Century after Scopes trial, vast majority of American Christians accept evolution
Among major religious groups, evangelicals most likely to reject scientific view
After a trial that began 100 years ago today, a Kentucky school teacher, John Scopes, was found guilty of teaching biological evolution and fined $100, a significant sum for a teacher in those days. Although the trial was conducted largely as a publicity stunt, it drew attention to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, a debate raging among seminary professors and Protestant church leaders, among others, over how Christians should understand the Bible.
The trial pitted two of the country’s best-known lawyers against each other: William Jennings Bryan, a former presidential candidate and U.S. secretary of state, supported the fundamentalist position and argued for the prosecution. Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal lawyer, argued for the defense with support from the American Civil Liberties Union. The trial drew extensive media attention, in part because it symbolized unease that many felt over tensions between religion and modern science.
Although the fundamentalists won the trial1, it might now be said that the modernists won the war: Only a minority of Christians today are skeptical of the science behind evolution, and an overwhelming majority are comfortable with evolutionary theory: An analysis by the Pew Research Center shows that 77 percent of U.S. Christians believe in evolution.
The numbers come from Pew’s Religious Landscape Study conducted from July 2023 to March 2024.
The study found that among American Christians, 15 percent said they believe that human evolution did not include a divine role, while a solid majority of 61 percent said that human evolution was either guided or allowed by God2. A fifth of American Christians, or 20 percent, agreed with the statement that human beings did not evolve but have existed since the beginning of time.
Although there are differences in the extent to which different types of Christians believe in evolution, the differences aren’t huge. Here are the percentages of the different categories of Christians who said they believe in evolution:
Mainline Protestant: 83 percent
Latter-day Saint: 81 percent
Catholic: 80 percent
Historically black Protestant: 78 percent
Orthodox Christian: 76 percent
Evangelical Protestant: 71 percent
Those who say that humans have existed since the beginning of time range from 13 percent for mainline Protestants to 26 percent for evangelicals.
The numbers of believers in evolution are slightly higher for the major non-Christian religions:
Jewish: 87 percent
Buddhist: 84 percent
Hindu: 84 percent
Muslim: 82 percent
Believers in evolution are nearly unanimous among atheists (95 percent) and agnostics (97 percent). For those with no particular religion, believers in evolution number 81 percent.
What Christian denominations have to say about evolution
The fundamentalist-modernist controversy involved far more than disagreement over biological evolution, touching on subjects such as the nature of God, the role of Jesus, interpretation of the creeds and the nature of salvation. Historians generally say that the modernists won the debate, as they ended up taking control of the country’s major seminaries. Today’s mainline Protestants — they include denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ — are the descendants of the modernists, and none of those denominations insist on a reading of the Bible that calls for a literal six-day creation or a denial of evolutionary theory.
However, today’s fundamentalists and evangelicals are the spiritual descendants of the fundamentalists of Scopes’ day, and they along with non-Protestant Christians have a variety of views on evolution. Here’s is a quick look at how some of the major denominations outside of mainline Protestantism view biological evolution:
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has never had a quarrel with evolution, and it takes no official position on the science. In 1950, Pope Pius XII said that evolutionary theory and the Catholic doctrines on the nature of humankind can coexist, and in 1996 Pope John Paul II called evolution “more than a hypothesis.” Catholic leaders have emphasized, however, that the human soul is not a product of evolution.
Southern Baptist
The most recent statement of the Southern Baptist Convention on evolution came in the form of a resolution in 1982 stating that the “theory of evolution has never been proven to be a scientific fact” and that creation science “can be presented solely in terms of scientific evidence.” The resolution called on public schools to teach “scientific creationism” but did not say that schools should be prohibited from teaching evolutionary science. These views are not binding on SBC members; some prominent Southern Baptists have endorsed the theory of intelligent design, which allows for the possibility that God created the species over millions of years.
Seventh-day Adventist
Although evolution has been a subject of hot debate within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the church’s official position remains that God created all that exists “in a recent six-day creation.” The church’s formal statement of belief also states that God “established the Sabbath as a perpetual memorial of the work He performed and completed during six literal days that together with the Sabbath constituted the same unit of time that we call a week today.”
Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no formal position on evolution. An essay endorsed by the church to explain its views indicates that “the scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how” and that evolution remains a “matter for scientific study.”
Assemblies of God
An official position paper adopted by the Assemblies of God in 2014 takes a middle view that allows for the possibility of biological evolution (without endorsing the concept), but only for creatures other than humans. The paper states in part: “God did not form Adam from some previously existing creature (1 Corinthians 15:39). Any evolutionary theory, including theistic evolution/evolutionary creationism, that claims all forms of life arose from a common ancestry is thereby ruled out.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses
The Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge that the Earth could be billions of years old, saying that the six days of creation aren’t necessarily 24-hour days. But the church also states: “The Bible account does not support the theory that God used evolution to bring about the different kinds of life, sometimes called theistic evolution” and that the entire human family descended from Adam and Eve.
Church of God in Christ
Formal belief statements of the Church of God in Christ, the country’s largest Pentecostal denomination and also one of the largest historically black denominations, do not address evolution. They do affirm a belief in the Bible as “the inspired and only infallible written Word of God” and that “man was created holy by God, composed of body and soul.”
It should be noted, however, that Scopes never had to pay the fine. His conviction was overturned on a technicality that had nothing to do with the broader question of evolution.
Numbers do not add to 77 percent because of rounding.