"Dr. Coffin Adopts Baby"

"Coffin reminded the group that for a decade and a half, there had been no children in his home. The student assistants had been 'his boys,' sons in the faith, filing a large place in his life. After 1923, there were two children in the home, Ruth Prentice Coffin and David Douglas Coffin, which brought great happiness into the family life which was already full of many-sided interests." --Morgan Phelps Noyes, "Henry Sloan Coffin: The Man and His Ministry"

"The Auburn Heresy"

When future historians of the Church evaluate this present age, the publication of the Auburn Affirmation will stand out in importance like Luther's nailing up his ninety-five theses. But it will be important for a different reason.

The reason the Auburn Affirmation is so important is that it constitutes a major offensive against the Word of God. It, or at least its theology, is the root of Presbyterian apostasy.

--Gordon H. Clark, an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, formerly an elder in the Presbyterian Church in the USA, from an address delivered February 28, 1935 at a mass meeting of Presbyterian Laymen of Philadelphia and vicinity

The Auburn Affirmation of 1924

The Auburn Affirmation of 1924
 
A significant document in the history of American Presbyterianism was the "Auburn Affirmation of 1924," a document drafted and signed by many of the professors and clergy in Auburn, NY who were affiliated with the Auburn Theological Seminary which was located in Auburn at that time.

The Auburn Affirmation was written largely by Robert Hastings Nichols, who was a professor of church history at Auburn Theological Seminary, with the assistance of Henry Sloan Coffin of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City.

The document was a reaction to a decision reached at the 1923 General Assembly, which required the Presbytery of New York to administer a doctrinal examination of Harry Emerson Fosdick, the preacher at First Presbyterian Church, who had openly expressed doubts about the five tenets of the faith espoused by fundamentalists within the denomination, and approved by its General Assembly, in a now-famous sermon titled: "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

The tenets were:
    The inerrancy of scripture
    The virgin birth of Jesus 
     The substitutionary theory of the atonement 
     The bodily or physical resurrection of Christ 
     The performance of miracles by Christ.

If Fosdick failed the exam, the presbytery was to sever the ties between Fosdick and First Church.
It was then that the drafters of the Auburn Affirmation met in Syracuse, arguing that deliverances of the General Assembly are not binding because they are not part of the constitution or the confession of faith.

Referring to the Five Fundamentals listed above as "particular theories", the Affirmation's argument is succinctly summarized in two sentences: "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."

The presbytery exonerated Fosdick and voted to license two other pastors who had refused to affirm the virgin birth; and the subsequent Assembly refused to discipline the signers of the Affirmation or to impose the "five fundamentals" on all church employees. It also told the presbytery that Fosdick could remain in his position at First Church.

Within two years, the fundamentalists' position was defeated, and within five years, the Assembly agreed that the unity of the Presbyterian Church is based not in uniformity, but in "the power of its faith to hold together diverse views and beliefs." The Auburn Affirmation was the culmination of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, which by 1924 had been a conflict of more than thirty years within the Presbyterian Church (USA). It is generally regarded as signalling a turning point in the history of American Presbyterianism, because it garnered the support of both theological traditionalists and liberals.

The Auburn Affirmation has come back in the limelight in recent years as an instructive tool for dealing with the theological and political rifts in the denomination over potentially divisive issues like ordination standards. The Auburn Affirmation of 1924 was significant in that it stressed unity through diversity, and allowed for varying ways of understanding and expressing essential doctrines of faith.

[The final pages, 6 - 13, of the document present a list of 150 signators to the Affirmation. In the second printing as produced by the Jacobs Press of Auburn, NY on May 5, 1924, the final listing of 1293 names was issued. No further names were added in any subsequent printings of the document.

The Auburn Affirmation

from Wikipedia

The Auburn Affirmation was a document dated May 1924, with the title "AN AFFIRMATION designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America," authored by an eleven-member Conference Committee and signed by 1274 ministers of the PCUSA. The Affirmation challenged the right of the highest body of the church, the General Assembly, to impose the Five Fundamentals as a test of orthodoxy without the concurrence of a vote from the regional bodies, the presbyteries. In 1910, 1916, and again in 1923, the General Assembly declared that every candidate seeking to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church ought to be able to affirm

1. Inerrancy of the Scriptures
2. The virgin birth (and the deity of Jesus)
3. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement
4. The bodily resurrection of Jesus
5. The authenticity of Christ's miracles

The Auburn Theological Seminary history professor, Robert Hastings Nichols, proposed to challenge this procedure of repeatedly affirming additional standards of orthodoxy, besides the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith - which were the only standards of orthodoxy officially recognized by the church. The Affirmation denounces that procedure of affirming the Fundamentals in the General Assembly as a contradiction of the history and polity of the Presbyterian Church. It was drafted and signed by a writing group, primarily Nichols and Henry Sloane Coffin, with the original intention of presenting it to the General Assembly of 1923. After events of the Assembly that year appeared to indicate that their thesis would be favorably received by moderates, Coffin suggested that the Affirmation should be signed by ministers before being formally made public; and in accord with that advice it was circulated for signature in preparation for the General Assembly of 1924. Although the Affirmation did not officially come from Auburn Theological Seminary (at that time located in Auburn, New York), the name "Auburn Affirmation" has been attached to the document from the beginning, because of Nichols' influence as the originator of the idea.

The Auburn Affirmation was the culmination of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, which by 1924 had been a conflict of more than thirty years within the Presbyterian Church (USA). It is generally regarded as signalling a turning point in the history of American Presbyterianism, because it garnered the support of both theological traditionalists and liberals. Besides the 1274 signatories, the document as submitted claimed the support of "hundreds of ministers who agree with and approve of the Affirmation, though they have refrained from signing it."

