Okay, so today we do, as we're continuing our study in Presbyterian history, our Presbyterian stories, today we get pictures. So I had some of these pictures already from before, so we'll get to use these again. What we're going to focus in on today, after looking at the 19th century last week, focusing on the early 20th century, in particular, what's often called the modernist controversy of the early 20th century, what ends up, at the end of the day, giving birth to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in the North. But first, a little bit of review of what we talked about last week, or where things left off at the end of the 19th century in terms of the Presbyterian world. So you have, essentially, at the beginning of the, Civil War, you end up with four different main Presbyterian churches. Now, throughout this, we haven't been talking about some of the little. There's some smaller Presbyterian bodies. We haven't been focusing on them. We've been kind of taking the bigger picture. But beginning of the Civil War, you end up with four different main Presbyterian bodies. Remember, back in 1937, there was a split between old school and new school. And the main issues there surrounded the Second Great Awakening. New schoolers very much loving this revival, loving its impact. Old school, very concerned, especially about the theology behind some of the main proponents, people like Charles Finney, concerned about the practice of revival and more what seemed to be manipulative tactics. But you end up having this split. Also, one of the issues we talked about last week was, what's the role of the church in the midst of moral crusades? Whether it's crusades like temperance, in terms of beverage alcohol, or abolition. And that leads into the sectional conflict. You get a split before the sectional conflict gets really heavy, 1837, old school, new school split. But then by the time the Civil War begins, you end up with four different bodies. So in the north, you have old school, new school. In the south, you have old school, new school. Those old and new ends up coming back together, one during the Civil War, in the South and one just after in the North. So by the time you arrive at the late 19th century, you have two main bodies. In the North, it's the Presbyterian Church, USA. In the South, it's the Presbyterian Church in the United States. So those are the two bodies, North and South, at the time of the end of the 19th century. So let's talk, you know what, I want to go, I want to scoot back, go to this one first. One of the things we didn't get to talk about last week in the midst of our conversation about sectional conflict was talk about Princeton Seminary, which really plays a very key role throughout the 19th into the early 20th century in terms of the Presbyterian world. Princeton Seminary was created in 1812 by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Somewhat unique because the other seminaries that served the Presbyterian world, there was a lot that cropped up in the early 19th and mid-19th century, a lot of seminaries. But Princeton was unique in that it was an institution of the General Assembly. The other seminaries were either institutions of local presbyteries or regional synods. But instead, here is Princeton. It's created by the national and overseen by the national body, the General Assembly of the US. That gives it a national character. That gives it a standing as really the flagship school for the church. And it develops within that a real reputation for being passionately committed to orthodoxy. passionately committed to the reform faith of the Westminster Standards, and Presbyterian Church government. Part of what spurred it on was really a fantastic faculty. Here you have one example. That's a picture of Charles Hodge up on the screen. But we could talk about others as well, names like Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, Charles Hodge's son, A.A. Hodge, Towards the end of Old Princeton, you get B.B. Warfield right at the turn of the century. Well, let's talk for a minute about Charles Hodge, because he gives you kind of an overview, a window to see what really Old Princeton was about. We talk about Old Princeton thinking we'll get to how things change in the early 20th century. But in Old Princeton, Charles Hodge really is the epitome of what's going on. Here you have Hodge. He teaches at Princeton for over 50 years. 1820 all the way up into the 1870s. Hodge, extremely prolific writer, writes probably the most influential systematic theology in the English language. Hodge's systematic theology. He edits one of the most influential theological journals in the 19th century. This was the age of journals and newspapers. There were a lot of them in church circles, a lot of Presbyterian ones, but the most significant and most influential, Hodge was the editor and a frequent writer. He writes thousands and thousands of pages that people read. He trains thousands of men for the ministry. So incredibly influential. He uses this to defend orthodoxy in the midst of a lot going on. This is the whole period we talked about last week. So in the midst of the old school-new school split, here is the voice of Hodge arguing for orthodoxy. But arguing in the midst of orthodoxy, is there a way we can try to stay together and stay united and not divide? But yet, at the same time, we're going to get into in a minute, more and more in the late 19th century, you get the rise of liberalism. And here is Hodge, a very passionate voice for for orthodoxy within the church. So you get a passionate voice for Westminster Calvinism in Hodge, along with the rest of the faculty. But also, he is known, along with the rest of Princeton, known for his great piety. This wasn't just an ivory tower theologian. To give you an example, one of the things that the professors of Princeton did is they held these meetings on Sunday afternoons, what they called the Sabbath afternoon conferences. So the professors would help to lead these, and the students would all gather. You'd go to church in the morning, in the afternoon, you'd have these conferences. And they were kind of part lecture, but part devotional. And they'd take a separate topic each week, and they'd talk about things. So there was a theological background, but a focus on what this looked like experientially, living out our devotion to God. And it was the professors. you know, who are teaching them all this rich theology, who were really leading the way. And people, the students got to see, here is this brilliant man, Charles Hodge, but man, as he's leading us and talking about his own faith and what it looks like to live out faith, people were impacted by this. So this brilliant mix of both passionate orthodoxy and warm-hearted piety. And so