We Needed the A Team!

It is too bad that William Jennings Bryan did not call for help in the famous "Monkey Trial" with Scopes in 1925. Help was available, specifically in the person of John Greshem Machen, who in 1925 was Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. Machen was one of the foremost scholars of his day and later would found Westminster Theological Seminary as a Bible-believing alternative to Princeton.

Bryan was a good man, a good politician, and a devout Bible believer, but he was no match for Clarence Darrow. Very often cases in court as well as judicial cases in church judicatories are settled by the cleverness and immorality of the attorneys and the willingness of witnesses and attorneys to lie, instead of the rule of laws and constitutions.

Maybe the case would have turned out the same, but Machen would have given a much better defense of the authority and integrity of the Bible.

Of course, the Bible stands on its own and is witnessed by the Spirit of God and the nature of reality, so Darwinism is dying and the Bible still holds sway over the minds of people. But I suspect that Machen would have given Darrow a whipping. Bryan won the case, but lost the battle.

Too bad, Christianity didn't have its "A-Team."

There is some good material about Machen in the current issue of Leben, published by City Seminary of Sacramento.