In Inherit the Wind, Act 2, how does Brady's response to Drummond's question about the Biblical evaluation of sex expose problems for literal Bible interpreters?
In Inherit the Wind, Henry Drummond is defending Bertram Cates, who is on trial for teaching the theory of evolution to his students. Cates is opposed by many people who read the Bible extremely literally without regard to elements like literary genre and historical and cultural context. When Drummond asks Matthew Harrison Brady about the “Biblical evaluation of sex,” he does this for a specific purpose. He wants to show the inconsistencies and contradictions in his opponents’ claims.
Brady falls right into the trap when he respond that the Bible considers sex to be “Original Sin.” This is nowhere in the Bible. It is, rather, an interpretation of the Bible and quite a faulty one at that, as Drummond points out when he says that, in that case, the holy people of the Bible must have been begotten through original sin. Brady cannot give a good response to this. In fact, he merely scowls and shifts uncomfortably. Drummond has pointed out the contradiction in his argument.
Sometimes people who claim to interpret the Bible literally, then, actually interpret it according to their own preconceived notions and agendas. They try to impose their own views upon the Bible rather than reading it on its own terms.
In Inherit the Wind, why is Brady's response "It is considered Original Sin" to Drummond's question about the Biblical evaluation of sex strategically important?
Brady's response is so important to what Drummond's trying to establish because it highlights the many absurdities that follow from a literalist interpretation of the Bible.
It also exposes the problems that Christian fundamentalists like Brady have in squaring the circle of God's creation. According to them, God gave man the power to procreate, to be fruitful, and to multiply. And yet, at the same time, they hold that sex is steeped in Original Sin. If God gave man the power to create, then why should this divine gift be regarded as being sinful?
On an unrelated theological point, fundamentalists like Brady have to explain why they insist on the reality of Original Sin when, in actual fact, it's nowhere to be found in the Bible. It is, rather, a doctrine devised by St. Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
By insisting that sex, a gift given to man by God, is steeped in Original Sin, Brady is revealing just one of many contradictions at the heart of Christian fundamentalism. In due course, Drummond will ruthlessly exploit these contradictions for all they are worth, thus completely undermining Brady's case.
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