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  • 8/9/2019 Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy

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    Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy

    A Fundamentalist cartoon portraying Modernism as the descent 

     from Christianity   to  atheism , first published in 1922 and then

    used in Seven Questions in Dispute by William Jennings Bryan.

    The  Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy   was a

    religious controversy in the 1920s and '30s within the

    Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that

    later created divisions in most  Christian denominations

    as well. The major American denomination was torn by

    conflict over the issues of theology and ecclesiology. Un-

    derneath those struggles lay profound concerns about the

    role of Christianity in the culture and how that role was

    to be expressed.[1]

    Ernestine van der Wall, a Professor of the History of

    Christianity at Leiden University in the  Netherlands, in-

    troduces the following origins of the characterization of

    the controversy.

    All in all the new scientific approach to

    the Bible caused men and women to ask them-

    selves whether the Bible was merely a collec-

    tion of myths, legends, and folklore, whether

    there was a kernel of history in it – and if so,

    what that kernel contained. The imagery of

    the ‘kernel’ and the ‘husk’ was immensely pop-

    ular in modernist discourse. Actually it was

    a modern rephrasing of a much older distinc-

    tion in religious history, that between the ‘nec-

    essaria’ and ‘non-necessaria’, the fundamentals

    and non-fundamentals of faith. The ‘funda-mentals’, of course, was the term Christian

    conservatives in the United States made their

    own in the anti-modernist crusade in the early

    twentieth century, and ‘fundamentalist’, a term

    coined in 1920, is merely a label derived from

    this notion.[2]

    1 Overview

    The Controversy is conventionally dated as beginning

    in 1922 with a sermon by a well-recognized and artic-

    ulate spokesman for liberal Protestantism, Harry Emer-

    son Fosdick. Fosdick, a liberal Baptist preaching by spe-

    cial permission in First Presbyterian Church, New York,

    delivered his sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

    highlighting differences between liberal and conservative

    Christians. The ending of the controversy was marked by

    J. Gresham Machen and a number of other conservative

    Presbyterian theologians and clergy leaving the denom-

    ination in 1936 to establish the Orthodox Presbyterian

    Church.[1]

    Although this schism is called the “Fundamentalist–

    Modernist Controversy” in the Presbyterian church, very

    similar and far-reaching reactions against the growth of

    liberal Christianity   have also occurred in other major

    Protestant denominations. At the time of the Contro-

    versy,   Presbyterians   were the fourth-largest Protestant

    group in the  United States. (The  Methodists were the

    largest, followed by the Baptists and the Lutherans; the

    Episcopalians   were in fifth place.) After considerable

    internal tensions, every major Protestant denomination

    came to accommodate liberalism within the denomina-

    tion, to one degree or another. Often, some disgrun-

    tled conservatives left their denomination, some of them

    establishing smaller denominations with fundamentalist-

    conservative foundations. Sensitized by what they sawto be successful liberal infiltration into other denomina-

    tions, in the 1970s Southern Baptist conservatives began

    a concerted effort to rid their institutions and leadership

    of liberal leanings. This resulted in the  Southern Bap-

    tist Convention conservative resurgence and occasioned

    the creation of two new Baptist denominations which ac-

    commodate the modernist theological position. A simi-

    lar event took the form of the Seminex controversy of the

    Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

    This process resulted in the modern division of Protestant

    American religious life into mainline Christianity on the

    one hand and evangelical and  fundamentalist Christian-ity on the other. As such, the Fundamentalist–Modernist

    Controversy in the Presbyterian Church is part of a wider

    1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_Protestanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Church%E2%80%93Missouri_Synodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminexhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Conventionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheranshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterianshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fosdickhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fosdickhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_theologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denominationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

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    2   2 BACKGROUND 

    set of developments in American religious life. How-

    ever, it also contained many aspects that were continua-

    tions of long-term conflicts within American Presbyteri-

    anism. Also, the Controversy in the Presbyterian Church

    received disproportionate attention in the press because

    of the prominent role played in it by William Jennings

    Bryan.

    2 Background

    2.1 The Old-Side–New-Side Split (1741–

    58) and the Old-School–New-School

    Split (1838–69)

    Princeton Theological Seminary , headquarters of the Old School 

    Presbyterians (1879)

    Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York  , headquar-

    ters of the New School Presbyterians (1910)

    American Presbyterianism had gone into  schism   twice

    in the past, and these divisions were important precur-

    sors to the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy. The

    first was The Old Side-New Side Controversy, which oc-

    curred during the First Great Awakening, and resulted inthe Presbyterian Church in 1741 being divided into an

    Old Side and New Side. The two churches reunified in

    1758. The second was the Old School–New School Con-

    troversy, which occurred in the wake of the Second Great

    Awakening and which saw the Presbyterian Church split

    into two denominations starting in 1836-38.

    In 1857, the “new school” Presbyterians divided over

    slavery, with the southern New School Presbyteriansforming the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church.

    In 1861, the Old School Presbyterians split, with the

    Southern Presbyterians taking on the name the Presbyte-

    rian Church of the Confederate States of America (which

    would be renamed the Presbyterian Church in the United

    States in 1865). In 1864, the United Synod merged with

    PCCSA, with the Southern New School Presbyterians ul-

    timately being absorbed into an Old School Denomina-

    tion, and in 1869, the Northern New School Presbyte-

    rians returned to the Presbyterian Church of the United

    States of America.

    Although those Controversies involved many issues, theoverarching issue had to do with the nature of church au-

    thority and the authority of the Westminster Confession

    of Faith. The New Side/New School opposed a rigid in-

    terpretation of the Westminster Confession. Rather they

    preferred an emotional style of religion that made use of

    revival techniques. They were much more likely to or-

    dain as clergy men who had not received a university ed-

    ucation; were more lax in the degree of subscription to

    the Westminster Confession they required; and were gen-

    erally opposed to using heresy trials  as a means to en-

    sure the orthodoxy of the clergy. They accused the Old

    Side/Old School of being dry formalists who fetishized

    the Westminster Confession and Calvinism at the expenseof an emotional encounter with the  Bible   mediated by

    the Holy Spirit. The Old Side/Old School responded that

    the Westminster Confession was the foundational consti-

    tutional document of the Presbyterian Church and that,

    since the Confession was simply a summary of the Bible's

    teachings, the church had a responsibility to ensure that

    its ministers’ preaching was in line with the Confession.

    They accused the New Side/New School of being much

    too lax about the purity of the church, and willing to al-

    low  Arminianism,   unitarianism, and other errors to be

    taught in the Presbyterian Church. They criticized the

    New Side/School’s revivals as being emotionally manip-ulative and shallow. Another major division had to do

    with their attitude towards other denominations: New

    Siders/Schoolers were willing to set up parachurch min-

    istries to conduct evangelism and missions and were will-

    ing to cooperate with non-Presbyterians in doing so. The

    Old Siders/Schoolers felt that evangelism and missions

    should be conducted through agencies managed by the de-

    nomination and not involving outsiders, since this would

    involve a watering down of the church’s theological dis-

    tinctives. The two sides also had different attitudes to-

    wards their seminary professors:  Princeton Theological

    Seminary, the leading institution of the Old School, de-

    manded credal subscription and dedicated a large part ofits academic efforts to the defense of Calvinist Ortho-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professorshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_(Christian)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachurchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_(law)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_heresyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revivalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confession_of_Faithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confession_of_Faithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakeninghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakeninghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School%E2%80%93New_School_Controversyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School%E2%80%93New_School_Controversyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Awakeninghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Side-New_Side_Controversyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism_(religion)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Theological_Seminary_in_the_City_of_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan

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    2.2 The rise of Higher Criticism and the Briggs Affair, 1880–93   3

    doxy (see Princeton theologians); while the New School’s

    Union Theological Seminary  was more willing to allow

    non-Presbyterians to teach at the school and was more

    broadminded in its academic output.

