Fundamentalism and American Culture
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24. William R. Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, Mass., 1976) says “modernism” generally meant these three things.
25. Hutchison, Modernist Impulse, pp. 226–56, while acknowledging strong liberal enthusiasm for the war, emphasizes that many liberal Protestants worked to be moderating influences on wartime patriotism. Abrams, Preachers Present Arms, pp. 15–231, documents many extreme expressions by liberals and conservatives alike.
26. Shailer Mathews, “Will Jesus Come Again?” (Chicago, 1917) (pamphlet). The account is in The King’s Business IX (April, 1918), p. 176. Among replies are Reuben A. Torrey, “Will Christ Come Again? An Exposure of the Foolishness, Fallacies and Falsehoods of Shailer Mathews” (Los Angeles, 1918) (pamphlet); I. M. Haldeman, “Prof. Shailer Mathews’ Burlesque on the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (New York, 1918) (pamphlet); William B. Riley, “Christ Will Come Again: A Reply to a Darwinian Seminary Professor” (n. d. [1918]) (pamphlet).
27. Case, Millennial Hope (Chicago, 1918), pp. v-vi and passim.
28. Quoted from the Chicago Daily News. January 21, 1918, in The King’s Business IX (April, 1918), p. 276.
29. During the two years there were fifteen issues and nine features on the subject (some being parts of series). There were also two features on premillennialism in the latter part of 1917 and several in 1920.
30. Editorial comment prefacing William E. Hammand, “The End of the World,” Biblical World LI (May, 1918), p. 272.
31. Case, “Premillennial Menace,” Biblical World LII (July, 1918), pp. 21, 16–17. The King’s Business IX (April, 1918), p. 277, mentions that one of their brethren had been arrested for preaching premillennialism and accused of treason, but had been immediately discharged by federal authorities. They mention no other such problems.
Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago 1970), says that “although Mathews did not relent in his campaign against the millenarian threat, the contributions he published in later months practically disowned Case’s diatribe and censured his attitude.” This is inaccurate except with regard to the one short essay that Sandeen cites, T. Valentine Parker, “Premillenarianism: An Interpretation and an Evaluation,” Biblical World LIII (January, 1919), pp. 37–40. This essay is introduced only to balance some of the more strident attacks, one of which immediately precedes it, pp. 26–36. Cf. the series by Harris F. Rail, “Premillennialism,” especially part II, (November, 1919), pp. 618–19, where the charge of subversiveness to the democratic war aims is repeated. Cf. also the essay of March, 1919, pp. 165–73. See also George Preston Mains, Premillennialism: Non-Scriptural, Non-Historic, Non-Scientific, Non-Philosophical (New York, 1920) for another non-sympathetic liberal account.
32. Szasz, “Three Fundamentalist Leaders,” pp. 123–24, documents the Christian Century’s and other liberal attacks on premillennialism.
33. The King’s Business IX (April, 1918), p. 277.
34. Thomas, “Germany and the Bible,” Bibliotheca Sacra LXXII (January, 1915), pp. 49–66, already makes strongly-worded attacks.
35. Thomas, “German Moral Abnormality,” Bibliotheca Sacra LXXVI (January, 1919), pp. 84–104.
36. Editorial Our Hope XXV (July, 1918), p. 49. The quotations are from The Baptist Temple News of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
37. Greene, “The Present Crisis in Ethics,” Princeton Review XVII (January, 1919), esp. pp. 2–8. Cf. the strident attack in The Presbyterian LXXXVIII (August 1, 1918), p. 10, George W. McPherson, “German Theology Also Must Go From America.”
38. Kellogg, “‘Kultur’—Applied Evolution,” The King’s Business X (February, 1919), p. 155.
39. The King’s Business as early as December, 1917, VIII, p. 1065, was pointing out the connections among evolution, “might is right,” and Germany. Torrey in his reply to Mathews, “Will Christ Come Again?” makes a similar point, pp. 28–29. Cf. William B. Riley, “The Last Times,” Christ and Glory: Addresses Delivered at the New York Prophetic Conference, Carnegie Hall, November 25–28, 1918 (New York, 1919?), pp. 161–75. Of the roles of A. C. Dixon and William Jennings Bryan in applying the argument to the American situation, Chapters XVII-XVIII below.
