WE have time and again made reference to the great battle going on in the United States between those called Fundamentalists and the Modernists. The latter deny the Virgin Birth, the Bodily Resurrection of the Redeemer, a Vicarious Atonement, and the verity of the miracles of Christ. Needless to say, they strongly oppose the doctrine of the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. The Conservatives or Fundamentalists have joined issues with them in a mighty conflict, and in two of the most powerful Protestant denominations in the States the battle has been raging fiercely, for it must be borne in mind that the champions of truth need not expect gentle handling from those who preach a wide world charity for everyone but those who oppose them. Two important meetings have recently been held where the issues were joined. The one at the Northern Baptist Convention, where the Modernists won the day. The other at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which met at Indianapolis, where a majority of 439 to 359 carried the day in favour of the Fundamentalists. This is so far satisfactory, but when it is borne in mind that the Modernists had a following of 359 in the General Assembly supporting doctrines so outrageously unscriptural, one cannot regard the result but with mixed feelings. Then, as an offset to the victory of the Conservatives on the above, there is the victory of the Modernists in the Assembly on the question of teaching evolution in the schools. We shall now lay before our readers few points gleaned from the “Sunday School Times” (a strong supporter of the Conservatives) and the “Literary Digest.” The Modernists were successful in having their nominee for the Moderatorship, Dr Charles F. Wishart, appointed by a majority of 26 votes. When the vote was taken on the resolution, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the schools, the Modernists won the day by a vote approximately of two to one. The next point on which the Assembly divided was a motion, demanding the pastor (Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick), of the First Church, New York, to conform to the teaching of the Confession, and emphasising the inerrancy of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the truth of Christ’s miracles. In the Committee on Bills and Overtures the Modernists by a majority of 26 votes recommended in the report to the Assembly that the New York Presbytery investigate the charges laid against the teaching of the pastor of the First Church. We give a quotation from the “Literary Digest” in which it will be seen how the day went and the outrageous, unscriptural utterances which the Assembly’s decision immediately called forth—
“Led by W. J. Bryan and two Philadelphia ministers, the Rev. A. Gordon MacLennan and the Rev. Clarence E. MacArtney, the Conservatives won a five-hour fight on the floor to require the preaching and teaching in the First Church in New York to conform to the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. A chief point in the resolution is that it reaffirms the deliverance of the General Assembly of 1910 in declaring it to be the essential doctrine of the Church that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the Bible to keep them from error; that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary; that He offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of His followers; that He arose from the dead with the same body in which He suffered, and that He showed His divine power by working miracles.
The next day sixty-six ministerial delegates filed a protest against the Assembly’s action touching the First Church in New York, declaring, we are told in newspaper reports, that the allegations on which the action was based were “not substantiated by the evidence”; that the Assembly had condemned without proper hearing, and that the resolution adopted “seeks to impose doctrinal tests other than those solemnly agreed upon in the constitution of our Church.” Rebellion was immediate and open the following Sabbath in New York. The Rev. William P. Merrill, in his sermon at the Brick Presbyterian Church declared, we read in the press, that the Assembly “said what was not true, did what was not fair, and attempted to put a yoke on our necks which I. for one, will never wear.” He had never heard of the General Assembly’s declaration of 1910, said the Rev. John Kelman at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, adding: “In the questions which were addressed to me no reference was made to any such declaration. If there had been any such reference and if it had been necessary for me to profess my agreement with it, I could not have accepted a call to any church in America.” The Rev. Dr L. Mason Clarke, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, charged the General Assembly with “obscurantism,” and said, as we quote from press accounts, “I charge it with intolerance in its pathetic audacity in attempting to compel submission to its defiance of the scientific method. I charge it with being false to the spirit of revelation, through trying to bind upon the Church the thought forms of an age that has gone. I charge it with what is perilously near to blasphemy against the Spirit of God who has always been leading men into the clearer truth.” Then, stopping to wipe his glasses, Dr Clarke came to discussion of the doctrinal declaration of the Assembly of 1910. “In all frankness,” he said, “I do not believe one of those five points. Certainly the Scriptures are not inerrant and never were. The issue is squarely drawn between Scripture literalism and the truth. The Bible is not our chain to fasten faith forever to its incredibilities. It is one of our inspirations to life.”
Our readers will be horrified in reading these utterances of Dr Clarke, but we quote them to show how lamentably low the ethical code of prominent ministers of the Presbyterian Church of America has become when they can sign the Confession and yet give expression to such opinions. As for Dr Kelman, he was trained in a bad school (the New College, Edinburgh), and one need not expect to gather grapes after such a liberal sowing of thorns in a college which in later times has watched over the growth of these prickly plants of unbelief with a solicitude that was worthy of better and holier work.
The Fundamentalist leaders have been very bitterly attacked by some of the leading journals of America and charged with driving out of the Presbyterian communion men with outstanding gifts and far-reaching vision. This is what is to be expected. Satan is always hanging about the vicinity of some editorial rooms, and he is in the habit of ingratiating himself with some writers whose only standard of truth is the majority rule and expediency. We have been long accustomed to that kind of writing nearer home, and have learned to appraise it at its true value. Dr Fosdick and his followers should clear out of a Church whose money they accept but whose teaching they reject, and thus give to the world an illustration that is much needed that common honesty and erroneous views of doctrine may occasionally be found together.