    2.2 The rise of Higher Criticism and theBriggs Affair, 1880–93

    American Presbyterians first became aware of  Higher

    Criticism (a.k.a. the Historical-Critical method) as a de-

    velopment of the German academy. Between 1829 and

    1850, the Princeton Review, the leading Old School the-

    ological journal under the editorship of Charles Hodge

    published 70 articles against higher criticism, and the

    number increased in the years after 1850. However, it

    was not until the years after 1880 that Higher Criticism

    really had any advocates within American seminaries.

    But when Higher Criticism did arrive, it arrived in force.

    Charles Augustus Briggs  (1841-1913), the first major proponent 

    of  higher criticism within the Presbyterian Church in the United 

    States of America and the source of a major controversy within

    the church, 1880-93.

    The first major proponent of Higher Criticism within the

    Presbyterian Church was Charles Briggs, who had stud-

    ied Higher Criticism in Germany (in 1866). His inau-

    gural address upon being made Professor of  Hebrew at

    Union Theological Seminary in 1876 was the first salvoof Higher Criticism within American Presbyterianism.

    Briggs was active in founding  The Presbyterian Review

    in 1880, with A. A. Hodge, president of Princeton The-

    ological Seminary, initially serving as Briggs’ co-editor.

    In 1881, Briggs published an article in defense of   W.

    Robertson Smith which led to a series of responses and

    counter-responses between Briggs and the Princeton the-

    ologians   in the pages of   The Presbyterian Review. In

    1889,  B. B. Warfield  became co-editor and refused topublish one of Briggs’ articles, a key turning point.

    In 1891, Briggs was appointed as Union’s first-ever Pro-

    fessor of Biblical Theology. His inaugural address, en-

    titled “The Authority of Holy Scripture”, proved to be

    highly controversial. Whereas previously, Higher Criti-

    cism had seemed a fairly technical, scholarly issue, Briggs

    now spelt out its full implications. In this address, he

    announced that Higher Criticism had now definitively

    proven that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; that Ezra

    did not write Ezra, Chronicles or Nehemiah; Jeremiah did

    not write the books of Kings or the  Lamentations; David

    only wrote a few of the Psalms; Solomon did not write theSong of Solomon or Ecclesiastes and only a few Proverbs;

    and Isaiah did not write half of the book of Isaiah. The

    Old Testament was merely a historical record, and one

    which showed man in a lower state of moral development,

    with modern man having progressed morally far beyond

    Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, David, and Solomon. At

    any rate, the Scriptures as a whole are riddled with errors

    and the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy taught at Prince-

    ton Theological Seminary “is a ghost of modern evan-

    gelicalism to frighten children.”[3] Not only is the West-

    minster Confession wrong, but the very foundation of the

    Confession, the Bible, could not be used to create theo-logical absolutes. He now called on other rationalists in

    the denomination to join him in sweeping away the dead

    orthodoxy of the past and work for the unity of the entire

    church.

    The inaugural address provoked widespread outrage in

    the denomination, and led Old Schoolers in the denom-

    ination to move against him, with  Francis Landey Pat-

    ton taking the lead. Under the terms of the reunion of

    1869, General Assembly had the right to veto all appoint-

    ments to seminary professorships, so, at the 1891 General

    Assembly, held in   Detroit, Old Schoolers successfully

    got through a motion to veto Briggs’ appointment, whichpassed by a vote of 449-60. The faculty of Union The-

    ological Seminary, however, refused to remove Briggs,

    saying that it would be a violation of scholarly freedom.

    In October 1892, the faculty would vote to withdraw from

    the denomination.

    In the meantime,  New York  Presbytery brought heresy

    charges against Briggs, but these were defeated by a vote

    of 94-39. The committee that had brought the charges

    then appealed to the 1892 General Assembly, held in

    Portland, Oregon. The General Assembly responded

    with its famous “Portland Deliverance”, affirming that

    the Presbyterian Church holds that the Bible is without er-ror and that ministers who believe otherwise should with-

    draw from the ministry. Briggs’ case was remanded to

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_freedomhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_polity#General_assemblyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Landey_Pattonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Landey_Pattonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_(Biblical_figure)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Isaiahhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiahhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Proverbshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiasteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Solomonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalmshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Lamentationshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Kingshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiahhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nehemiahhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Chronicleshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezrahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentateuchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moseshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Theologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._B._Warfieldhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_theologianshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_theologianshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robertson_Smithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robertson_Smithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Alexander_Hodgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hebrewhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Augustus_Briggshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_criticismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Augustus_Briggshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hodgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical-critical_methodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical-critical_methodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Theological_Seminary_in_the_City_of_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_theologians

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    4   2 BACKGROUND 

    New York Presbytery, which conducted a second heresy

    trial for Briggs in late 1892, and in early 1893 again found

    Briggs not guilty of heresy. Again Briggs’ opponents ap-

    pealed to General Assembly, which in 1893 was held in

    Washington, D.C. This time, General Assembly voted

    to overturn the New York decision and declared Briggs

    guilty of heresy. He was de-frocked as a result (thoughonly briefly, since in 1899 the Episcopal bishop of New

    York,   Henry C. Potter, ordained him as an Episcopal

    priest.)

    2.3 The aftermath of the Briggs Affair,

    1893–1900

    There was no subsequent attempt to ferret out followers

    of Higher Criticism in the years following the Portland

    Deliverance and the de-frocking of Briggs. Most follow-

    ers of Higher Criticism were like the 87 clergymen whohad signed the Plea for Peace and Work manifesto drafted

    by Henry van Dyke, which argued that all these heresy

    trials were bad for the church and that the church should

    be less concerned with theories about inerrancy and more

    concerned with getting on with its spiritual work. Indeed,

    it is probably fair to say that most clergymen in the pe-

    riod took this moderate view, being willing to tolerate

    Higher Criticism within the church, either because they

    were open to the points Higher Criticism was making or

    because they wanted to avoid the distraction and dissen-

    sion of heresy trials. For many, this came out of the tradi-

    tional New School resistance to heresy trials and the rigidimposition of the Confession.

    There were two further heresy trials in subsequent years,

    which would be the last major heresy trials in the his-

    tory of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of

    America. In late 1892, Henry Preserved Smith, Profes-

    sor of Old Testament at Lane Theological Seminary, was

    convicted of heresy by the Presbytery of  Cincinnati for

    teaching that there were errors in the Bible, and, upon

    appeal, his conviction was upheld by the General Assem-

    bly of 1894.

    In 1898, Union Theological Seminary Professor of

    Church History Arthur Cushman McGiffert was tried byNew York Presbytery, which condemned certain portions

    of his book A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age,

    but declined to apply sanctions. This decision was ap-

    pealed to General Assembly, but McGiffert quietly re-

    signed from the denomination and the charges were with-

    drawn.

    2.4 The movement to revise the Westmin-

    ster Confession of Faith, 1900–1910

    Henry van Dyke, a modernist who had been a major sup-porter of Briggs in 1893, now headed a movement of

    modernists and New Schoolers to revise the Westmin-

    Henry van Dyke (1852-1933), a modernist who pushed for re-

    visions to the Westminster Confession of Faith , 1900-1910.

    ster Confession of Faith. Since 1889, Van Dyke had

    been calling for credal revision, to affirm that all dying

    infants (not just elect dying infants) go to heaven; to say

    that God loved the whole world (not just the elect); andto affirm that Christ atoned for all mankind, not just the

    elect. In 1901, he chaired a 25-man committee (with a

    New School majority). Also in 1901, he drew up a non-

    binding summary of the church’s faith. It mentioned nei-

    ther biblical inerrancy nor   reprobation; affirmed God’s

    love of all mankind; and denied that the  Pope was the

    Antichrist. This was adopted by General Assembly in

    1902 and ratified by the presbyteries in 1904.

