Religion: Warning to Preachers

from TIME | Monday, Jan. 19, 1953

A monstrance, in the Roman Catholic Church, is a finely worked vessel, usually made of gold or silver, which contains the consecrated Host. This, Catholics believe, is the Real Presence of Christ. The monstrance of Protestantism, however, is the preaching of its ministers, and the faith of the Reformers was based on the assurance that "God met His people in His word." Using this comparison, Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, 76, longtime president of Union Theological Seminary and onetime (1943-44) Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., has written Communion Through Preaching (Scribner; $2.50), a short but striking book about the preaching sacrament of Protestantism —and how poorly a lot of Protestants understand it.

Currently, Dr. Coffin finds, there are few congregations which do not suffer from a surplus of "ministerial chat." "A talk on current events, or on some social evil, or on managing one's feelings, escaping one's worries, or overcoming fears, on 'integrating one's personality' ... is hardly the vehicle for the personal approach of Almighty God eliciting adoration, trust and love."

What should a sermon be? To Dr. Coffin, a sermon "exalts, God in Christ for worship that He may enter into personal fellowship with listeners." This is no figure of speech. Preaching is the essence of Protestantism. By hearing the Word preached, and receiving it with faith, Protestants get the Divine grace which Roman Catholics believe can come only through receiving Sacraments.

No true preaching is possible without the Bible. "It is no pulpit convention," writes Dr. Coffin, "which requires a text from Scripture. It is the effort to recapture for our messages today the supreme quality of revealing God."

The Fringes & the Weary. "To how many of us," he adds, "both in pulpit and pew, might the question be put : 'Received ye the Holy Spirit when ye believed?' . . .

Our congregation might reply: 'The Holy Spirit — why that is what they talk about in the fringe sects, not in proper congregations affiliated with the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.' Yes. and that is perhaps one rea son why these fringe sects keep springing up in place after place." Along with the fringe sects (and the founders of Protestantism), Presbyterian Coffin believes that the Spirit may and must come to those who preach His Word and hear it.

Dr. Coffin blames many ministers for making their sermons exhortations, instead of attempted acts of grace. "The curse of our pulpit is its bald moralism.

The ambassador of Christ forgets his embassy, says next to nothing of the Master he is representing, and spends his time telling those before him what they ought to be and to do ...

"Movements, crusades, campaigns, missions have filled the horizon. One sometimes wonders what there has been in public worship for the very large number of persons who were in no position to participate in these strenuous efforts . . . Our Lord's gracious invitation to 'the weary and heavy laden' has not been prominent in American preaching . . ."

"The Pitfalls & the Miracle. Even after a minister has mastered the fact that preaching should be an act of grace, Dr. Coffin admits, there are many technical pitfalls. Wide and averagely educated audiences must be held by simple, graphic language. ("A minister has to expurgate his vocabulary of ... words . . . such as 'expurgate.'") A good way to learn: try preaching to children or casual audiences. ("Nothing would be more educational for most ministers than to be asked to address chance audiences on street corners.") At the same time, warns Preacher Coffin, there are all too few pulpits today which can satisfy "educated and mature listeners."

Concludes Dr. Coffin: "A few skillfully chosen words—thoughts clearly in line with the mind of Christ—a man speaking earnestly of that which has mastered him, and there is something heard that all men with ears recognize as Divine. Think what it means: it is the power of letting God become manifest."

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820866,00.html

Dr. Halsey Starts Twentieth Year!

A Living Hope

1932

1937 Union Theological Summer Session Catalogue

"He breaks the ‘Bread of Life’ with clean hands."

from a student of Jesse Halsey's at McCormick

 

FOREWARD

It may be a presumptuous for a student to undertake the task of writing a biography of his professor, but the joy that the writer has gleaned from making new and rich discoveries of insights into the character of his “Ideal” has and will out-weigh any possible misunderstandings relative to gathering and interpreting the facts.

The writer wishes to thank all who have asked him in obtaining information about Dr. Halsey: Dr. John Frederick Lyons for assisting in finding some of the articles that Dr. Halsey wrote and The Reverend L.W. Harvison a personal friend and admirer of Dr. Halsey who gave many interesting facts about him as a pastor in the Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.

The “biographer” wishes to beg pardon from Dr. Halsey for the poor attempt at writing his biography. The writer will be very happy to have corrections made where needed.

“My Ideal”

Dr. Jesse Halsey was born in Southampton, Long Island, New York. “Go where you will through these United States, when you find certain names you know their forbears came sometime or other from Southampton—such names as these: Howell, Sayre, HALSEY, Pierson, Cooper, Herrick, Fordham, and Topping.[1]

Along with his big wrists and heavy hands go his covetous ability of doing a thousand-and-one things properly and well. The present writer, observing that these characteristics are generally those of men who have spent many of the formative years on a farm, was not surprised to learn that his “Biographee” was once a farm boy. Could any but a farmer’s heart “see” “farm houses low and sturdy with grey weathered shingles punctuate the flat countryside. Shingles three feet long, rived from red cedar that grew in the swamps, worn thin now where they have defied the east-wind-driven storms of two hundred winters and the bristling heat of as many summers, but with butts still thick enough to cast healthy shadows in endless parallel windows where the long sweeping roofs on the north side slope almost to the ground . . .

