Nothing new under the sun: The disorderly history of controversy in American Presbyterianism agenda
By Michael R. McCarty, Special to The Layman Online, February 6, 2007
As a layman, I write on such a heady topic with trepidation. I know that some pastors and serious students may legitimately complain that this is not a scholarly disputation on the many complex issues that came out of the General Assemblies of 1923 and 1924. I wholeheartedly agree. Nor is it intended to be. It is simply meant to tell my brothers and sisters in the pews that the situation in which we Presbyterians find ourselves today is, indeed, further proof that there is nothing new under the sun.
Winter Convocation scheduled
The New Wineskins Association of Churches will hold its Winter Convocation on Feb. 8-9 in Orlando, Fla.
The convocation will be held at First Presbyterian Church in Orlando, with the Rev. Dr. Sameh Maurice as the preacher and teacher. More complete information is available on the Web site of the association. There may be a temptation on the part of lay people to look at the past 300 years as a time of absolute unity and peace within Presbyterianism in America. In fact, many of us who call ourselves Presbyterians are descended from the same people who rebelled against the most powerful temporal empire of its time.2 As is evidenced by the existence of at least nine Presbyterian denominations in the United States today, we are, in fact, a group that historically has used different understandings to take different paths.
The earliest American Presbyterian churches were established in Virginia, New England, Maryland, and Delaware during the seventeenth century and were chiefly of English origin. The man who brought the scattered churches into organic unity was the Rev. Francis Makemie who, in 1706 with six other ministers, organized the Presbytery of Philadelphia. A decade later, the first synod was constituted.
Only 23 years after its initial affiliation, Presbyterianism experienced its first major dispute over the exact wording and interpretation of the Adopting Act of 1729. Between 1741 and 1758, the Presbyterian body divided into two, the “Old Side” and the “New Side.” The issue was a disagreement as to the requirements for the ministry (ordination standards!) and the interpretation of those standards. Does this sound like an old familiar theme?
Years later, another split occurred. In 1810, the dissolution of the Cumberland Presbytery by the Synod of Kentucky (once again over ordination standards) led to the formation of a new denomination: the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
The next major division resulted from a debate lasting approximately 36 years over controversies regarding missionary work and doctrinal matters. In 1837, the denomination split into the “Old School” and the “New School.”
Twenty-four years later, the impending Civil War cost both “Schools” most of their Southern presbyteries when anti-slavery resolutions were passed. The Southerners united to form the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, renamed in 1865 as the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
In 1869, the “Old School” and the “New School” reunited in the North, forming the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The reunited denomination became the largest and most influential Presbyterian body in America, but not the only one. Since that time, American Presbyterianism has been continuously and repeatedly beset by controversies regarding the sources of authority in religion, and the authority and credibility of the Scriptures.
The most recent era of debate and discussion over theological matters can be dated from the General Assembly of 1923. The issues are as familiar as last June’s news from Birmingham. At the 1923 General Assembly, the denomination responded to “doctrines contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian Church” that had been preached in the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church of New York City by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, DD, a Baptist who was associate pastor of that church.3
As a result, the 1923 General Assembly declared “the Holy Spirit did so inspire, guide and move the writers of Holy Scripture as to keep them from error.” It also was agreed that every candidate seeking ordination in the Presbyterian Church ought to be able to affirm “essential and necessary” tenets of Christian belief:
- The inerrancy of Scripture,
- The virgin birth and deity of Jesus Christ,
- The doctrine of substitutionary atonement,
- The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ,
- and The Second Coming of Christ.
The will of the majority of the General Assembly was promptly ignored by the Presbytery of New York, when it ordained Henry P. van Dusen and C.O. Lehman. Both refused to affirm their faith in the virgin birth of Christ.
The controversy boiled over in the 1924 General Assembly when the modernist-liberal faction within the denomination responded with what has come to be known as the Auburn Affirmation. The Auburn Affirmation was actually drafted with the original intention of presenting it to the 1923 General Assembly. However, after events of that General Assembly revealed that the theses of the Affirmation might be favorably received by “moderates” as well as its liberal proponents, it was circulated in preparation for formal presentation to the General Assembly of 1924.
The Auburn Affirmation was the culmination of a 30-year debate between those who embraced the traditional long-standing essential doctrines of historic Christianity and those who favored a modernist-humanist naturalistic rationalism. It was a crucial turning point in the history of American Presbyterianism.
The Auburn Affirmation contains six sections, four of which are theological in substance. The Bible is not inerrant. Rather, the supreme guide of Scripture interpretation is the Spirit of God speaking to the individual believer. Thus, “liberty of conscience” is elevated above Scripture.
None of the five essential doctrines should be used as a test of ordination. Alternative “theories” of these doctrines are permissible.
There is a “constitutional right and … Christian duty … to exercise liberty of thought and teaching within the bounds of evangelical Christianity.”
Division on theological grounds is deplored; unity and freedom are commended.