    As a result of these changes, the Arminian-leaning

    Cumberland Presbyterian Church petitioned for reunifi-

    cation, and in 1906, over 1000 Cumberland Presbyterian

    ministers joined the Presbyterian Church in the USA.The arrival of so many liberal ministers strengthened the

    New School’s position in the church.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichristhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprobationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_peoplehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confession_of_Faithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_Dykehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_Dykehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Cushman_McGifferthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Preserved_Smithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_Dykehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_C._Potterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Diocese_of_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Diocese_of_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-frockedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.

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    5

    3 The Doctrinal Deliverance of

    1910 (a.k.a. The Five Fundamen-

    tals)

    In 1909, there was heated debate in the New York Pres-

    bytery about whether or not to ordain three men who re-

    fused to assent to the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus.

    (They did not deny the doctrine outright, just said that

    they were not prepared to affirm it.) The majority even-

    tually ordained the men; the minority complained to the

    General Assembly and it was this complaint that would

    form the basis of the subsequent controversy.

    Under the order of the Presbyterian Church in the USA,

    General Assembly was not authorized to accept or dis-

    miss this complaint. It should have demitted the com-

    plaint to the presbytery, and could have done so with in-

    structions that the presbytery hold a heresy trial. The

    result of this trial could then be appealed to the Synod

    of New York and from there to the General Assembly.

    However, the 1910 General Assembly, acting outside its

    scope of authority, dismissed the complaint against the

    three men and at the same time instructed its Committee

    on Bills and Overtures to prepare a statement for govern-

    ing future ordinations. The committee reported, and the

    General Assembly passed the Doctrinal Deliverance of

    1910. This Deliverance declared that five doctrines were

    “necessary and essential” to the Christian faith:

    •   The  inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit  and

    the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.

    •   The virgin birth of Christ.

    •  The belief that Christ’s death was an atonement for

    sin.

    •  The bodily resurrection of Christ.

    •  The historical reality of Christ’s miracles.

    These five propositions would become known to history

    as the “Five Fundamentals” and by the late 1910s, theo-

    logical conservatives rallying around the Five Fundamen-

    tals came to be known as “fundamentalists.”

    4   The Fundamentals  and “Back to

    Fundamentals”

    In 1910, a wealthy Presbyterian layman,   Lyman Stew-

    art, the founder of   Union Oil   and a proponent of

    dispensationalism   as taught in the newly published

    Scofield Reference Bible, decided to use his wealth to

    sponsor a series of pamphlets to be entitled The Funda-

    mentals: A Testimony to the Truth. These twelve pam-

    phlets, published between 1910 and 1915 eventually in-cluded 90 essays written by 64 authors from several de-

    nominations. The series was conservative and critical

    Lyman Stewart   (1840–1923), Presbyterian layman and co-

     founder of  Union Oil  , who funded the publication of  The Fun-

    damentals: A Testimony to the Truth  (1910–15).

    of  Higher Criticism, but also broad in its approach, and

    the scholars who contributed articles included several

    Presbyterian moderates who would later be opposed to

    “fundamentalism”, such as Charles R. Erdman, Sr.   and

    Robert Elliott Speer. It was apparently from the title

    of these pamphlets that the term “fundamentalist” was

    coined, with our first reference to the term being an arti-

    cle by Northern Baptist editor Curtis Lee Laws.In 1915, the conservative magazine The Presbyterian pub-

    lished a conservative manifesto that had been in circula-

    tion within the denomination entitled “Back to Funda-

    mentals”. Liberal Presbyterian magazines replied that if

    conservatives wanted a fight, they should bring heresy

    charges in the church’s courts or else keep quiet. No

    charges were brought.

    It is worth pointing out that the only people who ac-

    tually embraced the name “fundamentalist” during the

    1910s were committed  dispensationalists, who elevated

    the  premillennial return of Christ to the status of a fun-

    damental of the Christian faith. None of the “fundamen-talist” leaders (i.e. Machen, Van Til, Macartney) in the

    Presbyterian Church were dispensationalists.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premillennialhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Baptisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Elliott_Speerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Erdman,_Sr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Criticismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentalshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentalshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Oilhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Stewarthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentalshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentalshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofield_Reference_Biblehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Oilhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Stewarthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Stewarthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_attributed_to_Jesushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Christhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inerrancyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspirationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesus

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    6   6 “SHALL THE FUNDAMENTALISTS WIN?" (1922)

    5 Ecumenism, 1908–21

    Several leading Presbyterians, notably Robert E. Speer,

    played a role in founding the Federal Council of Churches

    in 1908. This organization (which received 5% of its

    first year’s budget from  John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) washeavily associated with the Social Gospel, and with the

    Progressive movement more broadly. The Council’s So-

    cial Creed of the Churches was adopted by the Presby-

    terian Church in 1910, but conservatives in General As-

    sembly were able to resist endorsing most of the Council’s

    specific proposals, except for those calling for Prohibition

    and sabbath laws.

    In response to   World War I, the FCC established the

    General War-Time Commission to coordinate the work

    of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish programs related to

    the war and work closely with the  Department of War.

    It was chaired by Speer and liberal Union TheologicalSeminary professor William Adams Brown. Following

    the war, they worked hard to build on this legacy of

    unity. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions con-

    sequently called for a meeting of Protestant leaders on the

    topic and in early 1919 the Interchurch World Movement

    (IWM) was established with John Mott as its chairman.

    The Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Church

    offered millions of dollars worth of support to help the

    IWM with fundraising. When the IWM collapsed finan-

    cially, the denomination was on the hook for millions of

    dollars.

    J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), founder of the Orthodox Pres-

    byterian Church and the Westminster Theological Seminary.

    However the debate between modernists and conserva-

    tives over the issue of the IWM was small compared to

    the Church Union debate. In 1919, the General Assem-

    bly sent a delegation to a national ecumenical convention

    that was proposing church union, and in 1920, General

    Assembly approved a recommendation which included

    “organic union” with 17 other denominations - the neworganization, to be known as the United Churches of

    Christ in America, would be a sort of “federal govern-

    ment” for member churches: denominations would main-

    tain their distinctive internal identities, but the broader

    organization would be in charge of things like missions

    and lobbying for things like prohibition. Under the terms

    of presbyterian polity, the measure would have to be ap-

    proved by the presbyteries to take effect.

    The plans for Church Union were roundly denounced

    by the Old School Princeton Theological Seminary fac-

    ulty. It was at this point in 1920 that Princeton professor

    J. Gresham Machen  first gained prominence within thedenomination as a   fundamentalist   opponent of Church

    Union, which he argued would destroy Presbyterian dis-

    tinctives, and effectively cede control of the denomina-

    tion to modernists and their New School allies. However,

    chinks were starting to show in the Princeton faculty’s ar-

    mor. Charles Erdman and the president of the seminary,

    William Robinson, came out in favor of the union.

    Ultimately, the presbyteries defeated church union by a

    vote of 150-100 in 1921.

    6 “Shall the Fundamentalists

    Win?" (1922)

    The splits between fundamentalists and modernists had

    been bubbling in the Presbyterian Church for some time.

    The event which was to bring the issue to a head was

    Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermon of May 21, 1922,

    "“Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”" Fosdick was or-

    dained as a Baptist, but had been given special permission

    to preach in First Presbyterian Church in New York City.

    In this sermon, Fosdick presented the liberals in both

    the Presbyterian and Baptist denominations as sincere

    evangelical Christians who were struggling to reconcile

    new discoveries in history, science, and religion with the

    Christian faith. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, were

    cast as intolerant conservatives who refused to deal with

    these new discoveries and had arbitrarily drawn the line as

    to what was off limits in religious discussion. Many peo-

    ple, Fosdick argued, simply found it impossible to accept

    the virgin birth of Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary

    atonement, or the literal second coming of Christ in the

    light of modern science. Given the different points of

    view within the church, only tolerance and liberty couldallow for these different perspectives to co-exist in the

    church.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitutionary_atonementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitutionary_atonementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Cityhttp://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fosdickhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_polityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Motthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Erahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller,_Jr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_of_Churches

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    7.1 Background: Darwinism and Christianity   7

    A 1926 photograph of   Harry Emerson Fosdick   (1878-1969),

    whose 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" sparked 

    the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.

