Fundamentalist–modernist controversy
The fundamentalist–modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and 1930s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity; the authority of the Bible; and the death, resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.[1] Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged: fundamentalists, who insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian orthodoxy; and modernists, who advocated a conscious adaptation of the Christian faith in response to the new scientific discoveries and moral pressures of the age. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed churches and centered around the Princeton Theological Seminary, whose fundamentalist faculty members founded Westminster Theological Seminary when Princeton went in a liberal direction. However, it soon spread, affecting nearly every Protestant denomination in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran churches, eventually were embroiled in the controversy, leading to a schism in the United States.
By the end of the 1930s, proponents of theological liberalism had, at the time, effectively won the debate,[2] with the modernists in control of all mainline Protestant seminaries, publishing houses, and denominational hierarchies in the United States.[3] More conservative Christians withdrew from the mainstream,[3] founding their own publishing houses (such as Zondervan), universities (such as Biola University), and seminaries (such as Dallas Theological Seminary and Fuller Theological Seminary). This would remain the state of affairs until the 1970s, when conservative Protestantism emerged on a larger scale in the United States, resulting in the rise of conservatism among the Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and others.
In 1909, there was heated debate in the New York Presbytery about whether or not to ordain three men who refused to assent to the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus. (They did not deny the doctrine outright but said that they were not prepared to affirm it.) The majority eventually ordained the men; the minority complained to the General Assembly, and it was that complaint that would form the basis of the subsequent controversy.
Under the order of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, the General Assembly was not authorized to accept or dismiss the complaint. It should have demitted the complaint to the presbytery and could have done so with instructions that the presbytery hold a heresy trial. The result of the 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 governing future ordinations. The committee reported, and the General Assembly passed the Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910, which declared that five doctrines were "necessary and essential" to the Christian faith:
The five propositions would become known to history as the "Five Fundamentals" and by the late 1910s, theological conservatives rallying around the Five Fundamentals came to be known as "fundamentalists."
William Jennings Bryan and the General Assembly of 1923[edit]
Background: Darwinism and Christianity[edit]
A giant of Old School Presbyterianism at Princeton, Charles Hodge, was one of the few Presbyterian controversialists 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 published, and argued that if Charles Darwin's theory excluded 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 Christians accepted various forms of theistic evolution, and Darwin had not excluded the work of the Creator as a primary cause.[8]
Most churchmen, however, took a far more prosaic attitude. In the early period, it must have appeared far from 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 debated. Then, when evolution became widely accepted, most churchmen were far less concerned with refuting it than they were with establishing schemes whereby Darwinism could be reconciled with Christianity. This was true even among prominent Old Schoolers at Princeton Theological Seminary such as Charles Hodge's successors A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield who came to endorse the ideas now described as theistic evolution.
The General Assembly of 1924[edit]
Conservative activities prior to the 1924 General Assembly[edit]
The most significant conservative preparation for the General Assembly of 1924 actually occurred slightly before the 1923 General Assembly. This was the publication of J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. In this book, Machen argued that liberalism, far from being a set of teachings that could be accommodated within the church, was in fact antithetical to the principles of Christianity and was currently engaged in a struggle against historic Christianity.
Liberal activities prior to the 1924 General Assembly[edit]
New York Presbytery, which had been ordered by General 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 relinquished his pew at First Presbyterian Church, Princeton as a protest against Machen's fundamentalist preaching. Van Dyke would ultimately return to his pew in December 1924 when Charles Erdman replaced Machen in the pulpit.
In May 1924, the Auburn Affirmation was republished, along with supplementary materials, and listed 1,274 signatories.
Convening the Assembly[edit]
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 instrumental in bringing charges against Fosdick), who narrowly 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 Lehman was referred to the Synod of New York for "appropriate action."
On the question of Harry Fosdick, moderates in 1924 steered debate away from his theology and towards matters of polity. As Fosdick was a Baptist, General Assembly instructed First Presbyterian Church, New York to invite Fosdick to join the Presbyterian Church, and if he would not, to get rid of him. Fosdick refused to join the Presbyterian Church and ultimately resigned from his post at First Presbyterian Church in October.
The Special Commission of 1925 and the General Assembly of 1926[edit]
The Special Committee appointed at the General Assembly of 1925 consisted mainly of moderates. The committee 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 religion", naturalistic worldviews, different understandings of the nature of God, and changes in language; 2) historical differences going back to the Old School-New School split; 3) disagreements about church polity, particularly the 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 diversity 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 encouraged. In short, the report essentially affirmed the views of the Auburn Affirmation. The committee affirmed that General Assembly could not amend the Westminster Confession without the permission of the presbyteries, though it could issue judicial rulings consistent with the Confession that were binding on the presbyteries. The Five Fundamentals, though, had no binding authority.
In spite of Clarence Macartney's opposition on the floor of General Assembly, the committee's report was adopted.
The Battle for Princeton Theological Seminary, 1926–1929[edit]
Following the reunion of the Old School and New School in 1870, Princeton Theological Seminary remained the bulwark of Old School thought within the Presbyterian 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 convinced Old Schoolers, including J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos. However, to combat a perceived lack of training in practical divinity, a number of more moderate New Schoolers were brought in, including Charles Erdman and J. Ross Stevenson, who by 1920 was the president of the seminary. As stated earlier, the tension between Old Schoolers and moderates revealed itself 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 replace outgoing Professor of Apologetics William Greene seemed to solidify the Old School majority on the faculty. However, when Macartney turned the job down, Machen was offered the job.
Before he could accept or refuse, however, General Assembly intervened, and in the 1926 General Assembly, moderates succeeded in securing a committee to study how to reconcile the two parties at Princeton. (The seminary was governed by a board of directors subject to the supervision of General Assembly.) (On a sidenote, some members of the General Assembly seem to have been wary of Machen because of his opposition to Prohibition.)
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 the seminary. 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 Assembly 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 composed and had circulated in the denomination a document 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 practically every seminary in the denomination: 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 responded 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 Assembly, 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 Seminary (named to stress its fidelity to the Westminster Confession of Faith) and several conservatives on the Princeton faculty, including Machen, Cornelius Van Til, Robert Dick Wilson, and Oswald Thompson Allis, would leave Princeton to teach at Westminster. Clarence Macartney 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.
Legacy[edit]
As a result of the departure of Machen and the denominational conservatives, especially of the Old School, the shape of the Presbyterian Church in the USA as a modernist, liberal denomination was secured. The PCUSA would eventually merge with the United Presbyterian Church 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 the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the "Southern Presbyterians" who had split with the PCUSA in 1861 due to the Civil War) to form the current Presbyterian Church (USA).
The dispute between the fundamentalists and modernists would be played out in nearly every Christian denomination. By the 1920s, it was clear that every mainstream Protestant denomination was going to be willing to accommodate modernism, with the exception of the Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, and the Missouri Synod Lutherans, where the situation was still unclear. The departure of Machen and other conservatives brought the Presbyterians into the camp willing to accommodate modernism, leaving the Southern Baptists and the Missouri Synod as the only large, national denominations where orthodox Protestants were still active within the denomination. The conflict continued to roil both churches for most of the 20th century and the triumph of orthodox Protestantism in those denominations would not be secure until the Seminex schism in the Lutheran church and the Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence of 1979–1990.