The History of Presbyterianismin the United States

Part 6: ModernismB – The Crisis in Presbyterian Foreign

Missions

Westminster Seminary, 1929-30

Is it true that the conservatives could not answer the liberals and so they left?

John Skilton Ned Stonehouse Paul Wooley John Murray R.B. Kuiper Allen

MacRae Cornelius Van Til E.J. Young

John Murray

A clear andcogent defenseof the sub-stitutionarysacrifice ofChrist.

O.T. Allis

J. Gresham Machen

E.J. Young

Master TimelineUnited States Europe

• 1620 – Mayflower lands• 1730s-1743 – 1st Great Awakening• 1776-1783 – American Rev.• 1790-1840 – 2nd Great Awakening• 1830 – Book of Mormon• 1850-1900 – 3rd Great Awakening• 1861-1865 – American Civil War• 1870 – Scottish Common Sense• 1889 – Moody Bible Institute• 1891 – Briggs’ address• 1909 – Scofield Reference Bible• 1910 – Pres. G.A.: 5 Fundamentals• 1914-1919 – World War I• 1922 – “Shall Fund.s Win?”• 1923 – The Auburn Affirmation• 1925 – The Scopes Trial• 1929 – Westminster Theo.

Seminary• 1936 – Orthodox Presbyterian Ch.• 1936 – John Mackay, Princeton

Sem.

• 1643 – Westminster Confession of Faith• 1650-1800 – Age of European

Enlightenment& of Scottish Common Sense

Philosophy• 1770s-1900 – Rise of German Higher

Criticism• 1789-1799 – French Revolution• 1827 – Plymouth Brethren begin meeting• 1833 – Slavery Abolition Act of England• 1859 - Charles Darwin – Origin of Species• 1862-77 – Darby travels to the United

States• 1919 – Rise of Neo-Orthodoxy

United States (cont.)

1937 – Death of J. Gresham Machen - Bible Presbyterian Ch. (McIntyre)1966 – RTS, Jackson, MI1967 – Confession of ‘67, Book of Confessions1973 – PCA1983 – Union of UPCUSA & PCUS

Post World War IWorld-wideSecular Ecumenism

• PCUSA endorsed the League of Nations –“unity in the civil realm underscored the importance of unity in the ecclesiastical realm.”

• “Peace and Work” – the thematic focus of PCUSA• 1920 – “Philadelphia Plan” for Protestant church union.

The plan “contains nothing distinctively evangelical at all” let alone Presbyterian. B.B. Warfield

•Christianity and Liberalism (1923) – written in defense of historic Protestantism and distinctive Presbyterianism

Liberal evangelicalism is simply offering the gospel in a persuasive manner to contemporary listeners. Henry Sloane Coffin

Harry Emerson Fosdick –“Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”

“Though dismissive of the fundamantals as outdated thinking, Fosdick claimed to be broadminded enough to welcome fundamentalists in the church.”

H&M

the Rev. Clarence Macartney

Presbyterian MinisterArch St. Presbyterian Church

Philadelphia, PA

the Rev. Harry FosdickBaptist Preacher

First Presbyterian ChurchNew York City, NY

“Shall Unbelief Win?”“I am convinced that the far more useful

course to pursue is to declare the whole counsel of God so clearly and so fearlessly that the whole world may know there is a difference between what is Christianity and what is not Christianity.”

The Auburn Affirmation

• Written & published in 1924• as “AN AFFIRMATION designed tosafeguard the unity and liberty of thePresbyterian Church in the United States of

America”• eventually signed by 1,274 ministers of the

PCUSA.• this represented 14% of the entire roster of

ministers.

The Noble Rise of Christian Ecumenism

• By 1924, efforts at union with otherdenominational ministries were combinedwith a growing embrace of the liberal denial ofthe supernatural or exclusive gospel.

• 1930 - J.D. Rockefeller, Jr., a liberal Baptist, finances a “Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry” among seven major denominations.

• 1932 - Re-Thinking Missions.

The Noble Rise of Christian Ecumenism

Re-Thinking Missions argued that in the face of emerging secularism, Christians should ally with other world religions, rather than struggle against them.

“[A missionary should] look forward not to the destruction of these religions [of Asia],but to their continued coexistence with Christianity, each stimulating the other’s growth toward the ultimate goal, unity inthe completest (sic) religious truth.”

• By 1924, efforts at union with otherdenominational ministries were combinedwith a growing embrace of the liberal denial

of the supernatural or exclusive gospel.• 1932 – Re-Thinking Missions• Pearl Buck, Presbyterian Missionary to

China:"I think this is the only book I have ever readthat seems to me literally true in its every observation and right in its every conclusion.”

The Noble Rise of Christian Ecumenism

• By 1924, efforts at union with otherdenominational ministries were combinedwith a growing embrace of the liberal denial

of the supernatural or exclusive gospel.• 1932 – Re-Thinking Missions• Pearl Buck, Presbyterian Missionary to

China:“To some of us He is still the divine son of God,born of the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit. But to many of us He has ceased to be that. … I do not believe in original sin. … I agree with the Chinese who feel their people should be protected from such superstition (re: Biblical teaching about salvation from sin).”