    Fosdick’s sermon was re-packaged as “The New Knowl-

    edge and the Christian Faith” and quickly published inthree religious journals, and then distributed as a pam-

    phlet to every Protestant clergyman in the country.

    Conservative   Clarence E. Macartney, pastor of   Arch

    Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, responded to

    Fosdick with a sermon of his own, entitled “Shall Unbe-

    lief Win?" which was quickly published in a pamphlet.

    He argued that liberalism had been progressively “secu-

    larizing” the church and, if left unchecked, would lead to

    “a Christianity of opinions and principles and good pur-

    poses, but a Christianity without worship, without God,

    and without Jesus Christ.”

    Led by Macartney, the Presbytery of Philadelphia re-quested that the General Assembly direct the Presbytery

    of New York to take such actions as to ensure that the

    teaching and preaching in the First Presbyterian Church

    of New York City conform to the Westminster Confes-

    sion of Faith. This request would lead to over a decade of

    bitter wrangling in the Presbyterian Church.

    Throughout the proceedings, Fosdick’s defense was led

    by lay elder John Foster Dulles.

    7 William Jennings Bryan and the

    General Assembly of 1923

    7.1 Background: Darwinism and Chris-

    tianity

    A giant of Old School Presbyterianism at Princeton,

    Charles Hodge, was one of the few Presbyterian con-

    troversialists to turn their guns on  Darwinism   prior to

    World War I. Hodge published his  What is Darwinism? 

    in 1874, three years after The Descent of Man  was pub-

    lished, and argued that if  Charles Darwin's theory ex-

    cluded the design argument, it was effectively atheism and

    could not be reconciled with biblical Christianity.

    Asa Gray  responded that Christianity was compatible

    with Darwin’s science. Both he and many other Chris-

    tians accepted various forms of  theistic evolution, and

    Darwin had not excluded the work of the Creator as a

    primary cause.[4]

    Most churchmen, however, took a far more prosaic at-

    titude. In the early period, it must have appeared farfrom clear that Darwin’s theory of natural selection would

    come to be hegemonic among scientists, as refutations

    and alternate systems were still being proposed and de-

    bated. Then, when evolution became widely accepted,

    most churchmen were far less concerned with refuting it

    than they were with establishing schemes whereby Dar-

    winism could be reconciled with Christianity. This was

    true even among prominent Old Schoolers at Princeton

    Theological Seminary such as Charles Hodge’s succes-

    sors A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield who came to endorse

    the ideas now described as theistic evolution.

    7.1.1 William Jennings Bryan

    William Jennings Bryan, a former lawyer who had been

    brought up in the in Arminian   Cumberland Presbyte-

    rian Church  (which would merge with the PC-USA in

    1906) and who was also a Presbyterian ruling elder, was

    elected to Congress in 1890, then became theDemocratic

    presidential candidate for three unsuccessful presidential

    bids in  1896,   1900, and  1908. After his 1900 defeat,

    Bryan re-examined his life and concluded that he had let

    his passion for politics obscure his calling as a Christian.

    Beginning in 1900, he began lecturing on the Chautauquacircuit, where his speeches often involved religious as

    well as political themes. For the next 25 years until his

    death, Bryan was one of the most popular Chautauqua

    lecturers and he spoke in front of hundreds of thousands

    of people.

    By 1905, Bryan had concluded that Darwinism and the

    modernism of Higher Criticism were allies in promoting

    liberalism within the church, thereby in his view under-

    mining the foundations of Christianity. In lectures from

    1905, Bryan spoke out against the spread of Darwinism,

    which he characterized as involving “the operation of the

    law of hate - the merciless law by which the strong crowdout and kill off the weak”, and warned that it could un-

    dermine the foundations of morality. In 1913 he became

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauquahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1908https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1900https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1896https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_polity#Elderhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._B._Warfieldhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Hodgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolutionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Grayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argumenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Manhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hodgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulleshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Street_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Street_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_E._Macartneyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fosdick

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    8   7 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN AND THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1923

    William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), 1907.

    Woodrow Wilson's  secretary of state, then resigned in1915 because he believed that the Woodrow administra-

    tion was about to enter World War I  in response to the

    sinking of the RMS Lusitania  and he opposed American

    intervention in a European war.

    When the US did finally join World War I in 1917, Bryan

    volunteered for the army, though he was never allowed

    to enlist. At a time of widespread revulsion at alleged

    German atrocities, Bryan linked evolution to Germany,[5]

    and claimed that Darwinism provided a justification for

    the strong to dominate the weak and was therefore the

    source of German  militarism.[6] He drew on reports by

    the entomologist Vernon Kellogg of German officers dis-cussing the Darwinian rationale for their declaration of

    war,[7] and the sociologist Benjamin Kidd's book The Sci-

    ence of Power  which contended that Nietzsche’s philos-

    ophy   represented an interpretation of Darwinism,[6] to

    conclude that   Nietzsche's and Darwin’s ideas were the

    impetus for German  nationalism and militarism. Bryan

    argued that Germany’s militarism and “barbarism” came

    from their belief that the “struggle for survival” described

    in Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species  applied to nations

    as well as to individuals,[6] and that “The same science

    that manufactured poisonous gases to suffocate soldiers

    is preaching that man has a brute ancestry and eliminatingthe miraculous and the supernatural from the Bible.”[7]

    Bryan was, in essence, fighting what would later be called

    social Darwinism,[8] social and economic ideas owing as

    much to Herbert Spencer and Thomas Malthus as to Dar-

    win, and viewed by modern biologists as a misuse of

    his theory.[9] Germany, or so Bryan’s argument ran, had

    replaced Christ’s teachings with Nietzsche’s philosophy

    based on ideas of   survival of the fittest, and the impli-

    cation was that America would suffer the same fate ifunchecked.[5] This fear was reinforced by the report of

    the psychologist James H. Leuba's 1916 study indicating

    that a considerable number of college students lost their

    faith during the four years they spent in college.

    Bryan launched his campaign against Darwinism in 1921

    when he was invited to give the James Sprunt Lectures

    at Virginia’s   Union Theological Seminary. At the end

    of one,  The Menace of Darwinism, he said that “Dar-

    winism is not a science at all; it is a string of guesses

    strung together” and that there is more science in the

    Bible’s “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living

    creature....”[10] than in all of Darwin.[11] These lectureswere published and became a national bestseller.

    Now that Bryan had linked Darwinism and Higher Crit-

    icism as the twin evils facing the Presbyterian Church,

    Harry Emerson Fosdick responded by defending Darwin-

    ism, as well as Higher Criticism, from Bryan’s attack. In

    the early 1920s, Bryan and Fosdick squared off against

    each other in a series of articles and replies in the pages

    of the New York Times .

    7.2 The General Assembly of 1923

    In these circumstances, when General Assembly met in

    1923 in   Indianapolis, Bryan was determined to strike

    against Darwinism and against Fosdick, so he organized

    a campaign to have himself elected as Moderator of the

    General Assembly. He lost the election by a vote of 451-

    427 to the Rev.   Charles F. Wishart, president of the

    College of Wooster, a strong proponent of allowing evo-

    lution to be taught at Presbyterian-run colleges and uni-

    versities.

