PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH
The Reading Room - History
Presbyterianism in America - The 20th Century
By: Dr. John A. Battle (Professor of New Testament and Theology - WRS)
Introduction • Works Cited
The Presbyterian Church moves to a new gospel (1900-1934)
The Presbyterian Church divides and adjusts (1934-1967)
The Presbyterian Church realigns itself (1967-2006)
The Challenge of the Future
The Presbyterian Church divides and adjusts (1934-1967)
The second major period of the century saw the PCUSA chart out a new theological stance. Having turned its back on the separated fundamentalists, it turned from conservative Calvinism to neo-orthodoxy and a whole new creed. Neo-orthodoxy had a similar impact on other Presbyterian denominations. While most conservative Presbyterians remained in the mainline churches, a few small conservative denominations continued their testimony.
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Newly separated Presbyterians
The presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly of the PCUSA went into action, putting into effect the Mandate’s recommendations. Soon the members of the IBPFM who refused to resign were put on trial. Some were defrocked; some simply renounced the jurisdiction of the church and declared themselves independent. They concluded that the PCUSA was “officially and judicially apostate,” and no longer could Christians in good conscience remain in its fellowship. In all, about a hundred ministers joined the new denomination. Machen expected a major division to take place, and was profoundly disappointed by the small number of churches and ministers that actually withdrew from the PCUSA.
Nevertheless, believing that Presbyterian government was biblical, these men formed a new denomination in 1936, the Presbyterian Church of America.23 Soon thereafter the PCUSA sued the new church in court, complaining that its name was too similar to that of the old church. Rather than appeal the case, the new church in 1939 changed its name to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), which name it still has today.
Machen died at the beginning of 1937, and by the end of that year the new church had divided. The minority that left it held their first Synod in 1938 as the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC), and that body divided in 1956. The larger section of the BPC united with the Reformed Presbyterian Church (General Synod) in 1965, and that united body was received into the Presbyterian Church in America in 1982. The smaller section of the BPC has continued as the Bible Presbyterian Church, and remains as a separate denomination with the same name.24
When the OPC began, it adopted the Westminster Confession, without the 1903 amendments, additions, and declaratory statement.25 The BPC adopted the same standards that the OPC used, but it added a shortened form of the PCUSA declaratory statement (deleting the statement that all infants dying in infancy are saved, but allowing the possibility). The BPC also amended the Confession and Larger Catechism so that they taught the premillennial return of Christ. Both denominations claimed to be carrying on the true “spiritual succession” of the old PCUSA.
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A tranquil path to neo-orthodoxy
The liberal and inclusivist (“broad church”) leaders in the PCUSA had worked hard to keep control of the church and its resources. They were surprised and pleased that so few left with Machen. In the decades that followed, church unity became the watchword, even as the church drifted further away from its biblical and Reformed theological tradition. Twenty years later Lefferts Loetscher summarized the situation:
The termination of the judicial cases in 1936 marked the virtual cessation to date of theological controversy within the Church’s judicatories. In spite of important internal diversities, the Church since 1936 has enjoyed the longest period of theological peace since the reunion of 1869.26
During these years an important sea change took place in European theology that later impacted Presbyterians in America. As the twentieth century began, optimistic modernism or liberalism reigned supreme. Even many of the conservatives of the time were postmillennial in theology, believing that the world was getting more Christian. Modernists were confident that greater scientific and technological progress, coupled with government-controlled economies, would bring in an era of “the kingdom of God.” The old Christian supernatural theology was now passé. This confident liberalism was the great enemy of the Princeton theologians of the time, and the modernist-fundamentalist conflict debated these issues.
However, the two world wars in the first half of the century brought a dose of reality to the liberals. Germany, regarded by many as the most advanced and scientific country in Europe, fell into militarism and then into unspeakable barbarity and cruelty. War brought out the beast in “Christian” people. Men were shown to be really evil. There was such a thing as sin. Christ’s “good example” was not enough. There had to be an atonement. The old liberalism was proven to be bankrupt.
There had to be a return to the realistic orthodoxy of ancient Christianity, of Calvin and the Reformation. Yet it was believed that critical biblical scholarship had shown that the Bible was not inerrant; the higher criticism of the Bible still stood. Therefore, theologians could not go back to the pre-critical fundamentalism of the past. What was needed was a new form of orthodoxy—Neo-orthodoxy, as it came to be called.
The main pioneer and leader of this new movement was Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). Spending much of his early life in Germany, he ran afoul of the liberal theologians there who supported Germany’s militarism in the first war. He believed that God supported no human system or philosophy. His groundbreaking commentary on Romans, first published in Germany in 1918,27 started the theological revolution. His massive 12-volume Church Dogmatics is the main theological charter of neo-orthodoxy.28 Basically, God is totally transcendent, not immanent as the liberals were claiming. We cannot comprehend God, nor speak his words. God cannot reveal himself through words, only by himself directly. All words (such as the Bible’s) are merely human responses to this divine revelation, and as such are subject to the same errors as all humans share. The Bible is not the revelation of God, but only men’s response to that revelation. However, it is the normative means through which God does reveal himself to us.