“Leaning barns and wood sheds where eel-spears and clam rakes and harpoons prod the latest agricultural machinery. A discarded seine is sometimes seen, used now as a net for tennis or volleyball, but a swift reminder of days when corn was grown with fish for fertilizer—‘two bunkers to a hill.’”[2]

After having done countless chores on the farm and having laid an academic foundation he went to Princeton where he sat at the feet of the famous teacher who conceived the idea for the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson. A little insight into a teacher-student relationship is suggested by the two swapping dictionaries. After Princeton, Dr. Halsey went to Union Seminary.

Dr. Halsey served with Dr. Wilfred Thomas Grenfell in Labrador, doing countless and diverse duties from fixing plumbing to assisting at the operating table. With Dr. Grenfell, Dr. Halsey shared the rewards of skillful service joyfully rendered. “Dr. Grenfell always had a high regard for him. The same is true of men like Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin and Dr. Robert E. Speer,” writes the Reverend L.W. Harvison.

During the First World War, Dr. Halsey served abroad as chaplain, ministering to our men “whatever, whenever, and wherever.” At the close of the war he “returned from Russia and spoke at the synod of Ohio concerning the fame of Wilson and America in Russia at that time.”[3]

Accepting a pastorate in Cincinnati, Dr. Halsey soon became a “leader of a small growing group of ‘liberal’ ministers at a time when it was dangerous to be known in that Presbytery as a liberal. Largely under his influence, the spirit of that Presbytery was changed from one of belligerent fundamentalism to one of a harmonious fellowship of men of divergent theological beliefs.[4]

While pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church there in Cincinnati, Dr. Halsey organized what is now known as the “Presbyterian Ministers’ Breakfast Club.” It meets the first Monday in each month in the dining room of that church. This club grew out of a need for ministers to “get together” in attempting to solve problems and to lay plans. Thanks to the resourcefulness of Dr. Halsey the club was organized and given such a start as to be still a high-light of the month for the ministers.

He is the type of man to whom men instinctively turn for help in time of trouble. He has gone beyond the bounds of organized religion to be friendly to men of other faiths and cults. To other ministers he has been a kind of “pastor’s pastor” or a bishop without Episcopal authority because he has cared nothing for authority over others. “He has unstintedly given of his time to help others and has always been interested in the pastors of the small churches who have been in need.”[5]

Not only is he an outstanding churchman, but a citizen. At Cincinnati he was a positive force for civic righteousness. “There are things to see in Cincinnati—as in any other big city. I am not thinking of them except as they help one to feel the pulse of the municipality and gauge its inner spirit. The Chamber of Commerce will direct you to the sights of the town. I would guide you to its heart.”[6]

“His church was always interested in missions and gave generously. He was interested in improving conditions of church life in the deteriorated West End of Cincinnati. I have known him to drive thirty miles to take food and money to an old man and his wife who were strangers but appealed to him in need. I do not suppose that even he knows how much of his money he has given away to those in need. But these things were never done with an eye to publicity . . . He is a man of humility and utterly devoid of pretension. He has taken criticism humbly where many of us might have been disposed to defend ourselves against it.[7]

Even his best friends do not consider him as a great preacher, yet he is a great preacher from the standpoint that when he preaches it is truth coming out of his big heart and personality. “He is a man who, as much or perhaps more than any other I know, incarnates his gospel.”[8]

He has given many the impression of being blessed with a strong physical constitution, by maintaining a physical pace that is beyond the energy and inclination of most men. He did much of his reading late at night after his family retired and while most of his fellow ministers were asleep.

He breaks the ‘Bread of Life’ with clean hands. “I think he has never said anything ‘off-color’ or smutty.”[9]

“He is a man with a variety of interests: music, art glass, poetry, short stories, cooking, painting, and whatnot . . . He is at much at home in a pair of overalls with a rake or shovel in his hands as in a pulpit robe . . . In Cincinnati, he organized a group of ministers to paint the interior of my church. It would be interesting to know just how many churches he has helped to decorate on the inside and outside.”[10] During the fall and winter of 1945, he was not only instrumental in getting the chapel organ put in, but he did some of the work. During the Christmas holidays he and a few students painted the interior of the chapel.

Dr. Halsey has always been a man of open-mindedness, but he has been unfailing in loyalty to Christ. As a professor of Pastoral Theology he attempts to see (and does see) both sides of the question. He can see with the eyes of the so-called “liberals,” “conservatives,” “radicals,” and whatnot. He sees through the eyes of pupil as well as teacher. He is a friend to everyone.

The “biographer” has made reasonable effort to find and read as much of his writings as possible. Again the old saying, “Great teachers do little writing” is illustrated. The most widely known of his work as a composter and compiler I believe, is his most helpful suggestions for funerals: LIVING HOPE.

The article on the newly revised Book of Common Worship, “A Sense of Direction”[11] gives insight into the Pastor as a lover of good form in worship. (Dr. Halsey served on the revision committee.) The article on “Books of Common Worship” that appeared in the winter number of “Religion in Life” (1933) gives a rather complete list and helpful comments on the various books. Dr. Halsey’s rich, suggestive and helpful prayers, responses, and litanies often have some quotation or paraphrase from works of such great men as Dr. W.E. Orchard and Dr. John Hunter.