40. These ideas were not strictly contradictory since one might well believe that in the long run there is no hope but in the meantime it is worth engaging in limited actions to “hold the fort.” Robert Elwood Wenger, “Social Thought in American Fundamentalism 1918–1933,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1973, pp. 147–48 gives examples of this explanation, including James M. Gray’s use of “hold the fort.” The same tension can be seen in premillennialist and later fundamentalist thought regarding the prohibition crusade, which some endorsed enthusiastically and others virtually ignored, Wenger, pp. 241–48.
41. Norris Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums (Metuchen, N.J. 1977), p. 157; Christian Herald XLI (1918), passim.
42. Our Hope XXIV (April, 1918), p. 629.
43. “Current Events and Signs of the Times,” Our Hope XXV (July, 1918), p. 48.
44. Gray, “What the Bible Teaches About War,” Christian Workers Magazine XVIII (October, 1917), pp. 856–61.
45. Ibid. In his very perceptive observations on this theme, Paul A. Carter quotes this essay, adding the remark, “Fundamentalism may have been not so much one of the causes of that wartime and postwar intolerance, as has so often been assumed, as it was one of its victims.” Carter, “The Fundamentalist Defense of the Faith,” John Braeman, et al., eds., Change and Continuity in 20th-Century America: The 1920’s (Columbus, Ohio, 1968). This is an outstanding essay.
46. Editorial Christian Workers Magazine XVIII (June, 1918), p. 775.
47. Editorial The King’s Business VIII (June, 1917), pp. 485–86.
48. Editorial The King’s Business IX (January, 1918), pp. 5–7, IX (April, 1918), p. 280.
49. The King’s Business IX (May, 1918), pp. 365–66. This quotation is from Henry Watterson in a Christmas editorial in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The King’s Business editor adds, “This certainly was a very appropriate Christmas message,” and he adds the observation that evolutionary teaching and higher criticism will lead in the same direction for America.
50. E.g., editorial The King’s Business IX (January, 1918), p. 2.
51. The King’s Business IX (July, 1918), pp. 546–47 (editorial written before May 30).
52. Editorial The King’s Business IX (August, 1918), pp. 642–43.
53. Editorial The King’s Business IX (December, 1918), pp. 1026–27. By contrast, John Roach Straton found the fast day largely ignored in New York City and predicted the imminent destruction of the city. “Will New York Be Destroyed if it Does Not Repent?” (sermon) [Summer, 1918], The Menace of Immorality in Church and State (New York, 1920), p. 176.
54. A. E. Thompson, “The Capture of Jerusalem,” Light on Prophecy, pp. 144–75; Arno C. Gaebelein, “The Capture of Jerusalem and the Glorious Future of that City,” Christ and Glory, pp. 145–60.
55. Riley, “Is Our Part in this War Justifiable,” sermon manuscript for October 21, 1917, Riley Collection, Northwestern College, Minnesota.
56. Riley, “The Gospel for War Times,” Light on Prophecy, pp. 329–42. Wenger, “Social Thought,” p. 148, after noting the disagreement within premillennialism over political involvement, observes in passing that the “activist viewpoint” came to dominate fundamentalism in the 1920s.
57. Riley himself continued to wrestle with this subject. In criticizing the Interchurch Movement for identifying the Kingdom with political goals, he says: “Personally I cannot find a place in my Bible that even remotely hints a civilization of any sort as an object of the Church of God.” “The Interchurch and the Kingdom by Violence” (pamphlet) (n. p., n. d. [c. 1920]), p. 7 and passim. However, at the 1918 prophecy conference in Philadelphia he says: “I vote with a vengeance…. I have had three debates in my life. One was a liquor fight in my city. We won … and I would to it again…. When I read articles fro
m brethren saying we have another and a higher mission, I confess to you I hardly know who is the right man. We are citizens of this earth, and yet at the same time we have a citizenship in heaven….” Question period, Light on Prophecy, p. 349.
58. See Chapter XXIII below.
59. For instance, this is a central point made by Clarence E. Macartney in a pamphlet, “Truths Tested by the World War” (Philadelphia, 1919), pp. 14–17. Cf. The Presbyterian, LXXXIX (May 29, 1919), Editorial p. 3, “This is a time when emphatically he who exalts himself shall be abased.” On reaction of non-dispensationalist Baptists, who do not seem to fit well any one of these four types, see Chapter XVII.
XVII. Fundamentalism and the Cultural Crisis: 1919–1920
1. Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920 (Minneapolis, 1955), gives a detailed account that leans heavily toward this interpretation.
2. Cf. David Burner, “1919: Prelude to Normalcy,” John Braeman, et al., eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America: The 1920’s (Columbus, Ohio, 1968), pp. 3–31.
