In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement (review)

In 2005, creationists lost a significant legal battle in Dover, Pennsylvania when Federal District Judge John E. Jones III halted their efforts to force the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in the public schools. The following week the eight school board members who had championed the creationist agenda were defeated for reelection. Advocates for twenty-first century science education hailed the development as a critical blow to anti-evolutionism in America.

Michael Lienesch's In the Beginning reminds us why that judgment is too optimistic. Lienesch examines the antievolution movement in America through the lens of social movement theory, as he puts it, "to connect theory to practice in such a way that each can inform our understanding of the other" (7). Theoretically, he charts a middle path between "new social movement" theorists who emphasize identity politics and "political process" theorists who are concerned more with the means by which movements utilize social and political structures to realize their goal (5). Lienesch reviews the history of the movement from its appearance within fundamentalism in the early twentieth century to its latest incarnation in Intelligent Design. Relying in particular on Sidney Tarrow's formulation of political opportunity, Lienesch tries to impose some order on the study of a movement that he believes historians have treated with insufficient rigor.

Lienesch draws liberally on the work of Norman Furniss, Ray Ginger, Ferenc Morton Szasz, George Marsden, Ronald Numbers, Edward Larson, and Jeffrey Moran. The primary material also is familiar to historians: The Fundamentals, William Jennings Bryan's "The Menace of Darwinism," and T. T. Martin's Hell and the High Schools. Even so, Lienesch's retelling is engaging, and would on its own stand as a valuable contribution. However, the focus of the book is the study of the movement's leadership, persistence, and adaptation over time. It is here that Lienesch makes his case that social theory can address questions that previous scholars failed to ask.

Unfortunately, it is not a strong case. To demonstrate that historians have overlooked the importance of identity politics in twentieth century fundamentalism, Lienesch overlooks those who have not, faulting instead those who half a century ago were concerned with the intellectual roots of fundamentalist theology. He criticizes historians who focus on Bryan and the Scopes trial, ignores those who do not, then follows the lead of the former. Historians have viewed the Scopes trial as a "media event," (140) or "a good show" (141). They have argued that "its larger meaning was in the way it dramatized these debates" (140). Substituting a term of art for a distinction, Lienesch counters that he finds the trial significant for its "dazzling use of strategic dramaturgy" (141).

Social theory, skillfully employed, can focus our attention, getting to the heart of a matter. Other times it unhelpfully simplifies the complexity of historical experience. Lienesch writes, "it is tempting to say that the more the movement has changed, the more it has stayed the same" (200). Scholars should avoid that temptation.