    Undaunted, Bryan took to opposing Darwinism on the

    floor of the   General Assembly, the first time General

    Assembly had debated the matter. He proposed a res-olution that the denomination should cease payments to

    any school, college, or university where Darwinism was

    taught. Opponents argued that there were plenty of

    Christians in the church who believed in evolution. Ul-

    timately, Bryan could not convince even Machen to back

    his position, and the Assembly simply approved a reso-

    lution condemning materialistic (as opposed to theistic)

    evolutionary philosophy.

    The major question dealt with at the General Assembly

    of 1923 was not, however, Darwinism. It was the ques-

    tion of what to do about Harry Emerson Fosdick and his

    provocative sermon of the previous year. The Committeeon Bills and Overtures recommended that the assembly

    declare its continuing commitment to the Westminster

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Assembly_(presbyterian_church)#General_assemblyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Woosterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Wisharthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderator_of_the_General_Assemblyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderator_of_the_General_Assemblyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Timeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Presbyterian_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Leubahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittesthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Specieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzschehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzschehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzschehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kiddhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Lyman_Kellogghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomologisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitaniahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_Statehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilsonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan

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    9

    Confession, but leave the matter to New York Presbytery,

    which was investigating. The Committee’s minority re-

    port recommended a declaration re-affirming the denom-

    ination’s commitment to the Five Fundamentals of 1910

    and to require New York Presbytery to force First Presby-

    terian Church to conform to the Westminster Confession.

    A fiery debate ensued, with Bryan initially seeking a com-promise to drop the prosecution of Fosdick in exchange

    for a reaffirmation of the Five Fundamentals. When this

    proved impossible, he lobbied intensely for the minority

    report, and was successful in having the minority report

    adopted by a vote of 439-359.

    Even before the end of General Assembly, this deci-

    sion was controversial. 85 commissioners filed an official

    protest, arguing that the Fosdick case was not properly

    before the General Assembly, and that, as the General

    Assembly was a court, not a legislative body, the Five

    Fundamentals could not be imposed upon church offi-

    cers without violating the constitution of the church. Atthe same time, Henry Sloane Coffin of Madison Avenue

    Presbyterian Church in New York City issued a statement

    saying that he did not accept the Five Fundamentals and

    that if Fosdick were removed from his pulpit, they would

    need to get rid of him too.

    8 The Auburn Affirmation (1923–

    24)

    Main article: Auburn Affirmation

    Even before the General Assembly of 1923, Robert Hast-

    ings Nichols, a history professor at Auburn Theological

    Seminary  was circulating a paper in which he argued

    that the Old School-New School reunion of 1870 and

    the merger with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of

    1906 had created a church specifically designed to ac-

    commodate doctrinal diversity.

    Two weeks after the General Assembly of 1923, 36 cler-

    gymen met in Syracuse, New York, and, using Nichols’

    paper as a base, ultimately issued a declaration known tohistory as the Auburn Affirmation.

    The Auburn Affirmation opened by affirming the West-

    minster Confession of Faith, but argued that within

    American Presbyterianism, there had been a long tradi-

    tion of freedom of interpretation of the Scriptures and

    the Confession. General Assembly’s issuance of the Five

    Fundamentals not only eroded this tradition, but it flew in

    the face of the Presbyterian Church’s constitution, which

    required all doctrinal changes be approved by the pres-

    byteries. While some members of the church could re-

    gard the Five Fundamentals as a satisfactory explanation

    of Scriptures and the Confession, there were others whocould not, and therefore, the Presbyteries should be free

    to hold to whatever theories they saw fit in interpreting

    Scripture and the Confession.

    The Auburn Affirmation was circulated beginning in

    November 1923 and ultimately signed by 174 clergymen.

    In January 1924, it was released to the press, along with

    the names of 150 signatories.

    9 The General Assembly of 1924

    9.1 Conservative activities prior to the

    1924 General Assembly

    The most significant conservative preparation for the

    General Assembly of 1924 actually occurred slightly be-

    fore the 1923 General Assembly. This was the publi-

    cation of J. Gresham Machen’s   Christianity and Liber-

    alism. In this book, Machen argued that liberalism, far

    from being a set of teachings that could be accommo-

    dated within the church, was in fact antithetical to the

    principles of Christianity and was currently engaged in a

    struggle against historic Christianity.

    9.2 Liberal activities prior to the 1924

    General Assembly

    New York Presbytery, which had been ordered by Gen-

    eral Assembly to deal with Fosdick, adopted a report that

    essentially exonerated Fosdick of any wrongdoing.

    In June 1923, New York Presbytery ordained two men

    — Henry P. Van Dusen and Cedric O. Lehman — who

    refused to affirm the virgin birth.

    On December 31, 1923, Henry van Dyke publicly relin-

    quished his pew at First Presbyterian Church, Princeton

    as a protest against Machen’s fundamentalist preaching.

    Van Dyke would ultimately return to his pew in Decem-

    ber 1924 when Charles Erdman replaced Machen in the

    pulpit.

    In May 1924, the Auburn Affirmation was republished,

    along with supplementary materials, and now listing

    1,274 signatories.

    9.3 Convening the Assembly

    General Assembly met in   Grand Rapids, Michigan   in

    May 1924. During the campaign for moderator, William

    Jennings Bryan threw his weight behind Clarence E.

    Macartney (the Philadelphia minister who was instru-

    mental in bringing charges against Fosdick), who nar-

    rowly beat out moderate Princeton Theological Seminary

    faculty member Charles Erdman by a vote of 464-446.

    Macartney named Bryan his vice-moderator.No action was taken at this General Assembly about the

    Auburn Affirmation. The ordination of Van Dusen and

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Rapids,_Michiganhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Affirmationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syracuse,_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Affirmationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sloane_Coffin

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    10   11 THE SCOPES TRIAL (1925)

    Lehman was referred to the Synod of New York for “ap-

    propriate action.”

    On the question of Harry Fosdick, moderates in 1924

    steered debate away from his theology and towards mat-

    ter of polity. As Fosdick was a Baptist, General Assembly

    instructed First Presbyterian Church, New York to inviteFosdick to join the Presbyterian Church, and if he would

    not, to get rid of him. Fosdick refused to join the Pres-

    byterian Church and ultimately resigned from his post at

    First Presbyterian Church in October.

    10 The General Assembly of 1925

    Henry Sloane Coffin (1877-1954) on the cover of  Time  maga-

     zine.

    At the 1925 General Assembly, held in Columbus, Ohio,

    the denomination seemed determined to put the Fosdick

    controversy behind them. Charles R. Erdman was elected

    as moderator, which was widely seen as a blow against the

    fundamentalists. Erdman, a professor at Princeton The-

    ological Seminary, had been engaged in a series of de-

    bates with J. Gresham Machen and Clarence Macartney

    throughout the year, and in spring 1925, he was ousted as

    Princeton Seminary’s student advisor for being insuffi-

    ciently enthusiastic about the League of Evangelical Stu-

    dents, set up as a counterweight to more liberal inter-

    varsity organizations. Erdman was himself theologically

    conservative, but was more concerned with pursuing “pu-

    rity and peace and progress” (his slogan during the elec-tion for moderator) than he was with combatting liberal-

    ism. Machen felt that men like Erdman would ultimately

    be responsible for agnostic Modernism triumphing in the

    Presbyterian Church.

    It seemed to many observers that the licensing of Van

    Dusen and Lehman was likely to cause a split in the

    church. General Assembly required all candidates to the

    ministry to affirm the virgin birth and returned the mat-ter to New York Presbytery for proper proceedings. In

    response, the New York commissioners, led by Henry

    Sloane Coffin protested that General Assembly had no

    right to change or add to the conditions for entrance to the

    ministry beyond those affirmed in the reunions of 1870

    and 1906. Coffin and the liberals were prepared to walk

    out of the Assembly and take their churches out of the

    denomination rather than submit to the further “Bryaniz-

    ing of the Presbyterian Church.” A special commission

    of fifteen was appointed to study the constitutional is-

    sues involved. Erdman was able to convince Coffin not to

    leave the denomination, arguing that, as his interpretation

    of the constitution was the correct one, he would prevailwhen the Special Commission issued its report.