Dr. Halsey generously gives much credit to many great men as having exerted influence upon him. It was Dr. Richard S. Campbell, says Dr. Halsey, who influenced him to enter the ministry. About a dozen great men who influenced Dr. Halsey had as their model Maltie Babcock. “Behind him (Dr. Halsey) have been certain persons of Christian influence: his father, his sister, Dr. Grenfell, Dr. Coffin, and others I may not know.”[12]

Dr. Halsey has been shepherding the “budding undershepherds” here at the seminary since 1939. He was not here long before the students found in him a confidential and able counselor. One student remarked, “Dr. Halsey has more ‘horse-sense’ than all of the other professors put together.’”

Dr. Halsey’s office is the most popular office for students seeking sound advice, or coming with sorrows or joys. He gives the student the impression that he has all the time needed to listen to some problem.

It is unfortunate (for the students) that Dr. Halsey’s many duties require his presence off the campus. [Amen is written in the margin by JH.]

In class he is careful to give the student a wholesome combination of the scholarly with the practical. He also sees that every student who takes his courses shall at least know something about weddings and funerals.

The present writer has heard him called or referred to as “Skipper” and “Uncle Jesse.” Perhaps his “nick-names” will suggest a much better biography than a hurried student can possibly write.

[handwritten at bottom] Humbly I say “thank you.” I’ll try to live up to the implications. JH

---

[1] “The East riding of Yorkshire,” Jesse Halsey, The Presby. Tribune, July 1940, p. 12.

[2] IBID, p. 11.

[3] From a personal letter from L.W. Harvison, Harvey, Ill. Oct. 24, ’46.

[4] IBID.

[5] IBID.

[6] “The Spirit of Cincinnati,” Jesse Halsey, The Presbyterian Tribune, May 16, 1935.

[7] From a personal letter from L.W. Harvision.

[8] IBID.

[9] IBID.

[10] IBID

[11] Jesse Halsey, The Presbyterian Tribune, July 1944, p. 17.

[12] From a personal letter from L.W. Harvison.

The Jesse Halsey Manuscript Collection. Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

Committee of Seventy-nine to Help Protestant Conference at Geneva.

March 22, 1920

New York Times

An American Ecumenical Conference Committee compose of seventy-nine church leaders, has been formed in preparation for the Protestant Ecumenical Conference, which will be held on Aug. 10 and 11, at Geneva, Switzerland. It will be the first such council since the Reformation.

Wage Drive for Negro Ministers

The Continent | 1922

Sam Higginbottom to Jesse Halsey

July 23, 1941

Books of Worth

--> Jesse Halsey

c1934

  

“The Reason for Living” answers many questions that the contemporary mind is asking religious and other values. Its author is Dean Wicks of the Princeton Chapel. He was long time a pastor in a mill town, knows the life practical as well as scholastic, and represents a warm Evangelical faith in the heart of a real man, and in his mind, as it wrestles with doubt and difficulty, for serious students, in college or out.

“You Can Master Life,” by Jas. G. Gilkey, is ‘rational pep medicine to a college athlete. To a parish minister it appeals as common sense applied to everyday life problems with a modicum of religious verbiage, but with sound religious experience, though the expressions are more often Stoic than traditionally Christian.

In this, and in his numerous other books, Dr. Gilkey has been (unconsciously?) writing something that I should ineptly call, “A Psycho-theology of the Modernist Christian Left.” It is a fearless dealing of real problems as they lie in many minds and to the cautious, judicial, and reasoning mind, of which there are many, he speaks acceptably. To those who want another kind of Authority, there will be something lacking.

When you read, “What Men are Asking?” by Dr. Coffin, unless you are an arch-fundamentalist, you find soul satisfying stuff with an Evangelical fervor and flavor that warms your heart. Likely these are the positions of the majority of the Presbyterian Evangelicals (Liberals or Modernists, call them what you will). Dean Wicks’ “The Reason for Living” takes on a little more scholastic vocabulary and loses a little warmth, but has the same general, ‘though individual, approach. James Gilkey swings over to the Left, stoic common sense rather than (traditional) Christian religious expression. And Dr. Fosdick has at time some of all, trying always to put reasonable argument of emotional fervor. He maintains a good balance, but for five years has been (to the help of many) swinging to the Right.

A transcript from experience, we gather, is Dean Wicks’ book. The questions we asked our teachers (and ourselves) and many others added by a generation more inquisitive, and likely wiser than ours. From the first to the last (Why live? to “ . . . can we preserve the freedom of the human spirit?”) there is reason and counsel, affirmation and constructive suggestiveness.

To those of us who in our day and generation learned a catechism and who since have unlearned and relearned or discarded its answers it is interesting to find young people still asking the same basic questions and we rejoice that they have such wise instructors as Dean Wicks proves himself to be in this book. He never answers his question by simply  asking another question, unless that is a leading question that proceeds immediately to constructive affirmation.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1910

Items from the Grenfell Association of America

Mr. Jesse Halsey, who was a volunteer last year, will go again this year, taking his bride with him. Mr. Halsey has recently been ordained to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church and will preach on Sundays and do plumbing on week days! Mrs. Halsey is expected to have charge of the Guest House.