The Noble Rise of Christian Ecumenism

The Crisis inPresbyterian Foreign Missions• By 1924, efforts at union with other

denominational ministries were combinedwith a growing embrace of the liberal denial

of the supernatural or exclusive gospel.• 1932 – Re-Thinking Missions• Pearl Buck, Presbyterian Missionary to China.• Machen: Modernism & the Board of Foreign

Missions charging that the Board of Foreign Missions was insufficiently evangelical and particularly that its secretary, Robert E. Speer, had refused to require missionaries to subscribe to the Five Fundamentals.

The Crisis inPresbyterian Foreign Missions• By 1924, efforts at union with other

denominational ministries were combinedwith a growing embrace of the liberal denial ofthe supernatural or exclusive gospel.

• 1932 – Re-Thinking Missions• Pearl Buck, Presbyterian Missionary to China.• Machen: Modernism & the Board of Foreign

Missions.• The denominational Foreign Mission Board

▫proceeded to routinely deny candidates who seemed too “narrow minded”.

▫was increasingly being funded by partisan politics.

Robert E. Speer

The Crisis inPresbyterian Foreign Missions• An overture was moved through presbyteryand presented at the 1933 G.A. by Dr. Machen

▫which would recognize the liberal influences of ecumenicity and encouraged election of

conservatives. ▫but which failed overwhelmingly.

• In response, Machen led the organization ofIndependent Board

for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.▫It was immediately successful, receiving support

funding and sending out its own missionaries.▫But opposition arose on both sides of the aisle.

O.T. Allis

Clarence Macartne

y

Samuel Craig

• The Stated Clerk of the Assembly initiated a reprisal with a “Mandate of 1934”▫saying that Machen was subverting Presbyterian law

by undertaking “administrative functions within the church without official sanction”,

▫& which ordered Presbyterian ministers to resign from participation/involvement with the Independent Board.

▫and ordered Presbyteries to bring noncompliant ministers to trial.

“Those who enjoy a bit of irony may notice that the same General Assembly of 1934, which laid its iron mandate to bind the conscience of Dr. Machen, passed a resolution commending the German Protestants for refusing to obey those actions of the Nazi church which contravene a minister’s exclusive allegiance to the Word of God.”

William Childs RobinsonSouthern Presbyterian Theologian

The Crisis inPresbyterian Foreign Missions• An overture was moved through presbyteryand presented at the 1933 G.A. by Dr. Machen

▫which would recognize the liberal influences of ecumenicity and encouraged election of

conservatives. ▫but which failed overwhelmingly.

• In response, Machen formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.▫It was immediately successful, receiving support

funding and sending out its own missionaries.▫But opposition arose on both sides of the aisle.

•1935 – Machen put on trial by the Presbytery of New Brunswick.

“[A]t the third session … the commission, following Machen's solemnly entered plea of "Not Guilty" to all the charges, ruled that it would not admit evidence bearing on several crucial matters.

It would not accept or hear any arguments concerned with:

* the Auburn Affirmation, * the question of the soundness of the Board

of ForeignMissions, or

* with the history of the Princeton-Westminster

controversy, … * any arguments questioning the legality of

theAssembly's mandate.

It remains almost incredible that a Presbyterian court should thus have flouted the most elementary principles of justice.”

Stonehouse, Ned B., J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1954), pages 490-491.

The Crisis inPresbyterian Foreign Missions• An overture was moved through presbyteryand presented at the 1933 G.A. by Dr. Machen

▫which would recognize the liberal influences of ecumenicity and encouraged election of

conservatives. ▫but which failed overwhelmingly.

• In response, Machen formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.▫It was immediately successful, receiving support

funding and sending out its own missionaries.▫But opposition arose on both sides of the aisle.

•1935 – Machen put on trial by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. The commission found Machen guilty and

defrocked him.

the Rev. Daniel RussellModerator, Presbytery of New York

“Most Presbyterians hold no brief for the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. Many regret what has seemed at times an intolerant attitude on the part of Dr. Machen toward his brethren.

Nevertheless, there must be a widespread feeling of sorrow together with something of sympathy for the accused in that, after thirty years of distinguished service to religion, this famed scholar, whether through his own fault or otherwise, has been condemned by his Presbytery … and that his denomination, if the condemnation is sustained, can find no place in which his brilliant gifts may be utilized … ”

In 1893 the church suspendedDr. Charles A Briggs from theministry because he did not believein the infallibility of the Bible,and in 1936 the same churchsuspended Dr. Machen from the ministry

because he was determined to

follow the teachings of the

infallible Word of God.

Edwin H. Rian

New CovenantPresbyterian Church

Preaching God’s Sovereign Grace

to a World of Need128 St. Mary’s Church Rd.,

Abingdon, MD 21009410-569-0289

www.ncpres.orgwww.ephesians515.com