    11 The Scopes Trial (1925)

    Main article: Scopes Trial

    At the same time he had been campaigning against Dar-

    winism (largely unsuccessfully) within the Presbyterian

    Church, William Jennings Bryan had also been encourag-

    ing state law makers to pass laws banning the teaching ofevolution in public schools. Several states had responded

    to Bryan’s call, including Tennessee, which passed such

    a law in March 1925. (Given the present-day contours of

    the evolution-creation debate, it is interesting to note that

    in many states in 1925, evolution continued to be taught

    in church-run institutions at the same time that its teach-

    ing was banned in state-run public schools.)

    The  ACLU  was seeking a test case to challenge these

    anti-evolutionary laws. This led to the famous trial of

    John Scopes for teaching evolution in a public school in

    Dayton, Tennessee. The ACLU sent in renowned lawyer

    John Randolph Neal, Jr.  to defend Scopes.

    Baptist pastor   William Bell Riley, founder and presi-

    dent of the World Christian Fundamentals Association,

    persuaded William Jennings Bryan to act as its counsel.

    Bryan invited his major allies in the Presbyterian Gen-

    eral Assembly to attend the trial with him, but J. Gresham

    Machen refused to testify, saying he had not studied bi-

    ology in enough detail to testify at trial, while Clarence

    Macartney had a previous engagement.

    In response to the announcement that Bryan would

    be attending the trial, renowned lawyer and commit-

    ted   agnostic Clarence Darrow   volunteered to serve onScopes’ defense team.

    The stage was thus set for a trial which would prove to

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Darrowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Christian_Fundamentals_Associationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bell_Rileyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Randolph_Neal,_Jr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawyerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,_Tennesseehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trialhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trialhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACLUhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_controversyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Acthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Acthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennesseehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trialhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Ohiohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sloane_Coffin

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    11

    Clarence Darrow   (1857-1938) and   William Jennings Bryan

    (1860-1925) chat in court during the Scopes trial .

    be a media circus, with reporters from across the countrydescending on the small town of 1,900 people.

    Although the prosecution of Scopes was successful, the

    trial is widely seen as a crucial moment in discrediting the

    fundamentalist movement in America, particularly after

    Darrow called Bryan to the stand and he appeared little

    able to defend his view of the Bible.

    Among the media, Bryan’s loudest and ultimately most

    influential critic was H. L. Mencken, who reported on the

    trial in his columns and denounced fundamentalism as ir-

    rational, backwards and intolerant.

    As noted earlier, opposition to Darwinism was alwaysmuch more important to Bryan than it was to other con-

    servative Presbyterian Church leaders. Thus, following

    Bryan’s death in 1925, the debate about evolution, while

    it remained an issue within church politics, never again

    assumed the prominence to the debate that it had while

    Bryan was alive. (Probably the reason why the issue

    of evolution has obtained such an iconic status within

    the popular consciousness about the Fundamentalist–

    Modernist Controversy is that it represented the one point

    where internal church politics intersected with govern-

    ment, specifically public school, policy.)

    12 The Special Commission of

    1925 and the General Assembly

    of 1926

    The Special Committee appointed at the General Assem-

    bly of 1925 consisted mainly of moderates. The com-

    mittee solicited testimony from both sides, and received

    statements from Machen, Macartney, and Coffin.

    At the 1926 General Assembly, another moderate, W.O.Thompson, was elected as moderator.

    The Special Committee delivered its report on May 28. It

    argued that there were five major causes of unrest in the

    Presbyterian Church: 1) general intellectual movements,

    including “the so-called conflict between science and re-

    ligion”, naturalistic worldviews, different understandings

    of the nature of God, and changes in language; 2) histori-

    cal differences going back to the Old School-New School

    split; 3) disagreements about church polity, particularlythe role of General Assembly, and lack of representation

    of women in the church; 4) theological changes; and 5)

    misunderstanding. The report went on to conclude that

    the Presbyterian system had traditionally allowed a di-

    versity of views when the core of truth was identical; and

    that the church flourished when it focused on its unity of

    spirit. Toleration of doctrinal diversity, including in how

    to interpret the Westminster Confession, was to be en-

    couraged. In short, the report essentially affirmed the

    views of the Auburn Affirmation. The committee af-

    firmed that General Assembly could not amend the West-

    minster Confession without the permission of the pres-byteries, though it could issue judicial rulings consistent

    with the Confession that were binding on the presbyteries.

    The Five Fundamentals, though, had no binding author-

    ity.

    In spite of Clarence Macartney’s opposition on the

    floor of General Assembly, the committee’s report was

    adopted.

    13 The Battle for Princeton Theo-

    logical Seminary, 1926–29

    Following the reunion of the Old School and New School

    in 1870, Princeton Theological Seminary remained the

    bulwark of Old School thought within the Presbyte-

    rian Church. Indeed, by 1920, it was arguably the

    only remaining Old School institution in the Presbyterian

    Church.

    The majority of the faculty in 1920 remained con-

    vinced Old Schoolers, including J. Gresham Machen and

    Geerhardus Vos. However, to combat a perceived lack

    of training in practical divinity, a number of more mod-

    erate New Schoolers were brought in, including CharlesErdman and J. Ross Stevenson, who by 1920 was the

    president of the seminary. As we saw above, the ten-

    sion between Old Schoolers and moderates revealed it-

    self in debates about the proposed Church Union of

    1920; Machen’s anti-liberal preaching which resulted in

    the public fall-out with Harry van Dyke; the controversy

    about Erdman’s approach to the League of Evangelical

    Students; and splits about how to deal with the splits in

    the wider church.

    By 1925, the Old School’s majority on the faculty was

    threatened, but the selection of Clarence Macartney to re-

    place outgoing Professor of Apologetics William Greeneseemed to solidify the Old School majority on the faculty.

    However, when Macartney turned the job down, Machen

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologeticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_theologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geerhardus_Voshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Menckenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_circushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trialhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Darrow

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    12   14 FOREIGN MISSIONS 1930–36 

    was offered the job.

    Before he could accept or refuse, however, General As-

    sembly intervened, and in the 1926 General Assembly,

    moderates succeeded in securing a committee to study

    how to reconcile the two parties at Princeton. (The sem-

    inary was governed by a board of directors subject to thesupervision of General Assembly.) (On a sidenote, some

    members of the General Assembly seem to have been

    wary of Machen because of his opposition to Prohibi-

    tion.)

    The committee reported back at the General Assembly of

    1927, where the moderate Robert E. Speer was elected as

    moderator. Their report concluded that the source of the

    difficulties at Princeton was that some of the Princeton

    faculty (i.e. Machen) were trying to keep Princeton in

    the service of a certain party in the church rather than

    doing what was in the best interest of the denomination

    as a whole. They recommended re-organization of theseminary. General Assembly renewed the committee’s

    mandate and ordered them to study how to re-organize

    the seminary.

    This led Machen to declare that the 1927 General Assem-

    bly was “probably the most disastrous meeting, from the

    point of view of evangelical Christianity, that has been

    held in the whole history of our Church.” Machen com-

    posed and had circulated in the denomination a docu-

    ment entitled “The Attack Upon Princeton Seminary: A

    Plea for Fair Play.” He argued that Princeton was the

    only seminary continuing to defend orthodoxy among

    the older theological institutions in the English-speaking

    world. The loss of the seminary would be a major blow

    for orthodoxy. The moderates and liberals already had

    control of pretty much every seminary in the denomina-

    tion: why couldn't the conservatives be left with one?