Dr. Ethan Flagg Butler, who has just been made and M.D. by Johns Hopkins, will accompany Dr. Grenfell on the Strathacona this summer, taking the place that has been so ably filled by Dr. John Mason Little, Jr., who is to have charge of the hospital at St. Anthony.

***
Items from the New England Grenfell Association

The Lorna Doone sailed on the 26^th of May with a full cargo, most of which of necessity had to be crated, as it consisted of hospital fittings and furniture which could be sent in no other way in safety. This required much more space than usual, consequently a number of boxes were left for a later voyage, which we hope may be early in July, when the heating and plumbing apparatus will be sent under charge of Mr. Jesse Halsey of Southampton, Long Island. Mr. Halsey is to give his summer in installing the water supply and heating apparatus in both hospitals and the orphanage.

***

From St. Anthony Items

3^rd May 1910

Dear Mr. Editor,--

Meanwhile it is snowing hard; the ground is white all over. We hope to get a mail any day, as the Arctic ice is a long way off shore. Through Mr. Jesse Halsey, who was here last year as a volunteer worker for Princeton, we have been given the old pipes and plumbing of the Union Seminary in New York. Any money specially given toward the installation of a drain and water supply for the new hospital and orphanage will be administered under his very able hands. With his young wife he is going to join our staff for a year. All these two new splendid buildings want now are these installations. It will mean a great permanent saving in labour and expense.

. . . The human being consists of body, soul, and spirit, and a sin against either of these is a sin which brings its punishment inevitably. Therefore, it is, we feel that God will equally honour him who doctors the body, or teaches the mind, as him who proclaims the verbal message of the Gospel. It is this faith that actuates workers such as we have here, who for no monetary return whatever, are willing to freely donate their services and endure the privations of this far off coast.

W. T. Grenfell

"The Fine Art of Forgiveness"

A Sermon | Reverend Jesse Halsey |  c1932

On a church bulletin board as we passed—

“THE FINE ART OF FORGIVENESS”

Dr. Quintic Preaches.

“I wonder who practices,” said my chauffer.

I have been thinking about that chance remark, wondering how deep it registered in the chauffeur’s mind. His voice had a jocular, not a cynical tone, and I have tried repeatedly to guess what he thought; for I am a minister—and the chauffeur was my twenty-year-old-son.

Some of us in a “clericus,” were vigorously criticizing an older minister for his intolerance. One of the group, our Barnabus, quietly interjected this: “Yes, but he has two sons and both of them are going into the ministry.” There must have been something in the old gentleman’s life that, in spite of his rigid theology, recommended his profession to his boys.

Is it a general impression that the minister preaches rather than practices? If so, no wonder Pearl Buck can say, “I am sick of preaching.”

Now, I happen to know something about my neighbor, this preacher, Quintic. He once had a deacon well-versed in historic theology. For better or for worse, Quintic is a liberal. Higher criticism and such things he takes for granted. He has moved beyond the argumentative stage, but these things lie in the background of all his Scriptural expositions. The deacon never approved, was sharply critical (and said it in season and out of season), but for ten years now Quintic has pursued his quiet and undeviating way, preaching the Gospel—and practicing it, too. I felt that he had earned the right to speak on the “Fine Art of Forgiveness.”

Two other people, of whom I know, have left his church and gone elsewhere. I expect that Mr. Patrioticus was the biggest contributor to Quintic’s church. He, Patrioticus, was making money—lots of it—while Quintic was overseas during the War. It is natural enough that he, Mr. P., should be a super-patriot and (judging by my own experience), equally obvious that Dr. Quintic should be an anti-militarist (and likely a semi-pacifist). He has seen things that, for psychological reasons, if for no other would make him thus.

Not chronically, but occasionally when it seems an obvious point in his sermon, Dr. Q. speaks about the dangers of militarism. He doesn’t say much (few veterans do), but he comes down hard and, after a violent denunciation that echoed in the public press, prosperous Patrioticus withdrew both his subscription and membership from the church. Quintic’s salary paid the price in the next year’s budget. I have a notion that he has a right to preach on “the gentle art” if he wants to.

Intolerable conditions existed, and exist, in a factory. One of Quintic’s trustees is an in-law of the president of that concern. The Doctor, who practices brotherhood as well as any man I know, preached a sermon three years ago on “Christian Love.” His text (I pass the bulletin board almost daily), as I remember was this, or these: “I am my Brother’s Keeper,” “All Ye Are Brothren.”

What he said I don’t know (but I can imagine). I have heard him preach and he is very quiet in manner, but his public as well as private utterance is well studied, and he has a command of ideas and language that anyone might covet. What he says, he means, and I expect there were sharp as well as “winged” words that day. At any rate, after several threats, the in-law trustee finally withdrew and his obsession, until his dying day was “that preacher” Quintic.

I have no notion what he said in last week’s sermon; “The Fine Art.” I haven’t asked him. But the gentle act of forgiveness he preaches—and practices. His people know it and they love him. What is infinitely more important, they respect him thoroughly.