3. King’s Business X (June, 1919), p. 588.
4. The editors in the same issue suggest both these themes in their comment that “until Jesus Christ comes to ‘rule with a rod of iron,’ there is just one way to really get at the problem of reconstruction: by a vigorous presentation of the Gospel of salvation to the individual.” A long series of editorials deals with anti-Christian elements in schools and universities, the churches, home life, crime, the social crisis, apostacies and the sects, and possible closings of mission fields. Ibid., pp. 588–99.
5. The Philadelphia College of the Bible, for instance, where C. I. Scofield was the dominant voice, confined its occasional comments on the world situation basically to confirmations of prophecy. E.g., Harry Framer Smith, “The Biblical Sequence of our Imperiled Civilization,” Serving and Waiting IX (July, 1919), pp. 127–31, 136, emphasizes that the crisis confirms premillennial pessimism.
6. The Christian Workers Magazine XIX (July, 1919), pp. 787–88.
7. Editorial The Moody Monthly (Christian Workers Magazine) XXI (Sept., 1920), p. 7; cf. editorial XXI (Dec., 1920), p. 151 which indicates that most religious liberals voted for the League and most Bible teachers against it. Cf. attack on the League, Our Hope XXVI (July, 1919), pp. 48–51; but cf. also the more moderate view of A. C. Dixon, “The League of Nations,” King’s Business X (May, 1919), pp. 402–5.
8. Our Hope XXIII (July, 1916), p. 44.
9. Editorial Our Hope XXVI (July, 1919), pp. 50–51, cf. editorials XXVI (Sept., 1919), pp. 168–69, and (October, 1919), pp. 229–31.
The Moody Bible Institute published a full two-page advertisement in The Watchman-Examiner VIII (July 15, 1920), entitled “The Answer to Labor Unrest,” showing students of twenty-six nationalities at MBI and contrasting this melting pot to radical revolutionaries preaching class hatred.
10. Editorial Our Hope XXVII (July, 1920), p. 40. Cf. Chapter XXIII below, “Fundamentalism as a Political Phenomenon.”
11. E.g., editorials The King’s Business X (June, 1919), p. 592, and Our Hope XXVI (Sept., 1919), p. 168.
12. Editorial The King’s Business X (April, 1919), p. 295; cf. editorial “Corruption among the Youth,” Our Hope XXVII (July, 1920), p. 43.
13. Editorial XI (March, 1920), p. 244.
14. From sermon, Nov. 27, 1919, Baptist Temple News IX (Jan. 3, 1920).
15. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago, 1970), p. 243–47 describes the formation of the WCFA.
16. God Hath Spoken: Twenty-five addresses delivered at the World Conference of Christian Fundamentals (Philadelphia, 1919), pp. 7–8.
17. This Fundamentals Conference was not the first organized by Bible teachers and designed primarily for the defense of the faith. Arthur T. Pierson, The Inspired Word (London, 1888), is the record of the conference held in Philadelphia in 1887 on the doctrine of Scripture. Apparently, the impact was much less than that of the Fundamentals Conference.
18. The Presbyterian XC (January 8, 1920), p. 3. In The Presbyterian the Red menace does not seem to have been a large issue.
19. “Convention Side Lights,” Watchman-Examiner VIII (July 1, 1920), p. 834.
20. Call to the conference, reprinted in Watchman-Examiner VIII (May 20, 1920), p. 652. “Rationalism” was at this time used very widely to describe the opposition’s position. The Watchman-Examiner says “Rationalism fully developed denies that there is any authority over a man external to his own mind or any revelation of truth except through science,” X (June 15, 1922), p. 745. Cf. the very similar definition, editorial The Presbyterian XCII (Jan. 12, 1922), p. 6.
21. This is essentially the thesis of Paul Carter’s excellent essay, “The Fundamentalist Defense of the Faith,” in Braeman et al., eds., Change and Continuity.
22. Editorial King’s Business XII (March, 1921), p. 217, and editorial XI (Dec., 1920), p. 1111.
23. Cf. William B. Riley, “Modernism in Baptist Schools,” Baptist Fundamentals: Being Addresses Delivered at the Pre-Convention Conference at Buffalo, June 21 & 22, 1920 (Philadelphia, 1920), pp. 165–88.