The Affirmation has six sections that can be summarized as:

1. The Bible is not inerrant. The supreme guide of scripture interpretation is the Spirit of God to the individual believer and not ecclesiastical authority. Thus, “liberty of conscience” is elevated.
2. The General Assembly has no power to dictate doctrine to the Presbyteries.
3. The General Assembly’s condemnation of those asserting "doctrines contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian Church" circumvented the due process set forth in the Book of Discipline.
4. None of the five essential doctrines should be used as a test of ordination. Alternated “theories” of these doctrines are permissible.
5. Liberty of thought and teaching, within the bounds of evangelical Christianity is necessary.
6. Division is deplored, unity and freedom are commended.

Referring to the Five Fundamentals as "particular theories", the Affirmation's argument is succinctly summarized in two sentences:

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.

Partly due to the acceptance of the Auburn Affirmation, Presbyterian traditionalists who found themselves displaced because of it went on to found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. This church maintains the older standards, such belief in the five essential doctrines (listed above) and the inerrancy of the bible; these are the minimum requirements for membership in an OPC congregation and ordination for its ministers.

Modernists in the Presbytery

from Two Assembly Previews by Thomas R. Birch
The Presbyterian Guardian
June 10, 1941

FOR those Bible-believers who have elected to remain in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the 153rd General Assembly, meeting in St. Louis from May 22nd to 29th, presents no bright ray of hope. These lines are being written as the assembly opens, and a bureaucratic big-wig has just nosed out an Auburn Affirmationist in the moderatorial race, no foe of Modernism has lifted his voice against the corporate unbelief of the denomination's boards and agencies, and the air is filled only with a frenzied enthusiasm for church union and for the mass-production of resolutions on the subject of war.
We confess that we are appalled when we consider that, for the first time in the history of the church, the general assembly received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from the hands of an Auburn Affirmationist, retiring Moderator William Lindsay Young. The ugly and unadorned fact is more powerful than any editorial comment we could make about it.

Dr. Herbert Booth Smith of Los Angeles, California, and Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin of New York City were the only two moderatorial candidates mentioned prior to the opening of the assembly. There was little to choose between them. Dr. Smith might, it seemed, lose out to Dr. Coffin, for the latter possessed one qualification for election which each year becomes more important. Dr. Coffin is, in short, a signer of the Auburn Affirmation, which denies the doctrine of plenary inspiration and holds as mere theories, which mayor may not be believed, the doctrines of the virgin birth, the substitutionary death of Christ, His bodily resurrection and His miracles. For other facts about Dr. Coffin, see the article, "Modernism's Coffin," by the Rev. Robert B. Brown, in THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN for April 25th.

Dr. Smith, pastor of the second largest church in the denomination, is a member of the Permanent Judicial Commission-the body that brought in the Christ-dishonoring decisions of the Syracuse Assembly in 1936, which ordered the ecclesiastical executions of those who could not bow before
the iniquitous 1934 mandate. This seemed likely to give him a slight advantage over his rival. On the other hand, Dr. Coffin, as president of modernist Union Seminary, New York, for the past fifteen years, was sure to give him a stiff battle. It was impossible to forecast the outcome.

But Dr. Smith, nominated by Princeton's Charles R. Erdman who stressed his candidate's "orthodoxy"
and the "genuineness" of his Presbyterianism, won the gavel on the third ballot by a comparatively microscopic margin. There were 404 commissioners who wanted the Auburn Affirmationist candidate, and 461 who preferred Dr. Smith.

It is worth noting, also, that Affirmationist Coffin was nominated by Affirmationist Jesse Halsey, and that a dark horse who was scratched after the second ballot was Affirmationist William R. Farmer of Pittsburgh, Visiting Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Seminary in 1937-38.

Church union, that hardy perennial of previous assemblies, will again come under the spotlight. Serious wooing of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (the Southern Church) and of the Protestant Episcopal Church has been going on for some time, along with a mild flirtation with the United Presbyterians and the Methodists. The Southern Church is the only one that offers much hope of early nuptials, and it is likely that serious troth-plighting will occupy the current assembly. The Southern
Church, quite plausibly, has entertained some doubt as to the doctrinal soundness of its neighbor, and last year those doubts were strengthened by the refusal of the Northern assembly to adopt an overture reaffirming, in substance, the five points of the 1923 assembly which the Auburn Affirmation so effectively denies. This year conservatives and Modernists have lovingly linked arms and declared
their united hope that the assembly will adopt an overture from the Presbytery of Cedar Rapids, designed to assure the Southern Church that the Northern denomination is oh so
sound and that together they could be just one big happy family. Because of its tremendous significance, no matter which way the vote goes, we reprint the entire overture:

• Whereas, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., has deemed it wise to declare itself in a "didactic, advisory and monitory" manner concerning the essential truths involved in the ordination vows to which ministers and elders subscribe; and
   
• Whereas, The doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. are substantially identical with our standards, and
• 
  Whereas, It is the hope and prayer of cur denomination that these two great branches of the Presbyterian Church might once again be organically united in the service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and
   
• Whereas, We believe that this will be a denominations together,
   
• Therefore, The Presbytery of Cedar Rapids, meeting in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, on April 28 and 29, 1941, respectfully overtures the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., meeting in St. Louis, Mo., in May, 1941, to declare that it regards the acceptance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Scriptures, and of Christ as very and eternal God, who became man by being born of a virgin, who offered Himself a Sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God, who rose from the dead with the same body with which He suffered, and who will return again to judge the world, as being involved in the ordination vows to which we subscribe.

. . . The Presbyterian Church in the U.S. is proceeding with great caution on the matter of union, and has exhibited none of the frantic eagerness shown by its Northern neighbor. We hope that a continued thorough investigation of the doctrinal condition of the latter denomination will eventually lead the Southern Church to abandon the entire project.