The decision was reached on Tuesday 21 July 1925, a century ago tomorrow. The defendant was found guilty of violating state law and was fined $100. A few years after, that verdict was overturned.
The defendant was John Scopes, a young Biology teacher in Dayton Tennessee, such a great name as a science teacher. The state law he was convicted of violating was a ban against the teaching of Evolution. The decision set in motion a vigorous debate about the relationship between Theology and Science. Additional debates focused on the words of Sacred Scripture and how they should be interpreted and understood.
Clarence Darrow, the defense attorney, spent a portion of the trial cross-examining the prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, about the inconsistencies in the Bible. These inconsistencies included the presence of two Creation stories in the Book of Genesis, as well as contradictions within the First Creation account. One such contradiction involved the progression of light and darkness in the first three days of creation – “thus evening came, and morning followed” – when the great lights in the sky were not created until the fourth day. When Darrow questioned Bryan about these inconsistencies Bryan responded: “I do not think about things I do not think about.”
“I do not think about the things I do not think about.” This is quite an interesting response. There are indeed things that we do not think about. When making a familiar meal or dessert you add the ingredients without thinking too much about it. Similarly, prayer can become rote and familiar with the words escaping our lips without a sense of their deeper meaning. Many of our daily routines occur without thinking, especially when your closet contains mostly black colored clothing.
Yet, like Bryan, we frequently take in the words of Sacred Scripture without thinking. Eventually those words will echo back from the caverns of our minds to the depth of the soul. Such a moment happens in today’s second reading from Colossians. “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, the Church.” (Col 1:24).
Was St. Paul indicating that the Passion of Our Lord was unfulfilling, or was he suggesting that his contemporaries were glossing over the necessity of suffering along the pathway of redemption? Later, both St. Matthew and St. Mark would explore this subject. “Now fill up what your ancestors measured out.” (MT 23:32); “False prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders in order to mislead the elect.” (MK 13:22). St. Paul’s audience, as well as those of the Evangelists, misinterpreted the redemptive nature of suffering. They, unlike the authors of the Inspired Word of God, failed to think about things they do not think about.
Pope Leo XIII, whose papacy of a quarter of century ended on this date in 1903, wrote the Encyclical – The God of All Providence in 1893. This encyclical was the first offering in modernity of the importance of reading Sacred Scripture and the necessity of study and comprehension of the Word. “The sense of Holy Scripture cannot be found by those who only gnaw at the bark of Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Providentissimus Deus, 15)
Hopefully our Mass attendance provides us with the opportunity, as we listen to the Word, to gnaw at its bark. But then through prayer and reflection the pith of that bark should provide inspirational strength to see us through the week filled with the grace of the Word and of the Eucharist.
Sadly, William Jennings Bryan died within a week of the close of the trial –The State of Tennessee v. Scopes. Perhaps, at judgment he recognized the pith of the bark and thought about the things he did not think about.
How frequently do you think about things you do not think about?