----

I’m wondering—Will my son be a preacher? He lives with me.

The Affirmation

The reaction in American Protestantism rose to militant activity after the First World War, in a time congenial to such a movement. A widespread and powerful body of opinion charged the Churches with weakness and failures, and located the cause in "modernism," which meant modern Biblical study and religious thought accepting scientific truth, in particular "evolution." In this temper fundamentalism was organized as the great World Conference on Christian Fundamentals in Philadelphia in May, 1919. The conference issued a doctrinal declaration including the five points and also the imminent return of Christ, the tenets of which were the "fundamentals." It adopted a broad program of measures of war on "modernism" and modernists, aimed at Churches, theological seminaries, colleges, missions, boards, religious periodicals, the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., and planned extensive means to spread the theology of the fundamentals. The avowed ultimate object was to secure control of the great Churches.

The first attempt of this kind was made in the Northern Baptist Convention of 1922. Before this Dr. Harry Fosdick preached in the First Presbyterian Church of New York his celebrated sermon on "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" Defeated with the Baptists, fundamentalism turned to the Presbyterian Church. The General Assembly of 1923 by a narrow vote expressed disapproval of Dr. Fosdick's teaching, without mentioning his name, and directed the Presbytery of New York to bring the teaching in the First Presbyterian Church into conformity with the doctrinal standards of the Church and report to the next Assembly. It accompanied this with a reiteration of the five points as essential doctrines. A question of the whole Church had thus arisen, and now the fundamentalist effort to control the Church was fully launched. The propaganda seeking to make the five points the Church's effective creed was much intensified, with unceasing denunciation of all ministers and laymen known to hold liberal theological views as enemies of Christian faith. Vague but very positive assertions were made to the effect that there was in the Church a large body of ministers who had forsaken evangelical Christianity. The words "materialist," "rationalist," "infidel," "pagan," were cast about without much regard for their meaning, but so as to strengthen this suspicion. After some months of this fomenting of theological panic there appeared a proposal designed to accomplish fundamentalist domination. To the General Assembly of 1924 came an overture asking it to require that all members of the General Council and the Boards of the Church and all professors in its theological seminaries declare their assent to the doctrinal deliverances containing the five points. This would involve giving to utterances of the General Assembly an authority equal to that of the Church's creed, and also binding the five points practically on the Church.

Just before this same General Assembly of 1924 there came from the liberals an instrument destined to repulse the fundamentalists, in the framing of which Henry Coffin bore a leading part. Early in 1923 they had begun to organize and prepare. Out of long consultation among them emerged the memorable Affirmation, prepared to be signed by ministers. In this document, which has become a symbol of liberal Presbyterianism, the signers affirmed their loyalty to evangelical Christianity and their adherence to the Church's Confession, as given at their ordinations. From its history and law they showed that the Church assured to its ministers liberty in the interpretation of the Confession and the Scriptures. They rejected Biblical inerrancy as not a teaching of the Bible, the Confession of Faith, the ancient creeds or those of the Reformation, and as in fact impairing the authority of the Bible. They met the assertion of "essential doctrines" by denying on constitutional grounds the General Assembly's authority to declare doctrine for the Church. Then they continued, in words which were the main strength of the Affirmation: 'Furthermore, this opinion of 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 by 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." --Robert Hastings Nichols from "Leader of Liberal Presbyterianism" an essay in "This Ministry: The Contribution of Henry Sloane Coffin," ed. Niebuhr, 1945

"they upheld liberty for the gospel's sake"

Liberal Presbyterianism at once answered in the protest of many commissioners to the General Assembly of 1893 against the suspension of Dr. Briggs, which rejected the Assembly's assertion that "the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Scripture" was "the faith of the Church," and "the imposing of this new interpretation of our Standards upon the Church, to bind men's consciences by enforced subscription to its terms." The liberals were further aroused by the exercises of ecclesiastical authority in 1894 and 1899 against Dr. Henry Preserved Smith of Lane Seminary and Dr. Arthur C. McGiffert of Union Seminary, on the same general ground as the action against Dr. Briggs. In these years many Presbyterian ministers and laymen determined that in the Church there must be freedom of study and thought and speech, so that it could preach the gospel with power in a time of changed conceptions of the Bible and of new light upon it and upon Christian truth from science and history. Evangelicals, they upheld liberty for the gospel's sake.

These same years were the time of the rise of the social gospel. Not all, but many Presbyterian liberals came under its inspiration and gave its message, as it was understood in those early days. They were profoundly persuaded that the gospel commanded a more righteous industrial and economic order and that such an order must needs be to give the gospel free course. These same years saw also the coming with power of the impulse for Christian unity. Many Presbyterians caught the vision that was rising before the Christian world, caring supremely for the one gospel, above denominational particularities.

