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. 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, with the modernists in control of all mainline Protestant seminaries, publishing houses, and denominational hierarchies in the United States. More conservative Christians withdrew from the mainstream, founding their own publishing houses, universities, and seminaries. 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.

Background

Early controversies in Presbyterianism

had gone into schism twice in the past, and these divisions were important precursors to the fundamentalist–modernist controversy. The first was the Old Side–New Side controversy, which occurred during the First Great Awakening and resulted in the 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 controversy, which occurred in the wake of the Second Great Awakening and which saw the Presbyterian Church split into two denominations starting in 1836–1838.
In 1857, the New School Presbyterians divided over slavery, with the southern New School Presbyterians forming the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church. In 1861, the Old School Presbyterians split, with the Southern Presbyterians taking on the name the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America. In 1864, the United Synod merged with PCCSA, with the Southern New School Presbyterians ultimately being absorbed into an Old School denomination. In 1869, the Northern New School Presbyterians returned to the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America.
Although the controversies involved many other issues, the overarching issue had to do with the nature of church authority and the authority of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The New Side/New School opposed a rigid interpretation of the Westminster Confession. Their stance was based on spiritual renewal/revival through an experience with the Holy Spirit based on scripture. Therefore, they placed less emphasis on receiving a seminary education and the Westminster Confession. Their emphasis was more on the authority of scripture and a conversion experience, rather than on the Westminster Confession. They argued the importance of an encounter with God mediated by the Holy Spirit. They saw the Old Side/Old School as being formalists who fetishized the Westminster Confession and Calvinism.
The Old Side/Old School responded that the Westminster Confession was the foundational constitutional 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 lax about the purity of the church and willing to allow Arminianism, unitarianism, and other errors to be taught in the Presbyterian Church. They criticized the New Side/School's revivals as being emotionally manipulative and shallow. Another major division had to do with their attitude towards other denominations: New Siders/Schoolers were willing to set up parachurch ministries to conduct evangelism and missions and were willing 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 denomination and not involving outsiders, since it would involve a watering down of the church's theological distinctives. The two sides also had different attitudes towards their seminary professors: Princeton Theological Seminary, the leading institution of the Old School, demanded credal subscription and dedicated a large part of its academic theology to the defense of Calvinist orthodoxy; 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.

The rise of higher criticism and the Briggs Affair, 1880–1893

The first major proponent of higher criticism within the Presbyterian Church was Charles Augustus Briggs, who had studied higher criticism in Germany. His inaugural address upon being made Professor of Hebrew at Union Theological Seminary in 1876 was the first salvo of higher criticism within American Presbyterianism. Briggs was active in founding The Presbyterian Review in 1880, with Archibald Alexander Hodge, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, initially serving as Briggs' co-editor. In 1881, Briggs published an article in defense of William Robertson Smith which led to a series of responses and counter-responses between Briggs and the Princeton theologians in the pages of The Presbyterian Review. In 1889, B. B. Warfield became co-editor and refused to publish one of Briggs' articles, a key turning point.
In 1891, Briggs was appointed as Union's first-ever professor of Biblical theology. His inaugural address, entitled "The Authority of Holy Scripture", proved to be highly controversial. Whereas previously, higher criticism had seemed a fairly technical, scholarly issue, Briggs now spelt out its full implications. In the 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 did not write most of the Psalms; Solomon wrote not the Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes but only a few Proverbs; and Isaiah did not write half of the book of Isaiah. The Old Testament was merely a historical record that 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, according to Briggs, the Scriptures as a whole were riddled with errors and the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy taught at Princeton Theological Seminary "is a ghost of modern evangelicalism to frighten children."
File:Henry Van Dyke - Project Gutenberg eText 16229.png|thumb|right|150px|Henry van Dyke, a modernist who pushed for revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1900–1910

The movement to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1900–1910

, a modernist who had been a major supporter of Briggs in 1893, now headed a movement of modernists and New Schoolers to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith. Since 1889, Van Dyke had been calling for credal revision to affirm that all dying infants go to heaven, to say that God loved the whole world, and to affirm that Christ atoned for all mankind, not just the elect. In 1901, he chaired a 25-man committee. Also in 1901, he drew up a non-binding summary of the church's faith. It mentioned neither biblical inerrancy nor reprobation, affirmed God's love of all mankind, and denied that the Pope was the Antichrist. It was adopted by General Assembly in 1902 and ratified by the presbyteries in 1904.
As a result of the changes, the Arminian-leaning Cumberland Presbyterian Church petitioned for reunification, 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.

The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910 (the Five Fundamentals)

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. 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".