Referring to the Five Fundamentals as “particular theories,” it says:
- … the General Assembly attempts to commit our church to certain theories concerning the inspiration of the Bible, and the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the Continuing Life and Supernatural Power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all hold most earnestly to these great facts and doctrines; we all believe from our hearts that the writers of the Bible were inspired of God; that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh; that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, and through Him we have our redemption; that having died for our sins He rose from the dead and is our ever-living Savior; that in His earthly ministry He wrought many mighty works, and by His vicarious death and unfailing presence He is able to save to the uttermost. Some of us regard the particular theories contained in the deliverance of the General Assembly of 1923 as satisfactory explanations of these facts and doctrines. But we are united in believing that these are not the only theories allowed by the Scriptures and our standards as explanations of these facts and doctrines of our religion, and that all who hold to these facts and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship (Emphasis added).
The next four decades, between 1924 and 1965, were marked by continued ecumenical activism. This led to the adoption of the Confession of 1967, the church’s first new confession of faith in three centuries. That confession was the fruit of a desire for a “contemporary statement of faith” which, while not replacing the time-tested Westminster Confession of Faith, could be used to water down the older confessions. As a result, over the next 40 years, the PCUSA (and its two major predecessors) engaged in a debate over the issues of Biblical interpretation, the deity of Christ and the nature of God.
The natural result of the ambivalence of the 1924 General Assembly and those that followed echoes loudly in recent pronouncements of the PCUSA.
In 2000, the Rev. Dirk Ficca was invited by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program to give the keynote address at the Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference. In his speech, titled “Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a Diverse World.” Rev. Ficca asked, “Okay, well if God is at work in our lives whether we’re Christian or not, what’s the big deal about Jesus?”
In response, the 213th General Assembly (2001) declared:
- As a witness to what we believe, we affirm the following statement: We confess the unique authority of Jesus Christ as Lord. Every other authority is finally subject to Christ.
- Jesus Christ is also uniquely Savior. It is ‘his life, death, resurrection, ascension and final return that restores creation, providing salvation for all those whom God has chosen to redeem.
- Although we do not know the limits of God’s grace and pray for the salvation of those who may never come to know Christ, for us the assurance of salvation is found only in confessing Christ and trusting Him alone.
- We are humbled in our witness to Christ by our realization that our understanding of him and his way is limited and distorted by our sin. Still the transforming power of Christ in our lives compels us to make Christ known to others. (Minutes of 213th GA, Thursday, Jun 14, 2001)
The 214th General Assembly (2002) responded to Rev. Ficca’s sermon with ambivalence. No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet, we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 Timothy 2:4]. Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith (Emphasis added). (Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, Office of Theology and Worship, PCUSA, 2002).
No further clarification has been offered by the PCUSA. Thus, the PCUSA, despite repeated attempts, still refuses to forthrightly declare that John 14:6 means what it says and to unequivocally say to the world that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
More recently, the PCUSA has hired as a consultant to teach “Cultural Proficiency” to the PCUSA’s national staff in Louisville a Presbyterian “minister” who proudly declares that she is “Christian by birth, a Baha’i by reason, a Taoist in spirit, and a pastor in faith and vocation.” She also says that there are many paths to God and that there is “no capital ‘T’ in Truth.” She questions how “both a faithful believer and a blatant sinner can end up in the same heaven if the sinner confesses and asks for forgiveness on her deathbed.”4
Are these simply two of many other modern “particular theor[ies] … worthy of all confidence and fellowship?” It seems to be so.
The actions of the 2006 General Assembly lead us to the conclusion that the PCUSA has crossed beyond the line of reasonable debate and inquiry. So, what do we do?
As Moses and the people of God wandered for 40 years in the Wilderness, so we, too, have been wandering. The time for wandering and going here and there, in circles or even back-tracking, is past.
Our own history as a denomination reveals that we are not the first generation called to make hard decisions, nor possibly the last. But choose we must, and act we shall. We need to heed God’s promise of a new thing.
God’s revealed and inerrant word guides us:
- “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15)
. Let us take Christ’s message into a sick and hungry world, confessing that Scripture is truly God’s inerrant Word to us, Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God who died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin that they should be forgiven, that he was resurrected bodily and ascended into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of the Father until he comes again in glory to reclaim for himself and those who believe in him his rightful Kingdom.
Now is the time!
This article originally appeared in the final report of the New Wineskins Association of Churches’ strategy team and is included in A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven. It is reprinted here by permission.
Footnotes:
1. Elder, Forks of the Brandywine Presbyterian Church, Glenmoore, Pa., and member of the New Wineskins Association of Churches’ Strategy Team (2006-2007)
2. In fact, Rev. John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, also was involved in the “New Side-Old Side” split of the denomination, a quarter of a century before that famous day in July 1776.
3. In particular, on May 21, 1922, Dr. Fosdick preached a sermon titled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” in which he referred to belief in the virgin birth of our Lord, in the inerrancy of Scripture, and that Christ will actually come again as “the worst exhibitions of bitter intolerance.” The sermon, reprinted and widely published as The New Knowledge and the Christian Faith, called for an “intellectually hospitable, open-minded, liberty loving” Christian fellowship.
4. K. N. Robbins, “Challenges to Being an Inclusive Community: Getting Along in the Garden on Earth” (July 8, 2006, at a meeting of Presbyterian Women). I pray that her “students” in Louisville will direct her to Luke 23: 39-43. (“One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man