In Barth’s view the only revelation of God that can properly be called the Word of God is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Barth had a higher view of Christ than the liberal theologians, but he often used language in vague ways that made his views hard to pin down. As a result neoorthodox theologians could assert their belief in the virgin birth of Christ, his miracles, his atonement, and his resurrection; but they could define them differently than traditional theology did—or refuse to define them altogether!
As neo-orthodoxy made its way into American universities and seminaries, and then into the churches, it provided a means whereby the PCUSA could put its old conflicts behind and start theologically afresh. Because of their vague definitions of key theological terms, ministers could preach neo-orthodox sermons, and the conservative parishioners, who were the main financial supporters of the church, would be convinced of the orthodoxy of the pastor. In this way people who did not believe the traditional meaning of the creeds of the church could still assert their belief in them and be ordained into the Presbyterian Church.
A major landmark of this change was the new Faith and Life Curriculum, edited by James D. Smart. This curriculum was adopted in 1948 for the Sunday schools of the PCUSA.29 The new curriculum thoroughly integrated neo-orthodox theology and biblical interpretation into the traditional material. For example, in telling the account of Moses and the burning bush the illustration was changed from the traditional scene showing Moses standing before the bush. It was felt that picturing the bush would be a crassly “literal” understanding that would overshadow the spiritual significance of the story. On the other hand, showing the bush as an idea of Moses (as in a balloon above his head) would indicate that the event was only in his mind. The problem was solved by showing a picture of the face of Moses looking startled and lightened up, and leaving out the bush entirely.30 Since the adoption of this curriculum, succeeding generations of Presbyterians in the PCUSA have been brought up in the neo-orthodox tradition.
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On to a new confession
With the ending of World War II America entered an era of growth and prosperity unequalled in her history. Americans had great pride in their country, and the Presbyterian churches joined in the good feelings of belonging to the “greatest country in the world.” In order to shed its reputation as a leftist organization, in 1950 the Federal Council of Churches joined with several other bodies and was reorganized into the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. The PCUSA remained active in the new council. Yet, at the same time, the powerful Communistic Soviet Union was a threat, along with Communist China. Most Presbyterians opposed Communism; however, there was a pro-leftist group that was influential in the educational institutions and in ecumenical organizations. The fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches had been formed in 1941, and the National Association of Evangelicals followed in 1942. While these two conservative agencies disagreed about separation from the mainline churches, they both presented an anti-Communist position and opposed the liberal policies of the newly reorganized National Council of Churches. This conflict was also carried out internationally, with the formation of two church councils at the same time (1948) and in the same place (Amsterdam): the liberal, mainline World Council of Churches, and the fundamentalist, separated International Council of Christian Churches. The mainline Presbyterian churches belonged to the WCC, while the BPC belonged to and helped start the ICCC.
In 1958 the PCUSA united with the smaller United Presbyterian Church of North America, itself a union of two Associate Reformed bodies. This church was of Scottish Presbyterian background, but had followed the same liberalizing tendencies as the larger denomination. The name of the new church was changed to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA).
After the disappointment of the Korean War and the violent reaction against the anti-Communist crusade of Senator Joseph McCarthy, many Americans entered the 1960s much more sympathetic to leftist thinking. Of course, the 1960s themselves were the years of cultural revolution in America, as many moral norms were forsaken and all authority rejected by millions in the “hippie generation.” In addition, the anti-war movement was heated up as America became more involved in the Vietnam War.
Inheriting the anti-militaristic stance of Barth and the early neo-orthodox theologians, Presbyterian leaders naturally supported the liberal causes of the day, in particular the peace movement. The time had come for the UPCUSA to officially cast off its pre-critical, hierarchical, traditional creed, and set forth its faith in a new creed, adapted to the times. A committee was appointed to draw up a new confession, headed by Princeton professor Edward A. Dowey. The new confession was entitled the Confession of 1967, and was adopted in that year. The new confession centers around the concept of “reconciliation,” and leaves out many major orthodox doctrines of the church. The “reconciliation” spoken of is focused on various social issues of the time: peace, civil rights, feminism, poverty, and the ecumenical movement.
When adopting this confession the UPCUSA altered its entire creedal base. It completely eliminated the Westminster Larger Catechism from its creeds. The Westminster Confession of Faith and Shorter Catechism were relegated, along with the new Confession of 1967, to a Book of Confessions, which included several other ecumenical and Reformed creeds. At the same time, the church’s ordination vows were changed, so that they required, not that the person “believe” the doctrines contained in the Book of Confessions, but only that he or she would “be guided” by them. Before, the UPCUSA had forsaken its creeds in practice; now it was official.
Many Presbyterians in the UPCUSA opposed these changes, but they were voted down by large majorities; very few of them left the denomination. Other Presbyterian groups spoke out against the changes. The Bible Presbyterian Church held a special Synod meeting at the same time the Confession of 1967 was adopted, and distributed thousands of copies of a book providing a thorough criticism of the new confession and vows.31
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