The Sermon That Divided America
Fosdick, a Baptist who pastored the First Presbyterian Church of New York, was not the first person in the history of American evangelicalism to question the virgin birth, the inspiration of the Bible, the substitutionary atonement, or the second coming of Christ. But he was certainly one of the first to do so with the assurance that most evangelicals would soon agree with him. For fundamentalists, the most shocking aspect of Fosdick’s sermon was not simply the heresy, but the assumption that heresy (or the acceptance of heresy) was the new orthodoxy.
To say that Harry Emerson Fosdick’s sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” (1922) ignited the fundamentalist-modernist controversy requires a bit of qualification. In truth, the lines had been drawn for at least a decade.
Between 1910 and 1915, a series of 12 paperback volumes called The Fundamentals had defended everything from the virgin birth to the deity of Christ to the inspiration of Scripture against those who sought to undermine the supernatural character of the Christian faith. In 1920, the term “fundamentalist” was coined by Baptist editor Curtis Lee Laws at the first meeting of the General Conference on Fundamentals to describe someone who held to the historic doctrines of Christianity. By 1922, a “militantly anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism” had already emerged in America. According to Fosdick’s biographer, “The sermon was not a stone dropped into denominational waters that would otherwise have remained calm.” In some sense, Fosdick did not create the fundamentalist movement. He just gave it a push.
New Orthodoxy
Fosdick, a Baptist who pastored the First Presbyterian Church of New York, was not the first person in the history of American evangelicalism to question the virgin birth, the inspiration of the Bible, the substitutionary atonement, or the second coming of Christ. But he was certainly one of the first to do so with the assurance that most evangelicals would soon agree with him.
For fundamentalists, the most shocking aspect of Fosdick’s sermon was not simply the heresy, but the assumption that heresy (or the acceptance of heresy) was the new orthodoxy. “I do not believe for one moment that the Fundamentalists are going to succeed,” Fosdick declared triumphantly. The fundamentalist defeat was inevitable. Preaching from Acts 5:34–39, Fosdick was as confident of modernist victory as the Pharisee Gamaliel had been of the work of God.
Fosdick’s inflammatory sermon soon unleashed a torrent of responses from fundamentalists, who now had an adversary bold enough to meet them out in the open. In his reply to Fosdick titled “Shall Unbelief Win?” (1922), Clarence Edwards Macartney was struck by the fact that, unlike modernists of the past, Fosdick “leaves no reader or hearer in the least doubt what he believes, or disbelieves, about the cardinal doctrines of the Christian religion.” One might say that Fosdick finally turned a conflict into a controversy.
United Against Liberalism
In some ways, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” was a missile wrapped in a banner of peace. As a call for tolerance within the Presbyterian church, Fosdick’s sermon was also an offensive launched against those “illiberal and intolerant” Presbyterians who would expel him from their denomination for his beliefs (the heretical ones, not the Baptist ones). Consequently, the sermon helped conservatives to do what they’d been struggling to do on their own: unite.
By 1922, for instance, the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA), begun by William Bell Riley, “was already displaying signs of collapse.” Interdenominational cooperation didn’t come easy, and the name “fundamentalist” carried a stigma even inside the conservative ranks, particularly due to its association with “the premillennial reign of Christ.” But as America’s chief popularizer of modernism, Fosdick embodied for many fundamentalists the very worst of theological liberalism and evoked their collective disdain.
In Christianity and Liberalism (1923), published less than a year after the sermon, J. Gresham Machen argued that historic Christianity and modernism were not simply two shades of the same faith, but rather two completely different religions. Not surprisingly, he cited Fosdick’s sermon.
-
Efficiency Is Not Our Highest Goal
Our process, in the church, typically protect us as leaders. Multiple leaders let us share the burden of responsibility. Proper discussions amongst the elders, and real consultation with the membership, mean that more people can be brought onboard with whatever it is we hope to do.
If you are all about efficiency, the fastest way to get most things done is get one bloke, with one thing to do, and let him get on and do it. He can okay his own work, he can crack on with whatever he wants to do, he can do it straightaway and get going on it. If speed is what you’re after, get one person without a committee and let them get something done.
But sometimes there are processes we need to go through. And let’s make no bones about it, sometimes processes can be clunky. Sometimes they are frustrating. But there is usually a reason why we need to go through them. It doesn’t mean the process can’t be refined, streamlined or (in some cases) done away with altogether. But there is typically a reason it is there.
