William Jennings Bryan

from Wikipedia

Bryan was worried that the theory of evolution was making grounds not only in the universities, but also within the church itself. Many colleges were still church-affiliated at this point. The developments of 19th century liberal theology, and higher criticism in particular, had left the door open to the point where many clergymen were willing to embrace the theory of evolution and claimed that it was not contradictory with their being Christians.

Determined to put an end to this, Bryan, who had long served as a Presbyterian elder, decided to run for the position of Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, which was at the time embroiled in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist-Modernist_Controversy. (Under Presbyterian church governance, clergy and laymen are equally represented in the General Assembly, and the post of Moderator is open to any member of the General Assembly.) Bryan's main competition in the [1923] race was the Rev. Charles F. Wishart, president of the College of Wooster, who had loudly endorsed the teaching of the theory of evolution in the college. Bryan lost to Wishart by a vote of 451-427. Bryan then failed in a proposal to cut off funds to schools where the theory of evolution was taught. Instead, the General Assembly announced disapproval of materialistic (as opposed to theistic) evolution.

Charles Wishart and William Jennings Bryan

The Philadelphia Overture addressing Fosdick came to the 1923 General Assembly meeting in Indianapolis. The two leading contenders for the office of moderator at this Assembly were Charles Wishart, president of the College of Wooster in Ohio, and William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential contender, Presbyterian elder, and crusader against the theory of biological evolution. Bryan was convinced that the theory of biological evolution not only undercut biblical authority and Christian doctrine, but also cut the nerve of moral reform and destroyed the foundation of Christian civilization. His entry into the moderatorial race brought the issue of biological evolution front and center on the Presbyterian agenda. Moreover, inasmuch as the College of Wooster taught biological evolution in its curriculum, the issue provided a clear choice for the Assembly.³³ In the words of one reporter for the New York Times, the Presbyterian Church was "being divided into evolutionists and anti-evolutionists."³⁴

Though Bryan was considered the clear frontrunner early on, he lost the election by a narrow margin, signaling the church's unease with Bryan's strident opposition to evolutionary thought. Indeed, the Assembly later defeated a hotly contested motion to oppose the teaching of biological evolution in Presbyterian schools and adopted a much milder resolution that instructed church judicatories to "withhold their official approval from such academies, colleges, and training schools where any teaching or instruction is given which seeks to establish a materialistic evolutionary philosophy of life or which disregards or attempts to discredit the Christian faith."³⁵ Most Presbyterians, even many theologically conservative Presbyterians like Machen, were willing to accept biological evolution to some degree.


The Committee on Bills and Overtures, which handled the Fosdick controversy, recommended no action pending the results of the investigation of the New York Presbytery. But militant conservatives were in no mood to leave Fosdick's fate in the hands of the liberal New York Presbytery. After long and acrimonious debate, the Assembly reaffirmed the five fundamentals of the faith first declared in 1910 and instructed the Presbytery of New York to bring the preaching of First Presbyterian Church, New York, into conformity with the Westminster Confession.³⁶

Hard upon this decision, however, liberals mobilized a public counteroffensive to this conservative victory. Henry Sloane Coffin, for example, a prominent liberal and pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, issued a statement claiming that he agreed completely with Fosdick and if Fosdick were disciplined he should be also.³⁷ Liberals like Coffin were convinced that if Christianity was going to appeal to thinking men and women and transform the world into God's Kingdom then it had to present a united front based on doctrinal liberty. As proponents of the Social Gospel, liberals believed that true evangelism had to bring all of life -- industry, education, and government -- under the gospel in order to "make the world the kingdom of God."³⁸ The liberal battle against fundamentalism was, therefore, not simply a fight for the tolerance of liberal theology but also a crusade to advance the Kingdom of God on earth.³⁹

--"For Church and Country: The Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict in the Presbyterian Church" by Bradley J. Longfield

Letter from Wooster College President Charles Frederick Wishart

Letter from Charles Frederick Wishart*, President, Wooster College, 1919-1944 | June 8, 1939 | re: Jesse Halsey's candidacy for Vice Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church

*According to the Wooster College website, President Wishart was dubbed "Master of the Spoken Word," and "eloquently defended Wooster's decision to teach evolution against attacks by William Jennings Bryan in 1922, three years prior to the famous Scopes trial."