Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy

Background

From the late nineteenth century onward, higher criticism of the Bible and the theory of evolution spread through the seminaries and pulpits of the mainline Protestant denominations in the United States. Higher criticism is the discipline that uses historical methods to study the authorship, dating, and composition of the biblical books. Alongside it spread liberal theology, which sought to harmonize the faith with modern scholarship. Those who embraced this trend were called "modernists." Conservatives, in response, sought to defend the authority of Scripture and the core doctrines of Christianity. The Fundamentals, a series of pamphlets published in the 1910s, is regarded as one of the starting points of this movement. In 1910 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (the Northern Presbyterian Church) declared the essential doctrines to which its ministers must adhere: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, and the reality of miracles. This declaration is commonly known as the "five fundamentals."

Course of the Controversy

• 1920: Just before the annual meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention, conservatives held a conference in Buffalo, New York, on the fundamentals of the Baptist faith. Reporting on the meeting, Baptist newspaper editor Curtis Lee Laws called those ready to do battle for the fundamental doctrines "fundamentalists." This was the origin of the term.
• 1922: Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick criticized the conservatives in a sermon titled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" preached at a Presbyterian church in New York. The sermon ignited the controversy within the Northern Presbyterian Church.
• 1923: J. Gresham Machen of Princeton Theological Seminary published Christianity and Liberalism, in which he argued that liberalism was a religion distinct from Christianity.
• 1924: Some 1,200 Northern Presbyterian ministers signed the Auburn Affirmation. The signers held that resolutions of the General Assembly carried no binding constitutional authority, and they argued that ministers should not be required to accept any particular theory explaining the virgin birth, the atonement, or the resurrection. Opponents charged that the affirmation reduced core doctrines to mere "theories."
• 1925: The Scopes Trial was held over the teaching of evolution in public schools. The trial drew national attention as the politician William Jennings Bryan became the public face of the anti-evolution movement.
• 1929: The Northern Presbyterian General Assembly reorganized the governance of Princeton Theological Seminary. Machen and others, opposing the change, left the school and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
• 1936: Machen was disciplined by the denomination over the issue of an independent mission board. He then founded a new denomination, which later took the name Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Outcome and Influence

In most mainline denominations, the fundamentalists failed to gain control of denominational leadership, seminaries, and mission boards. Many left to establish their own denominations, schools, and mission agencies, and conservatives among the Northern Baptists likewise departed in successive waves. From the 1940s onward, neo-evangelicalism emerged, maintaining orthodox doctrine while distancing itself from the separatism of fundamentalism. A similar conflict arose in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late twentieth century, but in that case conservatives gained control of the denomination.

Through missionaries and Korean students who studied abroad, the controversy also influenced Korean Presbyterianism. Park Hyung-ryong, who studied at Princeton, followed Machen's theological direction and became the leading representative of conservative theology. The conflict between Kim Jae-jun, who accepted biblical criticism, and Park's camp was one of the factors behind the formation of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea as a separate body in 1953. This separation is one strand of the division of Korean Presbyterianism.

Assessment

Conservatives regard the controversy as a struggle that preserved the authority of Scripture and the heart of the gospel; the Reformed camp in particular holds Machen's theology in high regard. Progressives criticize fundamentalism for suppressing scholarly inquiry and the diversity of faith and for causing division in the church. Within evangelicalism as well, some acknowledge the movement's contribution in preserving doctrine while pointing to the problems left by its separatism and anti-intellectual tendencies. The name "fundamentalist" was originally an honorable title that conservatives chose for themselves. Today, however, it is frequently used in a negative sense, and many conservative believers avoid it.