From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century, 11/25/1920.
[The following is the conclusion of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“A few days ago this eminent lecturer spoke to a large audience of laymen in Chicago. The chance was his to make a notable contribution to that convention. What does it get from him? Why – the monkey jokes, of course! And the red cow! It is to be presumed that hundreds of laymen, going home from that convention under the impression that they had heard a great scientist speak his mind about evolution, will be on the alert now to detect the slightest deflection from orthodoxy on the part of their pastors. Let the good brother phrase his remarks in the language of modern scholarship, insisting upon a faith that may be held without damage to one’s intellectual self-respect, and he takes a chance of hearing unfavorably from the deacon who has just returned from the convention where ‘Darwinism’ – and all things scientific – had been weighed and found wanting.
“I write this partly to relieve my feelings, but mostly because there is no doubt in my own mind that we ministers, who have thought our way through these problems at no little cost of time and effort, should refuse any longer to tolerate such presentations of religion as that indicated above, if we may by any possibility put a stop to it! For Mr. Bryan to speak in any presence concerning the relation of religion and science is a piece of presumption! King David prayed, ‘Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins!’ David apparently considered this a serious offense – presumption. And David, being something of an expert on sinning, surely ought to be an authority.
“One is not forgetting that Mr. Bryan is a great and good man who means well and is loved devotedly by great masses of people. He has it in him to make a large contribution to religion. But however rich and active may be the wine of his faith and his enthusiasm, he really ought to stop trying to vend it in the old bottles. Oh – oh – but how fearfully old are the bottles!”
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century, 11/25/1920.
[The following is a continuation of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“Every year, in most of our great universities, the student is asked to state his religious convictions at the time of his registration. He is requested to name the denomination to which he belongs, or the denomination he prefers, if not a member. After the cards had been handed to me, this year, which belonged to my denomination, it occurred to me that some interest might attach to a comparison of these registration cards with those of last year. I would see how many students who registered last year as of the faith of which I am an adherent were registered this year as ‘without religious convictions.’ The investigation showed no case of the kind. To the contrary, there were sixty-nine students who stated last year that they were without religious convictions who announced, this fall, that they were adherents of our faith. It is not true that the freshman inevitably comes to the university to surrender his faith. But it is true that many a chap is obliged to come into a university community to find his faith!
“Mr. Bryan does not know this. Nobody ever told him. He never inquired. He would not believe it if he were told. He doesn’t want to believe it. It would dampen his enthusiasm about the awful effects of modern science upon Christian faith. Then he would lose heart for the monkey jokes. And the monkey jokes must be told. And the red cow – the same old red cow – must she not still eat green grass and give white milk to yield yellow butter?”
[Douglas will conclude his essay in my next post…]
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on 11/25/1920.
[The following is a continuation from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“The total result of the Bryan address to his university audience was disgust on the part of religious people – both faculty and students – disgust over the speaker’s intellectual immorality, to say nothing of the crass impudence displayed by such an exhibition of ignorance before an audience of that character. But the really serious fact about the performance resided in the effect produced upon the students who never go to church, manifest no interest in religion, and who think of Christian faith with as little knowledge of its present-day claims as Mr. Bryan has of biology – which is next to nothing. This type of student understands that Mr. Bryan is a widely known and generally recognized religious leader in the country – frequent spokesman before ecclesiastical conclaves, and a general defender of the faith. The student is informed, from this respected quarter, that, to be a Christian, he must repudiate that which his own eyes have seen in the laboratory and believe certain ancient dogmas which he cannot hold without the sacrifice of his intellectual self-regard. It is extremely doubtful if Mr. Bryan will ever be invited to speak before this group again. But the damage is done!
“While we are on the subject – how much truth is there, after all, about the deplorable loss of religious faith which Mr. Bryan notices in academic circles? Let us see. Many people who do not know the facts are persuaded to believe that the typical freshman comes to the university firm in the faith of his fathers, fresh from Sunday School, convinced that the Bible is to be accepted as a textbook on geology, anthropology, astronomy, and all the rest of the natural sciences. After he has been here for a year or two, he loses his faith, becomes a cynic and a scoffer, flaunts his atheism or his infidelity, and repudiates religion as of no further use to him. What are the facts about this matter?”
[Douglas, having spent the past decade on major Midwestern college campuses, will give his answer in my next post.]
A page from Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.
[The following is from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“A few days ago, Mr. Bryan lectured, on a Saturday night, in the auditorium of a great Midwestern university [probably the University of Michigan, where Douglas was the Congregational minister]. No monkeys appeared in the lecture. Indeed, it was a good address – old, commonplace, but acceptable. There was a large crowd. The students were enthusiastic. The Students’ Christian Association pressed the speaker to stay over and talk, in the same place, on Sunday noon. He consented. The word was quickly passed about the campus. There were five thousand persons present, next day. Fully three-fourths of them were students. The faculties were largely represented. It was understood that Mr. Bryan was to speak about the claims of religion upon the life of youth. It was a brilliant opportunity for a really great contribution to be made to the lives of many hundreds of young men and women. As I look back over many similar opportunities afforded celebrated speakers to set the cause of religion squarely before the face of the college man, I do not remember ever having seen such a crowd, in such a receptive mood! One envied this rare spirit his chance to do valiant service for Christianity that day. What came of it? The monkey talk!
“How this good man could ever have gained the consent of his own mind to commit the almost incredible impertinence of reading the old misquotations, spinning the old yarns, and assailing ‘Darwinism’ in the presence of hundreds of youngsters who understood enough about evolution to know that the speaker knew nothing about it whatsoever – yes; and in the presence of scientists who had made a life job of research in this field – how he could have done it, I do not understand; but he did it. He went further. He deplored the subversive effects of science on Christian faith; explained to the students that science was the enemy of faith; excoriated scientific men, advanced scholarship, modern learning, and generally anathematized higher education. All this was by way of preface to a statement of his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Adam was the first man. He was made of the dust of the ground. The Bible said so. Apparently nobody has ever gone to the bother of asking Mr. Bryan how he accounts for the fact that wherever explorers have gone they have found men boasting an ancestry easily traceable to remote periods whole millenniums before navigation was discovered or effected.
“A considerable volume of water has passed under the bridge, in the realm of science, since Mr. Bryan first came out as a biologist. Practically the whole theory of evolution has been rephrased during that time. Perhaps the genial ex-secretary of state is unaware of that fact. Surely he must be unaware of it, for his lectures still carry opportunities for the introduction of the same old stories, the same old misquotations, and the same old attacks against ‘Darwinism.’ His references to evolution have not grown an inch or gained a pound for twenty years. Meanwhile, let it be repeated, science has been busy. Mr. Bryan may have wished to inform himself upon this subject, or he may not; but science has been assiduously devoting itself to a sincere and honest investigation of the known facts.
“One of the interesting features of modern scholarship in this field – which may come as a shock to Mr. Bryan, should he ever have this matter brought to his attention – is the fact that the present-day scientist has long since left off talking of evolution in terms of ‘Darwinism.’ Mr. Bryan rarely speaks of evolution: his designation for it is ‘Darwinism.’ Ah – how he does put Darwin on the grille! Cannot some friend inform him, for his own sake, that Charles Robert Darwin is related to evolution, in the thought of the scholar, exactly as Robert Fulton is related to steam navigation, and as Langley is related to aeronautics, and as Dr. Harvey is related to present-day surgery? Of course, it used to make very little difference to the typical lecture audience whether Mr. Bryan was sure of his facts or not. But increasingly the American people have had opportunities to inform themselves about matters of a scientific nature, and the good man seriously underrates the intelligence of his audiences.”
The Lloyd C Douglas Page 