    The committee reported to the 1928 General Assembly,

    held in   Tulsa, Oklahoma, recommending re-organizing

    the seminary to give more powers to the president of

    the seminary and to replace the two ruling boards with

    one unified board. In response, Clarence Macartney re-

    sponded that his party were prepared to take legal action

    to stop this from happening. Wary, General Assembly

    simply appointed a committee to continue studying the

    matter.

    This committee reported to the 1929 General Assembly.

    Machen gave a fiery speech on the floor of General As-

    sembly, but he could not prevent General Assembly from

    voting to re-organize the seminary.

    Rather than contesting this decision in the courts as had

    been threatened, Machen now decided to set up a new

    seminary to be a bastion of conservative thought. This

    institution would become Westminster Theological Sem-

    inary (named to stress its fidelity to the Westminster Con-

    fession of Faith) and several conservatives on the Prince-

    ton faculty, including Machen, Cornelius Van Til, RobertDick Wilson, and Oswald Thompson Allis, would leave

    Princeton to teach at Westminster. Clarence Macart-

    ney initially opposed setting up Westminster, arguing

    that conservatives should stay at Princeton where they

    could continue to provide an orthodox voice. Machen

    responded that Princeton was in a state of  apostasy and

    that he couldn't serve alongside apostates. Macartney was

    eventually won over to Machen’s side.

    14 Foreign missions 1930–36

    John D. Rockefeller, Jr.  (1874-1960).

    In 1930, as a result of widespread second thoughts about

    missions in general,[12] a group of   Baptist   laymen at

    the request of  John D. Rockefeller, Jr.   concluded that

    it was time for a serious re-evaluation of the effec-

    tiveness of foreign missions. With Rockefeller’s finan-

    cial backing, they convinced seven major denomina-

    tions - the   Methodist Episcopal Church, the  Northern

    Baptist Convention, the Reformed Church in America,

    the  Congregational church, the Episcopal Church in the

    United States of America, the Presbyterian Church in the

    United States of America   and the  United Presbyterian

    Church of North America - to participate in their “Lay-

    men’s Foreign Missions Inquiry”. They commissioned a

    study of missionaries in India, Burma, China, and Japan

    and launched a separate inquiry under the chairmanship

    of the philosopher and Harvard professor William Ernest

    Hocking. These two inquiries led to the publication of aone-volume summary of the findings of the Laymen’s In-

    quiry entitled Re-Thinking Missions: A Laymen’s Inquiry

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Thinking_Missions:_A_Laymen%2527s_Inquiry_after_One_Hundred_Yearshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Hockinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Hockinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvardhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_of_North_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_of_North_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregational_Christian_Churcheshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Church_in_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Baptist_Conventionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Baptist_Conventionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist_Episcopal_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller,_Jr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller,_Jr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Thompson_Allishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dick_Wilsonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dick_Wilsonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Tilhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Theological_Seminaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa,_Oklahoma

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    14.1 Creation of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions    13

    after One Hundred Years  in 1932.[13]

    Re-Thinking Missions  argued that in the face of emerging

    secularism, Christians should ally with other world reli-

    gions, rather than struggle against them.

    The seven denominations who had agreed to participate

    in the Laymen’s Inquiry now distanced themselves fromthe report. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions

    issued a statement reaffirming the board’s commitment to

    the evangelistic basis of the missionary enterprise and to

    Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior.

    Pearl S. Buck  (1892-1973).

    Pearl S. Buck now weighed into the debate. In a review

    published in   The Christian Century, she praised the re-

    port, saying it should be read by every Christian in Amer-

    ica and, ironically mimicking the biblical literalism of the

    fundamentalists, “I think this is the only book I have ever

    read that seems to me literally true in its every observation

    and right in its every conclusion.”[13] Then, in a November

    1932 speech before a large audience at the Astor Hotel,

    later published in Harper’s ,[14] Buck decried gauging the

    success of missions by the numbers of new church mem-

    bers. Instead she advocated humanitarian efforts to im-

    prove the agricultural, educational, medical, and sanitary

    conditions of the community.[15] She described the typ-

    ical missionary as “narrow, uncharitable, unappreciative,

    ignorant.” In the   Harpers  article along with another in

    Cosmopolitan published in May 1933, Buck rejected the

    doctrine of original sin, saying “I believe that most of us

    start out wanting to do right and to be good.” She assertedthat belief in the virgin birth or the divinity of Christ was

    not a prerequisite to being a Christian. She said that the

    only need is to acknowledge that one can't live without

    Christ and to reflect that in one’s life.[14][15][16][17]

    Macartney quickly called on the Board of Foreign Mis-

    sions, under the presidency of Charles Erdman, to de-

    nounce Re-Thinking Missions and asked for their response

    to Buck’s statements. Erdman responded that the Boardwas committed to historic evangelical standards and that

    they felt that Pearl S. Buck’s comments were unfortunate,

    but he hoped she might yet be won back to the mission-

    ary cause. She would eventually resign as a Presbyterian

    missionary in May.

    J. Gresham Machen now published a book arguing that

    the Board of Foreign Missions was insufficiently evan-

    gelical and particularly that its secretary, Robert E.

    Speer, had refused to require missionaries to subscribe to

    the Five Fundamentals. In New Brunswick Presbytery,

    Machen proposed an overture to General Assembly call-

    ing on it to ensure that in future, only solidly evangelicalChristians be appointed to the Board of Foreign Missions.

    Machen and Speer faced off in the Presbytery, with Speer

    arguing that conflict and division were bad for the church

    — the presbytery agreed and refused to make the recom-

    mendation.

    Clarence Macartney, however, was able to get a similar

    motion through the Presbytery of Philadelphia, so the is-

    sue came before the General Assembly of 1933. The ma-

    jority report of the Standing Committee of Foreign Mis-

    sions affirmed the church’s adherence to the Westminster

    Confession; expressed its confidence that Speer and the

    Board shared this conviction; and repudiated Re-Thinking

    Missions . The minority report argued that the Board was

    not orthodox and proposed a slate of conservatives can-

    didates for the Board. The majority report passed over-

    whelming.

    14.1 Creation of the Independent Board

    for Presbyterian Foreign Missions

    Disapproving of General Assembly’s decision not to ap-

    point a new slate of conservatives to the Board of For-

    eign Missions, J. Gresham Machen, along with H. McAl-

    lister Griffiths, announced that they were forming anIndependent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions to

    truly promote biblical and Presbyterian work. Macartney

    refused to go along with Machen in setting up an inde-

    pendent missions board.

    The 1934 General Assembly declared that the Indepen-

    dent Board violated the Presbyterian constitution and

    ordered the Board to cease collecting funds within the

    church and ordered all Presbyterian clergy and laity

    to sever their connections with the Board or face dis-

    ciplinary action. (This motion was opposed by both

    Macartney and   Henry Sloane Coffin   as overly harsh.)

    Less than a month later, New Brunswick Presbyteryasked Machen for his response. He replied that Gen-

    eral Assembly’s actions were illegal and that he would not

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sloane_Coffinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Board_for_Presbyterian_Foreign_Missionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._McAllister_Griffithshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._McAllister_Griffithshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confessionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confessionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarnation_(Christianity)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_(magazine)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper%2527shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Astor_(New_York)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Centuryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buckhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buckhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Presbyterian_Missionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Thinking_Missions:_A_Laymen%2527s_Inquiry_after_One_Hundred_Years

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    14   17 FOOTNOTES 

    shut down the Independent Board. The presbytery conse-

    quently brought charges against Machen including viola-

    tion of his ordination vows and renouncing the authority

    of the church. A trial was held, and in March 1935, he

    was convicted and suspended from the ministry.

    Macartney urged Machen to compromise, but he refused.In June 1935, he set up the Presbyterian Constitutional

    Covenant Union. In October, the split between Macart-

    ney and Machen spread to Westminster Seminary, where

    the faculty, led by Machen, called on the board of trustees

    to announce their support of the Independent Board of

    Foreign Missions and the Covenant Union. Thirteen

    trustees, including Macartney, refused to do so and re-

    signed in 1936.

