Preparation of the Mystic Book

Garry Wills is as thoughtful, articulate, and even-handed as any commentator out there, and here he offers a collection of very insightful essays on the intersection of church and state in America. The book is well worth reading alone for his treatment of (1) Roger Williams, a brilliant iconoclast (and founder of the colony of Rhode Island) who apparently founded the concept of separation of church and state, and (2) the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial. Given the enduring image of the latter in the popular consciousness, it is important to be aware that the play and movie based on that trial, "Inherit the Wind," very inaccurately depicts the actual events. Most striking for me was to learn that defense attorney Clarence Darrow and his journalist friend H.L. Mencken who covered the trial were largely attempting to advance the pernicious "Social Darwinism," particularly as articulated by Nietzsche, and that prosecuting attorney and fervent evangelical William Jennings Bryan had long expressly declined to challenge Darwin's theory of evolution even though he did not personally believe it.

The chapters on the 1988 presidential election (which shortly preceded this book's publication) can be skipped, I suppose, but at the expense of missing many enlightening connections that Wills draws with earlier developments in the church-state interface, and at the expense of missing the chance to reflect on a time when the Republican Party was not yet amoral and nihilistic.