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A sticky sweltering Tennessee courtroom in 1925 would change the course of Christian conservative perception of "persecution" for the next 100 years. Tennessee's passage of the unconstitutional Butler Act in March of 1925 was fertile soil for a challenge by the ACLU who offered to represent any teacher prosecuted under the law. It was also prime opportunity for the ailing town of Dayton to draw in some much needed publicity to stimulate a strangled local economy.

John T Scopes, a substitute biology teacher would stand trial for teaching evolution from the state approved textbook. The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, lawyer and presidential nominee and the defense was led by Clarence Darrow, the greatest defense attorney of his time. A Christian nationalist judge refused any testimony or experts for the defense and in a desperate move Darrow called prosecutor Bryan to the stand. The interrogation of literal interpretations of the Bible would not win the case, but it would cast Christian conservatives opposition to science into humiliation across the country. Journalist HL Mencken would exacerbate the embarrassment by mocking the "backwoods" people nationwide.

The humiliation didn't change them, it changed their strategy. They decided Christians in the US were being persecuted, formal education was the enemy and they withdrew from society and began to found their own institutions that would lead to Christian colleges, media platforms, conglomerates, PACS, and production agencies. The rhetoric of Christian persecution would fuel the rise of the radical right, the moral majority and the neo nazi platforms we see today.

Sources:

Armaly, M. T., & Enders, A. M. (2022). The sources and consequences of Christian nationalist victimization rhetoric. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 8, 1–15. 

Armaly, M. T., & Enders, A. M. (2023). Experimental evidence on persecution narratives and violence. Political Behavior, 45(2), 345–367.

Burke, K. J., & Hadley, H. (2025). Christian nationalism and educational policy in the United States. National Education Policy Center.

Darrow, C. (1904). The Resistible Rise of Democracy. Public lecture, later reprinted in Darrow's collected writings.

Du Mez, K. K. (2020). Jesus and John Wayne: How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation.

Ginger, R. (1958). Six days or forever? Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes.

Halbrook, P. N. (2015). The Scopes Trial in educational perspective [Master's thesis, North Carolina State University]. NC State Libraries. 

Hart, R. P. (2016). H. L. Mencken and the mythology of American journalism. American Journalism, 33(4), 432–450.

Jones, P., & Cooter, A. (2024). White Christian nationalism after January 6. Middlebury Institute, CTEC Research Series.

Larson, E. J. (1997). Summer for the gods: The Scopes trial and America's continuing debate over science and religion.

Larson, E. J. (2005). Understanding the Scopes Trial 100 years later. Vanderbilt Law Review, 78(2), 571–590.

Marsden, G. M. (1980). Fundamentalism and American culture. Oxford University Press.

Mencken, H. L. (1925). Newspaper dispatches from the Scopes Trial. Reprinted in Pierce, J. K. (2000). The Scopes Trial. American History Magazine.

Moore, R. (2001). The lingering impact of the Scopes Trial on high school biology textbooks. BioScience, 51(9), 790–796. 

Perry, S. L. (2025). Secularism, sorting, and Americans' political knowledge. Social Forces, 103(2), 835–857.

Pierce, J. K. (2000). The Scopes Trial. American History Magazine.

State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, 154 Tenn. 105 (1927).

State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, Trial Transcript (1925). Reprinted in Famous Trials Project.

Whitehead, A. L., & Perry, S. L. (2020). Taking America back for God: Christian nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press.