"Another Gospel?"

"Another Gospel?" 

Part 2

"For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one received, or if you accept another gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough." ( 2 Corinthians 11:4 ) 

On a Sunday morning in June of 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick stepped into the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in New York City and preached what would prove to be one of the most provocative sermons preached in 20th century America. If that sounds overly dramatic, just wait. It would be hard to estimate the damage this sermon inflicted on the American mainline denominations. 

In Part 1 I gave the data of the mainline decline that has been taking place in the last sixty years within the seven Christian denominations that were once the pillars of American society, but are now headed toward extinction. 

This is a very condensed explanation of the terminal illness and slow death of these churches, but as always I hope this inspires your own research and a return if necessary to the true, rich theological depth that marks genuine Christian faith. 

Fosdick was a Baptist pastor, which I know sounds a bit odd in a Presbyterian church, and his sermon that morning, entitled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" was in response to a decades old debate between those in the church who held to the core doctrines of the Christian faith and those who believed the church needed to adapt to modern ears. 

It was known as the "fundamentalist-modernist controversy." 

Today the term "fundamentalist" carries a bit of a negative connotation to it, but back then it referred to those who held to the core doctrines - the fundamentals - of the Christian faith such essentials as the inerrancy and authority of the Bible and the bodily resurrection of Christ. 

"Modernists" were those who believed that we needed to update the Bible for modern thinkers. We needed to be constantly changing our religious views and "progressing" toward not just a better understanding of Scripture, but new ideas outside of them to fit our culture and become more tolerant. "Seeker-friendly," you could say before that was a thing. 

The sermon would end with a call for the Fundamentalists to reach out to the poor and Foswick would call them to love. I'm not attempting to construct a straw man here - the Fundamentalists, known as today's conservatives admit there is work to do and areas needing major improvement. That's the journey of sanctification as we refuse to disconnect from the only power that makes us like Christ. This is why in a broad stroke today's liberal Christians are known as "progressive Christians." In changing with the times, they've disconnected from our core. I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Between 1905 and 1910, a series of 12 paperback volumes called "The Fundamentals" had been published defending the inerrancy of Scripture and the supernatural beliefs and character of the Christian faith. These were turbulent and scary times in the minds of many Americans who held dear to orthodox Christianity. I'll explain why momentarily. 

In the sermon that morning, Fosdick preached that "we now have new knowledge about human history" as if this is a reason to rethink the doctrines of our faith and be tolerant to others, watering down the Holy commandments of God. 

But we have to be clear here. Fosdick wasn't questioning secondary issues. He wasn't saying that we should show acceptance to those who believe differently about baptism or church government. No, he was arguing that the Fundamentalists should be tolerant of the modernists in their midst - not outside of the church, but inside - who don't hold to, namely. the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, the virgin birth, and the atonement and second coming of Christ. 

Maybe the Fundamentalists didn't always have a charitable attitude as they defended and fought for the core doctrines of the faith, but you can easily see why they would be passionate. These essentials are the whole of the Christian doctrine that we hold dear. Without them, there is no Christianity. There's just an empty shell. 

Fosdick admonished the congregation for "quarreling over little matters."  "Little matters?" No, my dear sir, a different gospel.  

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around this sermon at first because God is supernatural. Jesus said in John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." It appeared God was being excommunicated from the church, so a more modern, tolerant deity could take his place. And I guess, one we could see? If we should only believe in what we can see; I'm not even sure how to take that. 

I recommend you google the sermon, reading it in its entirety, but this is the gist: Our beautiful faith was wrung, twisted, and hung out to dry in an already, hotly debated church climate where tensions had been stirring for decades. And Fosdick portrayed the Fundamentalists - those clinging to the core doctrines of Christianity - as bullies I felt. It's a piece of classic liberal rhetoric, and again, I'd love to address all of it.  But you read it and see what you think. 

If you're going to not believe the Bible is the true Word of God nor the sacred doctrines that are held within, why would you even try to hold onto Christianity? Just go start another religion. This has never made sense to me. What would cause a preacher to do this? 

Here's some of the backstory into why: 

The19th century's enlightenment period seemed to be slowly eroding all traces of faith in America, a country that had been founded primarily on biblical principles, replacing it with reason alone, the notion that science and religion couldn't exist in the same atmosphere, but more than anything I believe we can thank the introduction of Darwin's "Origin of Species" for paving the way to secularism and progressive thought in our nation's mainline denominations. After studying this for some time now, I don't think this is too much of a stretch. 

Never before had there been this idea so widely spread in a society that perhaps God didn't really exist after all. And it got worse; maybe we descended from monkeys. Think of the existential despair this must have led to. 

When a society begins to believe that there is no God, no Creator, and we are just the product of random processes blindly moving along with no rhyme or reason after an amoeba grows legs and crawls out of the primordial soup, the fruits of this thought can't yield a healthy crop. Ideas have consequences. 

Even Friedrich Nietzsche the atheist philosopher had the integrity to admit that if we throw out God we've just thrown out our basis for morality. 

