“The most serious concern of the Church”: J. Gresham Machen and the science-religion conflict

In 1925, the New Testament scholar and polemicist J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) was asked to appear as a witness before a court. In the case of The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, a teacher was on trial for teaching a view of history that was illegal. John Scopes stood accused of teaching an evolutionary, Darwinian account of the origins of the universe — which was, at that time, outlawed in Tennessee. This seems like a strange trial for a New Testament scholar to be called as a witness.