Give Me That Old Time Religion

“He who brings strife into his household will only inherit the wind.” Proverbs 11:29

Some might say that that the two fields that are most opposed to one another within academia would be science and religion (that is, of course, if one considers religion worthy of a place in academia at all). The institution that is fundamentalist evangelical Christianity has set itself up politically as well over the past century, in the debates concerning slavery, then suffrage, and to date the matter of granting civil unions to same-sex partnerships. The subject of the 1960 film Inherit the Wind is a time in history when both the political oppositional function of the Christian Church and the natural tension between religion and modern science became prevalent. The film is a creative adaptation of the legal prosecution of Hillsboro, Tennessee, high school biology teacher Bertram Cates, who insisted on teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution despite the state law, which regulated the teaching of intelligent design. Over the course of the film, each of the characters struggles with the tension between the Bible’s teachings and the role of new science in regard to faith; while this conflict seems insurmountably broad, the real crux of the matter in this film is the same matter addressed in the beginning of Bertrand Russell’s essay, “Why I am Not a Christian,” namely what constitutes a Christian. 

Russell provides a potential definition for a Christian that is as condensed and simplified as he believes can be without losing the nature of being a Christian. According to this definition, for a person to be a Christian they must (1) believe in God and immortality, and (2) believe that Christ was “if not divine, at least the best and the wisest of men.” (603) Though he has boiled down the nature of what it is to be a Christian (and fairly successfully, from my own Christian perspective), he then immediately acknowledges that this “elastic definition” of Christianity realistically will not work. Instead, since the time the institution that is the Christian Church (that is the Church, not Christianity), there have been other doctrinal requirements established by church and political leaders.  These creeds and dogmas have evolved as Christianity evolved into hundreds of sects and denominations and grew popular in different world cultures. This tension, the fine line between being a Christian and associating with the Christian Church, is perhaps more prevalent in this film than the cultural myth of the eternal battle between science and religion.  It may seem to some that this distinction would not have repercussions for the validity of Christianity or religion at all; indeed, there have been scholars throughout the ages who have denounced religion in favor of reason, thereby implying that there cannot be reason within religion (or that religious people are by their adherence to a religion not employing their reason).

It is more so this matter at stake in Inherit the Wind. In her hysterical testimony during Cates trial, Cates fiancée and Reverend Brown’s daughter Rachel explains that Cates’ insistence on teaching evolution (or more broadly his decision to leave the community church) does not demonstrate a departure from God, only a departure from Christianity or the church proper. At the conclusion of the film, Cates’ lawyer Mr. Henry Drummond demonstrates a similar adherence to moderate Christian beliefs when he weighs the Bible and Darwin’s book in his hands (as if on a scale) and ultimately leaves with the two books stacked together in his arms. The symbolism of this final scene is clear; Drummond, like his client, would at least fall into the elastic definition of being a Christian, though he clearly is opposed to the Christian institution as it manifests in Hillsboro.

Throughout the proceedings, Drummond’s contention is at its core the same as that of philosophers: a man has a right to think. The subtext of this argument is that the institution of Christian religion does not allow a person to think freely (as demonstrated by the behavior of the townspeople in most of the film). Indeed, the doctrine and dogma of institutionalized religion restrict the way a man or woman might think, however perhaps there would be less opposition between the scientific and philosophical communities and the religious if the more elastic definition of Christian (or any other religious organization) could be applied. The problem of using this elastic definition for Christian or for any religious adherent is that such a broad definition removes things like ethical codes and cosmological answers that religious people find comforting in religion. There are many writings like Russells that can speak to the rational reasons not to agree with Christianity, and more that speak against religion as a whole; I wonder if there might be a difference if there weren’t as many doctrinal differences to navigate in considering whether religious belief can be considered rational at all.