Thus about 1900 a body of liberals had formed in the Presbyterian Church. Many were younger men, but by no means all. Some of the most convinced and courageous were older. For this body held the old liberal evangelical position, in new conditions. Among the younger men was Henry Sloane Coffin. --Robert Hastings Nichols from "Leader of Liberal Presbyterianism" an essay in "This Ministry: The Contribution of Henry Sloane Coffin," ed. Niebuhr, 1945

"It was the height of the 'jazz age'"

In the wider orbit of the world's life, the hopes which had inspired sacrifice in the "war to end war" were crumbling before resurgent power politics. The League of Nations still struggled to redeem international chaos; but, to those with eyes to see, its doom was already foreshadowed by futility. The course of the United States was wellnigh irretrievably set in recoil from responsibility. Those who cared deeply for social advance had not yet surrendered to the rising despair, but they felt their backs against a wall and confessed to one another their helplessness in the face of reaction and brute force.

In the meantime, in the day-by-day life of men, wealth multiplied, fortunes were made (and lost) almost overnight, sensuality softened the native fibre of youth, a new leadership unschooled in traditions of culture and social trusteeship gloried in irresponsibility, life whirled with ever faster tempo and was at once coddled and demoralized by ever more refined luxuries and amusements. It was the height of the "jazz age."   --Henry P. Van Dusen, on the year 1926, from "Theological Education" an essay in "This Ministry: The Contribution of Henry Sloane Coffin," ed. Niebuhr, 1945

"the octopus of Modernism had gotten its tentacles around every Board and Agency of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A."

"Paving the Way for the Exodus" 

Merril T. MacPherson | Church of the Open Door, Philadelphia, PA | from Voice, April and May 1945

On Easter Day, 1930, I began my pastorate of the Central North Broad Street Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, PA. Located on Broad Street, just a few blocks north of City Hall, this downtown church had a substantial brown stone building, with Sunday school rooms, offices, etc., on the ground floor, and a large auditorium upstairs. It was not only debt-free, but had an endowment fund of a quarter of a million dollars. Here we proclaimed the Gospel, both in the pulpit and over the radio, and soon had the joy of seeing great crowds, and best of all, souls saved at practically every Sunday evening service. Great monthly meetings of the Philadelphia Fundamentalists were held here, and annual conferences were conducted by the Moody Bible Institute. Before long, the newspapers referred to the Church as the "Citadel of Fundamentalism."

The financial crash of 1929 began to paralyze our Nation, and Philadelphia really felt the "Depression." Bank after bank crashed, many never to open again. Some of you "old-timers" will also remember the beginning of what happened "again and again and again." Booze then began to flow once more in America, but even a deadlier poison had devitalized the visible Church. For years godly men had warned against the encroachment of Modernism. We of the Presbyterian Church knew that it was becoming more powerful and brazen year by year. Through the General Council and the Boards of the Church, Modernism was beginning to dominate the Denomination.

The political power of the Auburn Affirmationists and other Modernists had become evident, and increasingly so since 1925. The Boards of the Church were going modernistic. While the modernism of the Foreign Board was specifically attacked, for reasons which we shall explain, yet all were guilty. Space will not permit me to give the evidence, but a few examples will suffice to show how the octopus of Modernism had gotten its tentacles around every Board and Agency of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

Blatant Blasphemy

The Board of Christian Education was surely a transgressor. Many had pointed out the growing apostasy evidenced in the Sunday school helps, which stressed the "Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." In the Twelfth Annual Report of this Board, we read: "The occasional and fleeting moments of insight and power that all of us have known may be transformed into more frequent and enduring periods of illumination and victory. The high achievements of persons like Gandhi and Kagawa in our own age bear eloquent testimony to the ability of modern man to recover the spirit and technique of Jesus of Nazareth and Francis of Assisi." As one said: "This scarcely requires comment. The paralleling of Gandhi, Kagawa and Francis of Assisi with Christ is blatant blasphemy."

A pamphlet published in 1935 revealed that there were twenty-two Auburn Affirmationists connected with the National Board, either as Secretaries, Board Members, or Synodical Executives, among whom were Henry Sloan Coffin and George A. Buttrick, the Modernistic writing and teachings of whom are well known. It was revealed that even the Board of Pensions had a President, Andrew Mutch, and a Board Member, Jesse Halsey, who were Auburn Affirmationists.

But the Board of Foreign Missions became the "storm center" in 1933. Both Pearl Buck and "Re-Thinking Missions" were in the limelight. Because of public sentiment concerning the rank modernism of both, the book was furiously attacked all over our nation, and Mrs. Buck resigned as a Presbyterian Missionary. In the Minutes of the Board of Foreign Missions, we read: "A letter was presented from Mrs. J. Lossing Buck, of the Kiangan Mission, requesting to be released from responsible relationship to the Board. The Board had hoped that this step might be avoided, but in view of all the considerations involved and with deep regret it voted to acquiesce in her request. The Board expressed to Mrs. Buck its sincere appreciation of the service which she has rendered during the past sixteen years and its earnest prayer that her unusual abilities may continue to be richly used in behalf of the people of China."