24. J. C. Massee, “Opening Address,” ibid., pp. 5 and 8. A good bit of the rhetoric of Baptist fundamentalism in this period attacks ecclesiastical centralization, particularly the interdenominational Inter-Church World Movement and efforts to organize the Northern Baptist denomination more centrally, especially its publications. Decentralization as such, however, does not seem to have been much of an issue, because fundamentalists expressed desires for strong denominational controls regarding doctrinal issues, particularly in relation to the schools. Massee, for instance (ibid., p. 6), laments the lack of central control over Baptist schools.
25. Dixon presented the same theme to the WCFA meeting of 1920, Norman F. Furniss, The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918–1931 (New Haven, 1954), p. 51. Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., Controversy in the Twenties (Nashville, Tenn., 1969), pp. 117–24 reprints a 1922 version of the same speech. Gatewood’s volume is an excellent collection of sources on fundamentalism, modernism, and evolution.
26. Cf. Chapter XVIII below.
27. See C. Allyn Russell, Voices of American Fundamentalism (Philadelphia, 1976), pp. 20–46, and below, Chapter XXI.
28. Straton certainly preached a doctrine of traditional salvation at this time, but the degree to which he might also be classified as a progressive social reformer is a matter of some debate. See Hillyer H. Straton, “John Roach Straton: Prophet of Social Righteousness,” Foundations V (Jan., 1962), pp. 17–38; Ferenc M. Szasz, “Three Fundamentalist Leaders,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1969, esp. pp. 70–71; Walter Ross Peterson, “John Roach Straton: Portrait of a Fundamentalist Preacher,” Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 1961, esp. pp. 210–18, 226–27; C. Allyn Russell, Voices, pp. 47–78.
29. See, for instance, the quotation in Russell, Voices, p. 57, where Straton says that the future “will be a time of individualism so far as individualism is essential to progress, yet a time of more cooperation and less strife. It will be a time of less injustice and more truth…” etc. This progress is related to the advance of the Gospel.
30. Szasz, “Three Fundamentalist Leaders,” p. 212, says Straton’s arrival in New York heralded the end of his progressive social emphases.
31. Watchman-Examiner VI (July 25, 1918), pp. 953–54. Also in Straton, The Menace of Immorality to Church and State (New York, 1920).
32. Straton was not among the speakers at the New York prophecy conference of 1918. In addition to continuing WCFA connections, he was on the planning committee for the Baptist Fundamentals conference of 1920. I know of no study of his apparent shift to premillennialism.
33. Quoted from Stanley Walker, “The Meshuggah of Manhattan,” The New Yorker, April 16, 1927, in Russell, Voices, p. 50.
34. Fighting the Devil in Modern Babylon (Boston, 1929), pp. 266, 269. Szasz, “Three Fundamentalist Leaders,” pp. 215–16, indicates this w
as written in 1920. In the preface to this book Straton indicates his disillusion with reform and “social service,” p. ii. This later book indicates a tendency, common in fundamentalism after 1925, toward increasing frustration and extremism. Straton supported several unsuccessful attempts to found major nationwide fundamentalist agencies (such as George Washburn’s Bible Crusaders) prior to his death in 1929. Cf. Szasz, pp. 286–95.
35. Fighting the Devil, p. 18.
36. Straton gained national prominence in 1923–24 in a series of debates with Charles Francis Potter, a Unitarian minister. These debates were on the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, creation, the Virgin Birth, and the Incarnation. A fifth on premillennialism was cancelled. See Russell, Voices, pp. 66–75, for a good account.
XVIII. The Fundamentalist Offensives on Two Fronts: 1920–1921
1. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago, 1970), pp. 152 and 239.
2. Watchman-Examiner V (January 18, 1917), p. 101.
3. Norman H. Maring, “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible, 1865–1918,” Foundations I (October, 1958), pp. 39 and 55.
4. Watchman-Examiner V (January 18, 1917), pp. 101–2.
5. Grant A. Wacker, Jr., “Augustus H. Strong: A Conservative Confrontation with History,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1978, presents a valuable account of Strong’s intellectual struggles. Strong wrote Rauschenbusch in 1912 that Christianizing the Social Order was “a great book.” Yet in 1917 when Rauschenbusch dedicated Theology for the Social Gospel to Strong, Strong expressed his disagreement with its main themes. Wacker, p. 230.
6. Strong, A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions (Philadelphia, 1918), p. 192.
7. The story seems never to have appeared.
8. E.g., George F. Pentecost, “The Interchurch Movement and Revival,” The Presbyterian XC (May 20, 1920), p. 8.