    Eight ministers, including Machen, were tried in the Gen-

    eral Assembly of 1936. They were convicted and re-

    moved from the ministry. Machen then led the Presby-

    terian Constitutional Covenant Union to form a new de-nomination, the Presbyterian Church of America, later

    forced to change its name to the Orthodox Presbyterian

    Church in 1939.

    15 Legacy

    As a result of the departure of Machen and the denomi-

    national conservatives, especially of the Old School, the

    shape of the Presbyterian Church in the USA as a mod-

    ernist, liberal denomination was secured. The PCUSA

    would eventually merge with the  United PresbyterianChurch of North America  in 1958 to form the  United

    Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and

    in 1983, the UPCUSA would merge with thePresbyterian

    Church in the United States  (the “Southern Presbyte-

    rians” who had split with the PCUSA in 1861 due to

    the Civil War) to form the current  Presbyterian Church

    (U.S.A.).

    The dispute between the fundamentalists and modernists

    would be played out in nearly every Christian denom-

    ination. By the 1920s, it was clear that every main-

    stream Protestant denomination was going to be will-

    ing to accommodate modernism, with the exception ofthe Presbyterians and Southern Baptists, where it was

    still unclear. When the outcome of the Fundamentalist–

    Modernist Controversy brought the Presbyterians into the

    camp willing to accommodate modernism, this left the

    Southern Baptists as the only mainstream denomination

    where fundamentalists were still active within the denom-

    ination. Fundamentalists and modernists would continue

    to struggle within the Southern Baptist Convention and

    the triumph of fundamentalist views in that denomination

    would not be secure until the Southern Baptist Conven-

    tion conservative resurgence of 1979-1990.

    The social tensions and prejudices created by theFundamentalist-Modernist split would remain very active

    within American Christianity into the twenty-first cen-

    tury, with modernists  seeing  fundamentalists as intoler-

    ant, and fundamentalists seeing modernists as overly will-

    ing to compromise with the forces of secularism, aban-

    doning authentic Christianity in the process.

    16 See also

    •  Conflict thesis

    •  Continuity thesis

    17 Footnotes

    [1] Longfield, Bradley J. (2000). “For Church and Country:

    The Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict in the Presbyte-

    rian Church”.  The Journal of Presbyterian History  78 (1):35–50. JSTOR 23335297.

    [2] van der Wall, Ernestine (2007).   The Enemy within: Re-

    ligion, Science, and Modernism. Netherlands Institute for

    Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

    ISBN 978-90-71093-59-3.Template:Page 35

    [3] Dorrien, Gary (2001). “A Compend of Heresies”.   The

    Making of Liberal Theology - Imagining Progressive Reli-

     gion 1805-1900. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 358–

    60. Retrieved 14 March 2014.

    [4] Gray, Asa (May 28, 1874).   “Darwin Correspondence

    Project » Essay: What is Darwinism?". The Nation. Re-trieved 8 December 2011.

    [5] Mathisen, Robert R. (editor) (November 2001).   Critical 

    Issues in American Religious History: A Reader . Baylor

    University Press. p. 462.  ISBN 978-0-918954-79-4.

    [6] Moran, Jeffrey P. (April 20, 2002).  The Scopes Trial: A

    Brief History with Documents . Palgrave Macmillan. p.

    16. ISBN 978-0-312-29426-7.

    [7]   Numbers, Ronald.   “Creationism History: The Antievo-

    lution Crusade of the 1920s”.   Counterbalance Meta-

    Library. Counterbalance Foundation. Retrieved 2007-

    08-01.

    [8] Wilcox, Clyde (September 20, 2000).  Onward Christian

    Soldiers . Westview Press. p. 31.   ISBN 978-0-8133-

    9759-7.

    [9] Paul, Diane B. (2003), “Darwin, social Darwinism andeu-

    genics”, in Hodge, Jonathan; Radick, Gregory,  The Cam-

    bridge Companion to Darwin, London:  Cambridge Uni-

    versity Press, p. 214, ISBN 978-0-521-77730-8

    [10]   “Genesis 1:24”. Online Parallel Bible. Retrieved 2007-

    07-25.

    [11] Alston, John Paul (September 2003).  The Scientific CaseAgainst Scientific Creationism. iUniverse. p. 39.   ISBN

    978-0-595-29108-3.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-595-29108-3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttp://bible.cc/genesis/1-24.htmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-521-77730-8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8133-9759-7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8133-9759-7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttp://www.counterbalance.net/history/creat1920-frame.htmlhttp://www.counterbalance.net/history/creat1920-frame.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_L._Numbershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-312-29426-7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-918954-79-4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttp://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/gray-essay-what-is-darwinismhttp://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/gray-essay-what-is-darwinismhttp://books.google.com/books?id=L50mveyi6WoC&pg=PA358http://books.google.com/books?id=L50mveyi6WoC&pg=PA358http://books.google.com/books?id=L50mveyi6WoC&pg=PA358https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Page_35https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-90-71093-59-3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/23335297https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTORhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_(U.S.A.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_(U.S.A.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_of_North_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Presbyterian_Church_of_North_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Church

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    15

    [12] Gaustad, Edwin S.; Leigh Schmidt (July 6, 2004).   The

    Religious History of America: The Heart of the American

    Story from Colonial Times to Today. HarperOne. p. 271.

    ISBN 978-0-06-063056-0.

    [13] Fitzmier, John R.; Balmer, Randall (1991).   “A Poultice

    for the Bite of the Cobra: The Hocking Report and Pres-

    byterian Missions in the Middle Decades of the Twentieth

    Century”. In Coalter, Milton J.; Mulder, John M.; Weeks,

    Louis B. The Diversity of Discipleship: Presbyterians and 

    Twentieth-century Christian Witness . Louisville: West-

    minster Press. pp. 105–25.  ISBN 978-0-664-25196-3.

    [14] Conn, Peter (January 28, 1998).   Pearl S. Buck: A Cul-

    tural Biography. London:   Cambridge University Press.

    pp. 148–154. ISBN 978-0-521-63989-7.

    [15]   Smylie, James H (January 2004).  “Pearl Buck’s “Several

    Worlds” and the “Inasmuch” of Christ”.  Princeton Theo-

    logical Seminary. Retrieved 2007-07-26.

    [16] Hutchison, William R. (November 1, 1993).   Errand tothe World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Mis-

    sions .  University Of Chicago Press. pp. 169–170.   ISBN

    978-0-226-36310-3.

    [17] Vinz, Warren L. (June 1997).   Pulpit Politics: Faces of 

    American Protestant Nationalism in the Twentieth Century.

    State University of New York Press. p. 79.  ISBN 978-0-

    7914-3175-7.

    18 Further reading

      The Presbyterian Conflict  by Edwin H. Rian (1940)•  The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Is-

    sues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869  by Lef-

    ferts A. Loetscher (1954)

    •   A Half Century of Union Theological Seminary,

    1896-1945 by Henry Sloane Coffin (1954)

    •   The Making of a Minister: The Autobiography of 

    Clarence E. Macartney   by Clarence E. Macartney

    (1961)

    •   Henry Sloane Coffin: The Man and His Ministry by

    Morgan Phelps Noyes (1964)

    •   Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet 

    by Robert Moats Miller (1985)

    •   Harry Emerson Fosdick: Persuasive Preacher   by

    Halford R. Ryan (1989)

    •   The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists,

    Modernists, and Moderates  by Bradley J. Longfield

    (1991)

    •   Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

    by George M. Marsden (1991)

    •   The Confessional Mosaic: Presbyterians and Twentieth-Century Theology, ed. Milton J. Coalter,

    John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks (1991)

    •   The Pluralistic Vision: Presbyterians and Main-

    stream Protestant Education