Independent Board Formed

Dr. J. Gresham Machen then printed a booklet giving documented evidence of the Modernism of the Board of Foreign Missions, in which he dealt with such chapters as "Re-Thinking Missions"; Mrs. J. Lossing Buck; the Auburn Affirmation; Modernistic Propaganda by the Candidate Department, the Secretary of which was an Auburn Affirmationist; Cooperating Agencies; Modernism in China, etc. Great protest rallies were held, in Philadelphia and other places, against the Modernism of the Foreign Board, requesting that the modernists be recalled and the Board purged. The General Assembly of 1933 was overtured in this respect. When the overture was disregarded and the Board "white-washed," announcement was made that an Independent Board would be formed for the purpose of propagating truly Biblical Foreign Missionary work. Shortly thereafter, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions was incorporated, with Dr. J. Gresham Machen, Pres., Merril T. MacPherson, Vice Pres., H. McAllister Griffiths, Secy., Murray Forst Thompson, Esq., Treas., and a long list of Board Directors. Charles Woodbridge, because of the modernism on the foreign field resigned as a Missionary under the Foreign Board in Africa, and returned to America to become the General Secretary of the Independent Board. We were off to a good start. Fundamentalists were rejoicing in the new Board, both as a testimony for Christ, against the current modernism, and as a channel through which they could give to help support sound missionaries.

Machine "Cracks Down"

We were sure of our Constitutional rights to form such a Board, and little dreamed of the strategy which the "machine crowd" of the Church would use in an attempt to destroy the New Board. But when they saw that money was rolling in for its support, they felt it was time to "crack down." Just before the General Assembly of 1934, Dr. Machen and three other members of the Independent Board were asked to meet with the Administrative Committee of the General Assembly. They were handed a document which contained the following words: "We wish to make known to you that after a most careful study the General Council is of the unanimous opinion that the following inferences may be drawn from this study: 1) That the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions in its organization and operation is contrary to fundamental principles of the Constitution of the Church. 2) That you and your associates in this organization are violating your ordination or membership vows or both." They were informed that a 43-page pamphlet entitled "Studies in the Constitution," was already on the press, and would be placed in the hands of all the Commissioners to the General Assembly. Dr. Machen asked for an advance copy of this document, in order that a reply might be made to it, and also placed in the hands of the Commissioners, but he was informed that this could not be had. It was a stab in the back, for at the strategic moment the pamphlet was mailed so as to reach the Commissioners just before they left their homes for the General Assembly, and before a reply could be sent to them by Dr. Machen and his associates.

Only a person who has made some study of Presbyterian law and polity can fully understand the significance of this circularization, for its purpose was to prejudice minds and incite action, yes, illegal, unconstitutional action, against the members of the Independent Board. How well this was accomplished is now a matter of history--history which makes unscrupulous modernists to gloat and bloat, but still causes fundamentalists who once stood with us in the fight for Christ to blush and hang their heads in shame.

THE SPECIAL COMMISSION OF 1925

TURNING POINTS IN AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY PART 9:

THE SPECIAL COMMISSION OF 1925

D. G. Hart and John R. Muether

Progressive Presbyterians were not content with the revisions to the Westminster Confession that 

were approved in 1903. There was more work to be done to bring the Presbyterian Church into

greater harmony with the modern world. The center of the progressive movement was in the

Presbytery of New York, which pressed the liberal agenda on three fronts. First, on May 21, 1922,

Harry Emerson Fosdick, the Baptist supply pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New

York, rallied liberals with his famous sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" Although the sermon

wasa plea for tolerance, most Presbyterians, liberal and conservative, would have answered the

title's rhetorical question in the affirmative, because it appeared that the conservatives were strong

enough to force the liberals out of the church. 

A year later, the Presbytery took the provocative step of ordaining two graduates of Union Seminary 

who could not affirm the virgin birth of Christ.

Finally, the Presbytery convened a gathering in Auburn, New York, in December 1923. It produced

"An Affirmation designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United

States of America." The Auburn Affirmation questioned the constitutionality of General Assembly

deliverances that proclaimed certain doctrines as necessary and essential beliefs for

Presbyterian ministers, and it went on to describe those doctrines (the inerrancy of Scripture, 

the virgin birth of Christ, the vicarious atonement, Jesus' resurrection, and his miracles) merely 

as theories about the Bible's message. Within a year, the Auburn Affirmation 

secured the signatures of 1,300 Presbyterianministers.

Conservatives fought back in the General Assembly of 1924, when they narrowly elected a

conservative moderator, Clarence Macartney, and managed to secure the dismissal of Fosdick from

the First Presbyterian pulpit. The Assembly failed to take action against the Auburn Affirmationists,

however, as many conservatives believed that they lacked sufficient votes to win that battle.

Instead, a showdown took place a year later at the General Assembly of 1925, meeting in Columbus,

Ohio. Many commissioners were convinced of the creedal infidelity of the Presbytery of New York.

Henry Sloane Coffin, however, was prepared to defend the Presbytery. He preached the preceding

Sunday at the First Congregational Church of Columbus, the former pulpit of social gospeler

Washington Gladden. In his sermon, "What Liberal Presbyterians Are Standing For," he put forth his

case: "We question whether we have any right to call ourselves a Christian Church, if we exclude

from its ministry any whom Christ manifestly does not exclude from the gift of His Holy Spirit."

The Assembly elected Charles Erdman of Princeton Seminary as its moderator. Although Erdman's

theology was evangelical, J. Gresham Machen considered him to be the candidate of modernists and

indifferentists. Upon his election, Erdman quickly proved Machen right. He held a two-hour private

meeting with Coffin, listening to his plan to lead the Presbytery of New York and its sympathizers out

of the Assembly, should the Judicial Commission rule unfavorably.

