Christianity in America in the 20th Century
2002-11-09
I. The Fundamentalist Movement
A. Its background.
Fundamentalism is a movement in 20th century. Background: Revivalists. Major themes of conservative Protestants. Premillennialists: They believed that conditions were getting worse. Rectified only by Jesus Himself. Minority. Never controlled a major Protestant denomination, but had considerable influence. Northern Baptist Convention. Northern Presbyterian Convention (USA). Bible prophecy conferences beginning in 1875 in major cities. Stressed bible study. Defense of the faith against liberal ideas. Founded schools, bible institutes and missionary training. Also stressed the doctrine of the victorious Christian life. The concern of conservative Protestants for the inspiration of the bible. Princeton Theologians: A.A. Hodge. B.B. Warfield.
Bible League of North America. Federation of many denominational backgrounds. Published magazine called the Bible Champion.
Cooperative projects. Included all of these groups. Series of books called The Fundamentals. 12 volumes, 30% of it had to do with the bible. 1910-1915. These were set out free to those all over the English speaking world. 3 million copies. 1919, Formation of WCFA (World’s Christian Fundamentals Association). Brought together by William B. Riley, pastor, 1st Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Premillenial, but that focus was minimized.
B. Its nature.
Came about because it was a response to the threat to liberalism.
Fundamentalist: it is a person who is a part of the movement. 1920, term coined by a Baptist editor, Curtis Lee Laws, Watchman Examiner. Defined: ‘Those who still cling to the great fundamentals and who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals’. Theological content: Great fundamentals. An inspired, inerrant bible as the final authority for faith and living. This was the most important doctrine. Will stress personal transcendent God, reality of supernatural, uniqueness of Jesus, importance of personal conversion. Most important was the bible because the rest is in the bible. Method: mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals. Take a militant stand, not literally. How to do this: Negative: Denounced error, ended up hating their enemies. Wm. B. Riley, admits they are often Pharisees and have lost love. Positive: Promote the contructive work of the church. Evangelism and Bible teaching. Influence of American Nationalism. Strong nationalists. Believed that America was guided by God to fulfill a divine mission. Believed that America was essentially a Christian nation, and had a duty, propagate the gospel and ethical teaching. America was used to defeat the forces of evil, Germany, place of liberal teaching. America was in danger of losing Christian heritage, were flirting with the same theology that had sent Germany to the bottom. Must save America from that. Added urgency to task.
C. Its struggle with liberalism in the 1920’s
Two aspects. Anti-evolution crusade. Oppose evolution in public schools. 1925: Scopes Trial. John T. Scopes had violated a law prohibiting teaching of evolution in the public schools. Dayton, TN. Clarence Darrow was a famous Criminal lawyer, agnostic. William Jennings Bryan, Christian. Lawyers came together to argue. Scopes was convicted, and was fined 100 dollars. The Baltimore newspaper paid it for him. Darrow put Bryan on the witness stand to defend what he believed. America laughed at fundamentalism after this. Struggle for control of major denominations. Northern Baptists and Northern Presbyterians. Wm. B. Riley, Baptist. J. Gresham Machen, Presbyterian, Greek Scholar. Christianity and Liberalism, book. Founded Westminster Theol Seminary.
D. The aftermath of the struggle
Fundamentalists lost all the major fights to control major denominations. Separation became a major principle. Lots of splitting.
Demise of liberalism. Liberalism declined because it was not credible. Man was evil after all. WWI and II. Depression. New movement imported from Europe: Neo-Orthodoxy took place of liberalism. Fundamentalism retreats. They withdrew, developed a fortress mentality, surrounded by enemies. Advocated complete separatism. Even though liberalism was gone, they continued fighting anyway. ‘battle royal’ was in their personality. Fought themselves. Drew the lines of doctrine and practice. Most fundamentalists despised the social gospel, that the abandoned all social reform. Some of them became over balanced in their nationalism. Too busy fighting communism.
II. Later Theological Developments
A. Neo-Orthodoxy
Background. WWI, Depression, rise of totalitarian regimes, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, militaristic Japan.
Existentialism. Widely adopted in Europe. Reason tells us that life is meaningless. Do not use mind, but take a leap of faith, believe what you would like, that one might survive this. Karl Barth, Swiss Theologian, is founder of neo-orthodoxy. Barth began to study the bible and the writings of John Calvin. God is eternal and transcendent. Man is finite and sinful. God who is separate from human history, pierced into human history in the form of His Son. Salvation is unclear, tied somehow to incarnation. The bible is a human book, not revelation. Human witness to God’s revelation. Revelation is communicating revelation, but a personal encounter. The bible only becomes revelation when it brings someone into a personal encounter with God. God can use nature as revelation. Persons are already in Christ, elected to salvation, though they might not be aware of it. Stronger theology than liberalism, but not acceptable to evangelicals. View of the bible is the weakest point. Barth was the most conservative. Another was Brunner. Reinhold Neibuhr. Applied neo-orthodox to social problems. He was the only one to do this. Paul Tillich liberal, did not believe in a personal God, but He is the ground of all being. No revelation. Rudolf Bultmann, demythologized the bible. Extracted the kernels of revelation from the husks of myth. Loose handling of thescriptures.
B. Recent Radical theologies
God is dead theology. 1960’s. Frederick Nietzsche.
Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have been rediscovered. Called for a religionless Christianity and holy worldliness. Theology is irrelevant, but moral action.
Development and change theologies. God is evolving to a higher level.
Every person for himself when the bible s thrown out.
Liberation theology emerged in Latin America within Roman Catholicism. Christian Application of Karl Marx’s ideas. Liberation of the oppressed. Salvation defined as social economic and political. Marxist utopia.
C. Post WWII diversity among the evangelicals
Evangelicals have split up in a number of ways. People want to be called different things. Some of them involved in conservative politics. Fundamentalists have taken the lead in establishing Christian schools to avoid humanism in the public schools.
Evangelical mainstream. Not inclined toward separatism. Stresses verbal inspiration of the bible. Stressed evangelism and social action. Karl Henry, Harold Lindsell, Franics Schaefer, Kenneth Konzer, Billy Graham, Louise Pelalle, Includes schools such as Dallas, Trinity, Wheaton, Westminster, Moody, Philadelphia Biblical. Magazines: Christianity Today, Evan. Theol, Society. Interdenominational missions.
New Evangelicals. Not accurate anymore. Emphases of Fuller Theol Seminary. Bible still has a high place, deny verbal inspiration and inerrancy. Seem to be more open on questions of evolution and social action. Bernard Ram. Few distinctives left.
D. The charismatic movement
Roots in earlier Pentecostalism. This began around 1900. Emphasized the continued use of the gifts of the Spirit. Healing, and tongues. Assemblies of God, Church of Nazarenes, Church of God, Four Square Gospel Church. After WWII, the charismatic movement. Prominent in the 1960’s. Different groups. Included people like Lutherans, Episcopalians, RC. Were Ritualistic. 3rd wave: 1970’s, farther removed from the originals. Stressed the work of Spirit, casting out demons, prophecy, signs and wonders, etc. John Wimber, started the Vineyard movement, 1986. Loosely affiliated, mega-churches.
III. Parachurch Organizations
A. Federatrions for cooperations
B. Evangelical groups
Campus Crusade
C. Social action organizations
D. Missions organizations
E. Educational Institutions
F. Literary and Scholarly enterprises
New bible translations, magazines, publishers. Quality not always good.
Evangelicalism is in a precarious position at the current time, and the commitment is not there. Luxury and other distractions. When persecuted, we choose what is important, and what we would die for. Need to be on guard. Christians in government probably will not do.