In the church, the fastest way to get stuff done as a pastor is to take unilateral decisions. Decide everything, on your own and then get it done. If efficiency is the only concern, or speed is of the essence, that is the way to do it. But usually, speed and efficiency are not the only – or even the main – considerations. We have people to take into account. The church doesn’t exist merely as a vehicle to get stuff done, it is a group of people bounded together in Christ who serve together in the cause of the gospel.Related Posts:
-
Barbie’s Sparkling Pink Gnosticism
Gerwig’s task as Barbie’s director was to create a movie that celebrated the doll while also acknowledging her controversial status in American culture. But if Barbie is a symbol of unattainable beauty standards, the Barbie movie is a symbol of incoherent feminist standards. Where earlier waves of feminism sought for women’s equal participation in democracy and the marketplace as women, modern feminism seeks to transcend—even leave behind—the female body altogether.
In the new movie Barbie, Greta Gerwig wants you to believe that being pregnant is weird. Midge, a pregnant Barbie doll that serves as the butt of many jokes, was discontinued “because a pregnant doll is just too weird.” Midge has no speaking parts, and characters throughout the movie are repeatedly taken aback whenever she appears. Barbie wants to empower women to be anything they are or choose to be (in the film, Barbie comes in every career, country, shade, size, and even sex) — except, apparently, the one thing that most women eventually hold in common: becoming a mother.
Mattel’s Barbie doll has always provoked conversation about womanhood and the female body. She has been an icon of femininity in the truest sense of the word: Barbie was the ideal. But Barbie has also been plagued by controversy, with some claiming she perpetuated unattainable standards rather than empowering women to overcome them. The Barbie doll’s meteoric success and then rapid decline, however, is only a mirror reflecting deeper cultural questions about what it means to be a woman.
Gerwig’s task as Barbie’s director was to create a movie that celebrated the doll while also acknowledging her controversial status in American culture. But if Barbie is a symbol of unattainable beauty standards, the Barbie movie is a symbol of incoherent feminist standards. Where earlier waves of feminism sought for women’s equal participation in democracy and the marketplace as women, modern feminism seeks to transcend—even leave behind—the female body altogether.
Read More
Related Posts: -
UK Pastors Write Letter to the Government Explaining They Will Choose God
The Apostle Paul often found himself on the wrong side of the dominant culture, whether it was Jerusalem or Ephesus or Philadelphia. Christianity has often played this unwanted role in the last 2,000 years of history. It’s just that our cultural moment is unusual. In parts of the world like Australia and the UK we have reaped the rich gains of the Christian message, but we are now slowly turning our backs in pursuit of a life without God.
Victoria is not the only jurisdiction in the world to introduce laws prohibiting conversion practices. While Victoria’s The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act remains the most extreme, both in the breadth of what is banned and in the criminal sanctions that are threatened, other Australian State and several countries have or are in the process of banning elements of Christian practice and belief.
The United Kingdom is introducing legislation to ban so-called conversion practices. More than 2500 pastors have signed a letter to the Government, explaining their position,
“It should not be a criminal offence for us to instruct our children that God made them male and female, in his image, and has reserved sex for the marriage of one man and one woman. Yet this seems to be the likely outcome of the proposed legislation,” they write.
“We therefore very much hope (and pray) that these proposals will be dropped in their current form. We have no desire to become criminals and place a high value on submitting to and supporting our government.
“Yet we think it important you are aware that if it were to come about that the loving, compassionate exercise of orthodox Christian ministry, including the teaching of the Christian understanding of sex and marriage, is effectively made a criminal offence, we would with deep sadness continue to do our duty to God in this matter.”
These are not words of bigotry. These are not malevolent attitudes toward fellow human beings who don’t identify with their biological sex or as heterosexual. These are reasonable convictions accompanied by love of neighbour. Indeed, the views articulated in the letter remain normal and orthodox in Christian churches around the world today (including Melbourne). The classical view of sex and marriage was even broadly held in civil society until just a few short years ago. But of course, the socio-political landscape has changed dramatically and it will continue to do so.
No doubt there are many faithful pastors who haven’t signed the letter. While others are weighing up the right course of action. I cannot of course speak for many who have signed. Among the signatories though are friends of mine. Indeed, some signatories are same-sex attracted. These are men and women who love God and are convinced by God’s good Gospel about his Son.
They are not malicious troublemakers or intolerant social miscreants. These are thoughtful people who are convinced by the teaching of Scripture, the very same Scriptures from which our society gleans the belief that all men and women are equal and that all life has value.
Read More