Desperately seeking to avoid a walkout, Erdman agreed to permit Coffin to read a protest if the

Judicial Commission ruled against the Presbytery. The Commission did, in fact, 

determine that the Presbytery had acted improperly in ordaining men who could not affirm 

the virgin birth of Christ, which was "the established law" of the Church. 

Conservatives seemed to be on the brink of victory, and liberals prepared to leave.

Then Coffin approached the platform of the assembly, as his biographer describes:

He was pale and showed the effects of the strained and sleepless nights during which he had

been in conference seeking to avert this action. In a firm voice he read a prepared statement

on behalf of the Commissioners of the Presbytery of New York protesting the decision as

contrary to the constitution of the church and declaring the purpose of the New York

Presbytery to maintain its constitutional rights in licensure.

But Coffin's threatened exodus did not take place, because of a bold and desperate move by

Erdman. Yielding the chair to the vice moderator, Erdman proposed from the floor that the Assembly

establish a special commission "to study the present spiritual condition of our Church and the causes

making for unrest, and to report to the next General Assembly, to the end that the purity, peace,

unity and progress of the Church may be assured."

Erdman's stroke of parliamentary genius was unanimously approved. Later that night he met with

liberal commissioners and urged them not to leave the church until the Special Commission reported

to the next assembly. Erdman then appointed fifteen committee members, mostly "respected

loyalists." The most well known and influential member of the committee was his close friend, Robert

E. Speer, secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, who would later clash with Machen over the

latter's claim of modernism on the Board.

In the ensuing year, the Special Commission met four times. Machen argued before the Commission

that the cause of the unrest in the church was "reducible to the one great underlying cause," which

was the presence of modernism in it. Coffin countered that the differences were due to

"misapprehension." Fighting this battle would "plunge the church into calamitous litigation and

hinder us from doing our work and building the kingdom of God." "It is ruinous," he continued, "to

divide existing forces. We ought to work harmoniously together and emphasize those things in which

we agree."

In the unanimous report that the Commission presented to the 1926 Assembly, it agreed with Coffin

that there was "evangelical unity" in the church. American Presbyterianism stood for toleration and

progress, shaped by "two controlling factors":

One is, that the Presbyterian system admits to diversity of view where the core of truth is identical.

Another is, the church has flourished best and showed most clearly the good hand of God upon it,

when it laid aside its tendencies to stress these differences, and put the emphasis on the spirit

of unity.

Coffin could not have authored a more agreeable conclusion. "It seems to be everyone's wish to

keep the peace," he wrote.

When the Commission presented its report, Clarence Macartney, two years removed as the

Assembly moderator, moved to excise certain sections and to dismiss the Commission. His older

brother, Albert J. McCartney, rose in rebuttal with withering words of ridicule: "Clarence is all right,

friends. The only trouble is he isn't married. If that old bachelor would marry, he would have 

less time to worry over other people's theology.... I know that if mother could come back, there would be

room for him and for me to say our prayers in the same words on her knee at that old home of ours

in western Pennsylvania. I believe there is room for him and for you and me, to say our prayers in

identical language in the Presbyterian Church."

The younger Macartney's motion was denied, and in 1927 the General Assembly approved the final

report of the Commission with only one dissenting vote. The effect was to grant freedom to the

Presbytery of New York to reject the virgin birth of Christ as an essential tenet of the church, and to

vindicate the signers of the Auburn Affirmation.

The report underscored that Presbyterian unity required the end of "all slander and misrepresentation" 

within the church. The focus of attention, then, fell on one particular source of recent unrest: 

the factions within the faculty of Princeton Seminary. The school's reorganization in

1929 brought two signers of the Auburn Affirmation onto its new, thirty-member Board. Convinced

that this would lead the school into a decline into theological liberalism, Machen left Princeton and

formed Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia.

The General Assembly of 1925 marked the decline of conservative strength in the Presbyterian

Church; no subsequent assembly elected a conservative moderator. It also raised Henry Sloane

Coffin's visibility in the church. Together with Erdman, he forestalled the liberal exodus that most

observers regarded as inevitable. According to Time magazine, Coffin went to the General Assembly

"as he had gone before, one of the many commissioners from the Presbytery of New York. He

returned the acknowledged leader of the liberal elements of his church."

Nearly two decades later, in 1943, the General Assembly would elect Coffin as moderator, a symbolic

vote in two respects. First, it confirmed Coffin's role in the church he nearly walked out of in 1925.

Second, since he was president of Union Seminary at the time, the vote represented a healing of the

breach between the Presbyterian Church and the Seminary in the liberal Presbytery of New York,

and a vindication of Charles A. Briggs, fifty years after his heresy trial.

Dr. Hart is the director of fellowship programs and scholar in residence at the Intercollegiate Studies

Institute in Wilmington, Del.; Mr. Muether is the librarian at Reformed Theological Seminary in

Orlando, Fla., and the historian of the OPC; both are OP ruling elders and members of the

Committee on Christian Education. Reprinted from New Horizons, October 2005