial (2023) as the Worst. Book about the Scopes Trial. Ever! — but that’s only because it devotes only four pages to the trial. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that their discussions of the Scopes trial are similar, although Wendt and Bergman differ about evolution: both are convinced that anyone who differs with them is ignorant, incompetent, and malicious, and both are so sure of themselves that they transmit or fabricate — it’s often not clear which — spurious details to support their views. A difference, though, is that although Bergman often misuses his sources, he typically (though not always) cites them, while Wendt cites no sources. It’s customary to blame the Broadway play and Hollywood film Inherit the Wind for misinformation about the Scopes trial, but since Wendt wrote before the play’s debut in 1955, the source of his misinformation is a mystery.