I'm not insinuating that we should believe in God just because it's helpful. But instead, examine that fact. In and of itself this longing is a major clue.  And anyway, there is more evidence pointing to God than naturalism by the one simple truth that something can't come from nothing. That should put the whole debate to rest, because not just "something" but something so amazing and finely tuned, inside the universe, but also inside of us! 

I believe the doubts sown in Fosdick's sermon that day in the minds of many American church goers, already contemplating the idea of evolution, didn't at once cause the tidal wave to slam into the shoreline, but it did, as many historians note, give liberalism the push it needed to start the wave rushing toward the beach. 

Or to use another metaphor from God's creation, the seeds of doubt that we were not created by an all-loving, all-powerful and all-wise God from our increasing liberal environment received the manure they would need to germinate and grow. 

And John D. Rockefeller was all too willing to cultivate the weeds growing out of the dung. 

Many people know of him as a Christian, but what they may not realize is that Rockefeller was what we would call today a "progressive Christian" because he enjoyed Fosdick's sermon so much calling into questions the core doctrines of our faith that he had his publicist to print 130,000 copies and send to every Protestant preacher in America. 

Also known as a philanthropist, though his money for medical research and the like usually came with strings attached as he held control over his beneficiaries, Rockefeller would have been 83 years old at this time. He is responsible for helping spread a false Christ and another gospel throughout our nation, attempting to pollute every pulpit in the mainline denominations. He used his wealth to do evil. 

After Fosdick was fired from the Presbyterian church, Rockefeller built him a church of his own. Biographer Ron Chernow had this to say about Rockefeller: 

"What makes him problematic—and why he continues to inspire ambivalent reactions—is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure."

The Presbyterians and Episcopalians were the first of the seven sisters to become embroiled in the battle for the authority and errancy of the Scriptures, fighting against their own seminary professors who engaged in higher criticisms of its content and sola scriptura ( Latin for by Scripture alone ) which our reformation fathers gave their lives to protect. 

I'm skipping a ton of history here, but again I hope this encourages you to engage in your own research. Please have the integrity to look into the church traditions you've grown up with as well as becoming more sure in the core doctrines of the Christian faith and the validity of the scriptures. 

We need to always be studying them deeply while also teaching them to our children; this can only strengthen our faith as we arrive at the knowledge of the truth. And I arrived at the answer to my question which started this whole theological journey. Why was Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan so unlike the Presbyterian church I grew up in? 

The answer: Redeemer was a part of the denomination that splintered off of the mainline Presbyterian church ( PCUSA ) finally in 1973. My childhood church was PCUSA, and that's why even though at that time our church still sang most hymns and recited selected passages from the Bible, the Apostle's Creed, and Lord's Prayer, I still had never heard the true gospel preached and explained or sat under expository teaching of the Bible. No sin, repentance, wrath, hell, just a short sermon with a bit of love, mercy and grace mixed in. Those are vitally important, but half a gospel is no gospel at all.  

I am thankful for a Sunday school teacher who took our class through the memorization of the shorter catechism, and for the liturgy and sacraments. Those seeds rooted and grew, late blooming, for sure, but still a tree grows in Bedford. I don't want to seem ungrateful because when I look back, I see God's hand in my life, his eye watching over me. I don't want to leave an ungrateful impression. God works everywhere.

Jesus is neither a liberal or a conservative, nor is he a third way. Jesus IS the way. Jesus supersedes our flawed, human categories. Jesus is the Word himself. When we embrace and are satisfied in him we are eating the sound doctrine of our faith. The two are inseparable. 

Since the late 60s and early 70s when I was a young girl, the mainline churches have slowly let go each passing year it seems of more and more of what makes us a Christian. 

There's so much more to say, but I'll just have to keep blogging. Here's a quote from the PCA's website: 

"It separated from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) in opposition to the long-developing theological liberalism which denied the deity of Jesus Christ and the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. Additionally, the PCA held to the traditional position on the role of women in church offices."

So, how are we doing without God? 

Someone may say that there are some who still believe and worship God in mainline churches, but I would argue that it is a god of their own making, not the God of the Bible. If they are worshiping the true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, it's only a matter of time before their spiritual stomachs start to growl and like so many before them, vacate the premises. 

Without God and his gospel of the atoning work of Jesus Christ his Son for the forgiveness of our sins and for our redemption, mainline churches have nothing to offer. And people have better things to do on a Sunday morning. 

Sadly, the dwindling numbers each year of attendees in the mainline churches remaining open cause us to prepare and mourn their impending death, and for me to rest my case.  

For now anyway. 

💜

I want to offer two resources for anyone who is interested: 

In 1923, J. Gresham Machen, a New Testament Professor at Westminister Theological Seminary, published a response to Fosdick's sermon and to the liberalism that arose in the early 1900s. He thoroughly explains the importance of scriptural doctrine as his work has become a classic defense of orthodox Christianity. I highly recommend reading Fosdick's sermon and then this book. 

Also, Alisa Childers' "Another Gospel?" is an easy to read, charitable, informative response to progressive Christianity as well with a deep look into the essentials of our faith through her experience in a progressive Bible study. Check out her weekly podcast too!