History of the Reformation and Reformed Churches — Unit 10: Division, Liberalism, and Confessional Renewal in the Twentieth Century and Today

Key Verse

"Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 3, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what theological liberalism is and how it entered some Reformed and Presbyterian churches.

2. Describe the Presbyterian controversy in the United States, including J. Gresham Machen, Westminster Theological Seminary and the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

3. Describe other major twentieth-century developments: Kuyper in the Netherlands, Barth and neo-orthodoxy, and the later divisions and mergers among Presbyterians.

4. Name the main signs of confessional renewal, including the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and the growth of Reformed churches beyond the West.

5. State the main objections and historians' debates about these events and answer them from the Reformed side.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Reformed tradition for students who belong to it. It is conservative and confessional. When it says "we," it means the Reformed and Presbyterian churches that hold Scripture to be God's inspired and inerrant Word and that confess the doctrines of grace. This unit deals with painful matters, because it tells of churches that lost their grip on the Bible and of believers who divided over it. We describe liberalism in some mainline bodies honestly, and we do not adopt it. We also state fairly the views of those who read these events differently, and we admit the faults of our own side. Where we cannot be certain of a detail, we leave it out.

What Is Theological Liberalism?

In the nineteenth century, many European scholars began to read the Bible with new assumptions. Some denied that miracles could happen. Some treated the Bible as a record of human religious experience and not as God's own Word. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), a Reformed pastor and professor in Germany, was an early and influential voice. He taught that religion rests mainly on human feeling and experience. Later teachers carried this further. This movement is called theological liberalism, or modernism. It spread to Britain and America and into many seminaries and churches, including Reformed ones.

The liberal view often looks attractive. It says that Christians should be modern, kind and open-minded. But it changes the gospel. It treats Christ as a great moral teacher and not as the eternal Son who died for sin and rose bodily. It treats the Bible as a human book to be corrected. Our tradition replies that the Bible claims to be God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), that Christ Himself received the Scripture as the Word of God (Matthew 5:18; John 10:35), and that a church which gives up the gospel gives up its reason to exist. Paul said, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8).

Liberalism can be sincere. Many who held it loved people and wished to help the church. We do not question every motive. We ask whether the teaching agrees with Scripture.

The Presbyterian Controversy in America

The conflict came into the open in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in the late nineteenth century.

Early signs. Charles A. Briggs, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, argued for the presence of errors in Scripture. In 1893 the General Assembly suspended him from the ministry. In 1910 the General Assembly set out five essential doctrines: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, His substitutionary atonement, His bodily resurrection and the reality of miracles.

The 1920s. In 1922 Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Baptist minister preaching in a New York Presbyterian church, gave a sermon titled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" The next year J. Gresham Machen, a New Testament professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, published Christianity and Liberalism (1923). Machen argued that liberalism was not a different form of the same Christianity but a different religion. He was a scholar, trained in Germany, and the author of a New Testament Greek textbook, so no one could say that he feared learning. In 1924 more than a thousand ministers signed the Auburn Affirmation, which objected to requiring the five doctrines of 1910 as tests, and which Machen and his friends saw as undermining the church's standards.

Princeton and Westminster. In 1929 Princeton Seminary was reorganized in a way that gave a larger place to those who wanted a broader seminary. Machen and several colleagues left, and in the same year founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, to carry on the old Princeton tradition of learning and faithfulness.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Machen also opposed what he saw as liberal influence in the church's mission board, and in 1933 helped found an independent mission board. The church's courts disciplined him, and in 1936 he was suspended from the ministry. In 1936 he and others formed a new church, first called the Presbyterian Church of America and later the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Machen died in 1937. The new church was small and it too suffered division: in 1937 a part of it left to form another body.

This was costly. Ministers lost their churches, homes and pensions. We should not describe it as a simple story of heroes and villains. Faithful men made mistakes, and quarrels sometimes grew bitter. But the conviction behind it was plain: a church that denies the gospel is no longer a faithful church, and ministers have taken vows to defend what the church confesses.

Other Twentieth-Century Developments

The Netherlands: Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper was a Dutch pastor, journalist and statesman. He founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 to teach Reformed learning in every field. In 1886, in a movement called the Doleantie, Kuyper and others left the national Reformed Church over its failure to hold the confessions, and in 1892 they joined with another group to form the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. Kuyper taught that Christ is Lord over all of life: church, family, school, work and government. His influence reached North America, South Africa and many other lands.

Karl Barth and neo-orthodoxy. Karl Barth (1886-1968) was a Swiss Reformed pastor and professor. His commentary on Romans (1919) challenged liberal theology and stressed the sovereignty and freedom of God. In 1934 he was the main writer of the Barmen Declaration, in which Christians in Germany rejected the claim that the church could be ruled by the Nazi state. Barth is honored for his courage and for turning many away from liberalism. But conservative Reformed teachers have also raised a serious question: did Barth teach that the Bible is God's Word written, without error, or that it becomes the Word of God when God speaks through it? The second view is not the view of the historic confessions. His admirers reply that he took Scripture very seriously and rescued the doctrine of the Word from liberalism. We honor his stand against Nazism, and we continue to ask that every teaching be tested by Scripture.

The mainline churches. In the United States the largest northern Presbyterian church adopted the Confession of 1967 and a Book of Confessions. This book placed the Westminster Standards beside other creeds and confessions, and many conservatives felt that the older standards had lost their distinct authority. Northern and southern Presbyterian churches reunited in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Women in ministry. In the middle of the twentieth century many mainline Reformed bodies began to ordain women as elders and ministers. Conservative bodies, such as the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, hold that the offices of elder and minister are reserved to qualified men, while they affirm the wide and valuable service of women in the church. Some Reformed churches that hold to Scripture's authority have taken the other view, and we present their reasons fairly in Course 4. This difference is not the same as the question of the Bible's authority, though the two are sometimes joined in debate.

New churches. In 1973 a group of conservative ministers and churches left the southern Presbyterian church and formed the Presbyterian Church in America, which held its first General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama. Its leaders gave as the main reason the loss of confidence in Scripture and the confessions. Historians have noted that the civil rights era was part of the setting, and some critics say that racial attitudes played a part. In 2016 the General Assembly of the PCA issued a statement confessing the sins of the church in that era. We record this honestly. Other conservative bodies include the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (1981), the United Reformed Churches in North America (1996) and the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (2012). Conservative bodies cooperated through the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (1975) and, worldwide, through the International Conference of Reformed Churches (1982). The World Communion of Reformed Churches was formed in 2010 from two earlier bodies and is a broad body in which churches hold differing views on Scripture and doctrine.

Confessional Renewal

In the second half of the twentieth century a revival of interest in the Reformed faith began, and it continues. Some of its marks are these:

• Books. The Banner of Truth Trust in London, founded in 1957, began to reprint Puritan and Reformed classics. J. I. Packer's Knowing God (1973) reached many readers.

• Preaching and teaching. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in London modeled expository preaching. R. C. Sproul founded Ligonier Ministries in 1971. Francis Schaeffer began L'Abri in Switzerland in 1955 and addressed students and thinkers.

• Scripture. In 1978 evangelical scholars, many of them Reformed, issued the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

• Seminaries. Westminster and other conservative seminaries trained pastors.

• Growth beyond the West. Reformed and Presbyterian churches have grown in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as you saw in Unit 9. The center of Reformed life is no longer only in Europe and North America. Pastors in your own churches are part of the story.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: To leave a denomination is schism. Some say that faithful ministers should have stayed and worked inside. Our answer. Many did stay, and some did so with great faithfulness. The Westminster Confession teaches that particular churches may be more or less pure, and that some may so far fall away from truth that they cease to be true churches of Christ. Separation should be a last resort after patient effort in the church's courts, and it should be done with sorrow, not pride. Paul warned of those who preach another gospel (Galatians 1:8), and he also taught believers to be "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3). Both commands bind us.

Objection 2: The conservatives were fundamentalists who were angry and anti-intellectual. Historians such as George Marsden have shown that American fundamentalism had several strands and a strong political and cultural side. Bradley Longfield has shown that the Presbyterian controversy involved moderates, who wanted peace, as well as fundamentalists and liberals. Our answer. It is true that some conservatives were harsh and some were careless. But Machen was a scholar, and the Reformed confessional tradition has a long record of learning. Moderates who wanted peace were sincere. But peace that puts aside the question of what Scripture teaches is not the peace Christ gave.

Objection 3: Confessions divide, and love should unite. Our answer. We must hold truth and love together. Paul speaks of "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). A church can fail by loving without truth, and it can fail by truth without love.

Objection 4: Barth was the true renewal of Reformed theology. Our answer. Barth deserves respect, as stated above. But we hold that the Reformed renewal should rest on a Bible that is trusted entirely, as the Westminster Confession and the Chicago Statement say.

Objection 5: The new Reformed interest is only a fashion, and it makes people proud. This is a fair warning. Some who have found the doctrines of grace have become proud, quarrelsome and cold. Our answer. Those who truly hold the doctrines of grace must be humble, since they teach that salvation is wholly God's gift. The Canons of Dort say the same, and a Reformed man who is proud has not understood the doctrine.

Where Scripture's authority weakens, the church's teaching on many moral matters weakens too. The Reformed churches hold, with Christ, that from the beginning God made them male and female and that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6). Marriage, as one man and one woman, is a gift of God and a picture of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:31-32). Our churches should teach this joyfully and care for families in every season.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor in Latin America belongs to a Presbyterian church whose national assembly is considering a proposal to relax the requirement that ministers hold the church's confession. He asks his older pastor, "Should I leave?"

First, the older pastor asks him to read the proposal and the confession carefully. Decisions made from rumor do harm.

Second, he reminds him of the Bereans (Acts 17:11). They searched the Scriptures daily to see whether things were so. The pastor should test the proposal against the Bible.

Third, he encourages him to pray, to speak to his session, and to contend for the truth in the proper church courts. He tells him not to act alone or in anger. He urges him to seek counsel from sister churches and trusted ministers.

Fourth, he tells him that if the church finally denies the gospel, a faithful man may need to separate, but only as a last resort and with sorrow. Until then, the young pastor should preach the Word, love his flock, and keep the unity of the Spirit.

Summary

Theological liberalism, which doubted the Bible's truth and Christ's supernatural work, entered many Reformed churches in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the United States, the controversy led to Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923), the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary (1929), and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936). In the Netherlands, Kuyper led the Doleantie of 1886. Barth opposed liberalism and Nazism, though conservatives question his view of Scripture. Later divisions produced the Presbyterian Church in America (1973) and other conservative bodies, while the mainline churches reunited in 1983. Confessional renewal came through the Banner of Truth, Lloyd-Jones, Packer, Sproul, Schaeffer and the Chicago Statement of 1978, and through growth in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We admit the faults of our own side and hold that churches must contend for the faith with truth, love and humility.

Further Reading

• J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923).

• Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1 (Holy Scripture) and chapter 25 (the Church).

• Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1872-73).

• B. B. Warfield, selected works on Scripture (public domain).

• Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and Canons of Dort (1619).

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