About
I'm a full-time writer from Dayton, Tennessee, home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. My articles have appeared locally in The Herald News and In the City, and in dozens of national magazines and blogs. I'm excited that my first book (title to be announced) will be released later this year by Zondervan.
I enjoy reading, travelling, watching college football, eating ice cream, playing poker, hanging out my husband Dan, and rocking the boat every now and then.
About "Evolving in Monkey Town" Blog
Charles Darwin said that the survival or extinction of an organism is determined by its ability to adapt to its environment. I think faith operates in much the same way. Changes in the environment--be they cultural or experiential—test the resilience of our faith and challenge us to rethink our most fundamental beliefs and values.
That’s what this blog is about. It's about how faith survives by continually changing. Its purpose is to reassess the fundamental elements of Christianity context of a postmodern environment…my insights coming from a small town famous for its tradition of fundamentalism, yours coming from wherever you may be.
As a natural doubter, I have come to believe that knowing the answers isn't as important as asking the questions, and that following Jesus Christ is a lot less about being right and a lot more about, well, surviving. So even if that's all you're doing right now, feel free to join the conversation.
About Monkey Town
My hometown of Dayton, Tennessee was just about the most famous place on earth for about two weeks in July of 1925. That summer, John T. Scopes was tried in our county courthouse for violating a state law that forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools. Clarence Darrow, the famous criminal defense lawyer and outspoken agnostic, led the defense, and William Jennings Bryan, the fundamentalist politician and orator, led the prosecution. With these two ideological heavy-weights in the ring, the Scopes Trial was billed as a showdown between science and religion – The Trial of the Century.
As a result, over 200 reporters from as far away as London descended on Dayton. Protestors, street preachers, and peddlers flooded the streets of our small rural town. Lemonade and hotdog stands, caged apes, banners, and hawkers crowded the courthouse lawn. For the first time in history, a radio station broadcasted the court proceedings live.
At the end of the trial, John T. Scopes was found guilty, and the crowds left Dayton just as quickly as they came. Our town could never quite shake its reputation as Monkey Town.
Now a town of about 8,000, Dayton has remained a bastion of Christian fundamentalism in the buckle of the Bible belt. There are over 35 churches listed in the local directory. It is the home of Bryan College, a university named after William Jennings Bryan himself. Suffice it to say, Dayton is not the easiest place in the world to have a faith crisis. It's not an easy place to question or doubt the "fundamentals" of the faith. But change can occur even in the most unlikely of environments, and it is here in Dayton, Tennessee that my faith has evolved into something very different than it used to be.
