490 - The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates

The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates

By Bradley J. Longfield

New York, Oxford University Press, 1991. 333 Pp. $34.50.

Between 1922 and 1936, factions within the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. struggled to define the denomination's theological identity. Fundamentalists suffered defeat when the General Assembly in 1926 and 1927 permitted a degree of latitude in the interpretation of the church's confession of faith. The conflict, however, rumbled on for almost another decade as fundamentalists contested the reorganization of the once-solid bastion of conservatism at Princeton Seminary, founded a new seminary of their own, and formed an Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. In 1936, a relative handful of fundamentalists, led by J. Gresham Machen, finally withdrew to create a separate church. Longfield, a visiting professor at Divinity School of Duke University, makes a unique contribution to this often-told story by providing an in-depth analysis of seven persons intimately involved in the controversy: fundamentalists Machen, Clarence Macartney, and William Jennings Bryan; modernist Henry Sloane Coffin; and moderates Charles R. Erdman and Robert E. Speer. With a deft style informed by careful scholarship, Longfield uses the biographies of these individuals to provide a richly textured, informative account of a crucial era in American Presbyterianism.

Although the author classifies Presbyterians by labels such as fundamentalist and moderate, he makes clear that those tags scarcely do justice to the range of theological and cultural commitments within the denomination. For example, J. Gresham Machen, the intellectual leader of the fundamentalist party, desired chiefly the maintenance of pure doctrine, had little interest in the evolution question, and, unlike most conservatives, opposed prohibition. His roots in Southern Presbyterianism, says Longfield, provided him with an apolitical view of the church and also prepared him to accept ecclesiastical secession as an appropriate solution to serious differences.

By contrast, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time candidate for the U. S. Presidency, came from the theologically "loose" Cumberland Presbyterians before joining the larger Presbyterian body. His fundamentalism, especially his much ballyhooed crusade against evolution, represented a concern to protect the moral foundations of Christian America more than a desire to guard precise doctrine. Moreover, as a seasoned politician accustomed to compromise, Bryan, shortly before his death in 1925, showed some inclination to reach an accommodation with the moderates in the Presbyterian Church.

According to Longfield's reckoning, those moderates were also a diverse lot. While both Erdman and Speer were influenced by premillennialism and holiness notions of the higher life, they matured

492 - The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates

in different directions. Erdman came to believe that consecrated Christian living was more crucial in winning persons to Christ than was correct doctrine. Speer was charmed by the writings of the nineteenth century theologian Horace Bushnell, particularly the latter's Christocentrism, his notion of the inadequacy of all theological language, and his passion for a comprehensive Christianity incorporating the insights of various persuasions. In Bushnell, Speer found inspiration for his growing belief that Christians had to transcend differences in order to realize a global unity in Christ.

Indeed, says Longfield, it was the moderates' desire to engage in a united mission to America and the world that caused them to downplay doctrinal distinctives and to make common cause with the modernists. He discerns a great irony in this policy. The inclusiveness touted as the key to effective mission contributed, he maintains, to the ultimate failure of that mission. When Presbyterian leaders decided to blur their creedal position, they started to lose a clear identity. Without that identity, they could no longer command the allegiance of their own people-a dilemma that became apparent in the 1960s as Presbyterian membership began a precipitous decline.

At this point, one may offer a qualification to Longfield's thesis. While it is incontestable that theological diversity has grown among Presbyterians and that the 1920s marked a crucial watershed in the process, one must not jump too quickly from that era to the present. Why, if the decisions of the 1920s set Presbyterians on the path to decline, did the church prosper numerically during the palmy days of the post-World War 11 revival and only begin its downward numerical spiral in the sixties? The answer would appear, in part, to lie in the disintegration of moral consensus which has occurred within American culture since the latter decade. As a people actively engaged in the main currents of American life, Presbyterians have had little to protect themselves from these trends and have, thus, readily mirrored the divisions and uncertainties of the culture at large. These realities have, at least as much as decisions made in the twenties, determined the shape of contemporary Presbyterianism. But readers are advised to examine Longfield's excellent, thought-provoking book and judge for themselves.

JAMES H. MOORHEAD

Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey