#196: Bull Run and Monkey Trial

July 21, 1861 and July 21, 1925 were turning points in American history. During the Civil War, the first major battle of the War occurred when the Union attacked at the Battle of Bull Run (called Manassas by the South) and lost the battle because they broke the Christian Sabbath, said General Oliver O. Howard and others after the debacle. This statement was the catalyst for my research on God Caused the Civil War and turns out to be statistically pretty accurate, as I've cited in various posts on this blog, not only in Civil War history, but in world history as well. (Posts #14, 83, 110, 171, & 175 to be precise.) The Battle of Bull Run also bestowed the name Stonewall on General Thomas Jackson and was part of his mystique not only during the War, but down through history as his story is frequently retold.
Bull Run was also a good example that overconfidence as a result of an initial victory can be a serious downfall in the long run...as occurred to the Confederacy during the War. All sorts of Southern writers and diarists of the time pointed to the fact that the outstanding initial victory might not be such a boon to the South as time went on specifically because it inflated the pride of Southerners which led them to the conflict in the first place, they wrote.

Sixty-four years later, the Scopes Monkey Trial was decided against the defendant on July 21, 1925, but the decision was later dismissed in a higher court on a technical mistake. Even though the trial was over the right of Scopes to teach evolution instead of creationism, the larger picture was one in which the truth of Scripture was put on trial, was ineptly defended by Christian orator and former politician William Jennings Bryan, and was denigrated by skeptic Clarence Darrow. Just as he had done in the Garden of Eden, Satan attacked God's Word in the 20th century quite successfully...at least for a time. His first major victory against mankind's representatives, Adam and Eve, was a seeming coup d'etat and victory for Beelzebub, but the Heavenly War isn't over yet and the outcome is clearly assured as the One with the bruised heel, Jesus, ends up bruising Old Nick's HEAD and casts him in the lake of fire with his other fallen angels and the lost.

Hmmmm...maybe the fact that I've gotten my butt kicked in initial battles both in life and computer games is a good thing! Sort of bears out Romans 8:28ff as many folks so glibly say.
Got thoughts on the matter?