you get this sense in the church, you don't have to choose. You can have both because it was lived out right before them at Princeton. And that reputation was really passed along even after Hodge's death. So here you have this flagship seminary helping to steer the course for the church in the midst of a lot going on. And there is a lot going on. Let's talk about what's going on at the turn of the century, the challenges that are facing the Presbyterian Church, the rise of several different movements that all come together to form a real crisis, not only in the Presbyterian world, but in all of the Christian world in the West. First, you have the rise of higher criticism in biblical studies. higher criticism in biblical studies. What this really is, is this is the Enlightenment coming home to roost in the midst of religious studies, in the midst of the biblical world. The Enlightenment is that movement that gets started all the way back in the 17th century. The movement, the core being Whereas before we used to focus on our starting point as religion, as God, as revelation, now our starting point for knowledge and understanding is going to be with man. That's where we must start. Whether it's man and his reason, That's Rene Descartes, right? I think, therefore I am. Start with our reason and flow out from there. That's rationalism. Or whether it's we start with man and man's observation. That's empiricism. John Locke, one of the key leaders there. But either way, their starting point is man. That's where it begins. And in the midst of that movement of the Enlightenment, which spreads out into every discipline, of course it cannot help but touch the Christian world and biblical studies. And so more and more, if our starting point is man, you start to pull away from the idea of revelation and the Bible as God's word, as God's revelation. More and more, well, this is just a book like any other book. And so more and more people beginning to critique and study in the study of the scriptures, especially in Europe. Germany is a real hotbed for this, the birth of higher criticism. More and more scholars starting to say, well, hold it, there are errors in God's Word. There are contradictions. If we really study it, we have to say that Paul didn't write Ephesians, despite what it says, or that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch. These are the theories that are coming out. They're just theories, but this is the trend as the Enlightenment really hits into biblical studies. And of course, things like miracles, we have to say that they didn't happen. Why? Because we can't see miracles today. We can't document them in a scientific way. So therefore, they couldn't have happened. This had to be just myths of the past. Of course, in the same period of time, you have the rise of Darwinian evolution. Darwin, origin of the species, 1859. The descent of man, 1871. So here's this movement that comes along at the same time. Oh, yeah, we can't trust Genesis, that God, through special creation, creates man. Here's science coming along, giving us a different theory. And so scripture begins to be pushed out. And that's the ethos of the Church. It starts in Europe, but it starts seeping into the United States as well. For example, There's a very famous trial in the 1890s in the United States, in the Presbyterian Church, Charles Briggs. It was a big-name biblical scholar. Chris knows that name because he knows the Hebrew lexicon that goes by his name, Brown, Driver, Briggs. That's the Briggs. Charles Briggs, professor at Union Seminary in New York, begins to teach openly some of these ideas. Moses didn't write the Pentateuch. You had these combination of different authors and their documents get combined and weaved together and more and more of this hierarchy. He begins to teach it. He's brought up on trial, a very highly publicized heresy trial of Charles Briggs. He's exonerated by the New York Presbytery. General Assembly comes back, reverses the decision, and excommunicates him. But he's exonerated by an entire Presbytery within the Presbyterian Church. There's nothing wrong with this guy. Eventually, as a result of this, Union Seminary pulls away completely from any influence by the Presbyterian Church. But you see, this is not just out there. This is within the Church. So you have the rise of higher criticism. At the same time, you also have more and more the rise of the social gospel. the social gospel. You might have heard that term before. It's the idea that really what the mission of the church is, what the good news that Jesus came to give to the world has less and less to do with issues of personal sin and salvation and more and more to do with the transformation of society. It's a social gospel, a good news for society. The key message is love your neighbor. And Jesus as the great moral teacher, the great social reformer. And this is the mission of the church, to be in the world and transform society. And this is something that begins to have influence both on what we would think of as more left-leaning and right-leaning people in the church. So on the left-leaning, it was fighting poverty. Fighting poverty, so you get Presbyterian pastors like, I think he was a Presbyterian. No, he might have been a Baptist. Anyway, Walter Rauschenbusch, who's a minister in New York. I think he is a Baptist. Yep, there he is, right there. Ministers in New York, in Hell's Kitchen, New York. If you know the neighborhood, it was a horrible, depressed neighborhood. in the early 20th century. And here is Rauschenbusch as a minister of the gospel say, here is our calling to end poverty. And so a huge part of his ministry deals with the poor and decrying the evils of capitalism. This is part of what the church is, their core message. left-leaning social gospel, but there's also right-leaning social gospel as well. The evils of alcohol and personal sin and prohibition. Temperance movement quickly turns into calls for prohibition on the sale and production of alcohol. And remember this period, late 19th, early 20th century. This is the era of progress. highly optimistic views in society. We are advancing as a people, and we're, you know, science, huge advances in science and medicine. You have presidents like Teddy Roosevelt in the White House who leads the charge to, you know, take on those robber barons and help a more equitable society. So this is, we can advance, and the church is fitting right into this. Yes, let's transform society. This is the call of the church, the rise of the social gospel. At the same time, you have another movement. These things start to coalesce in many ways. The rise of classical liberalism. Here, theological liberalism is what we're talking about. Now, liberalism in the more classical sense, we throw around that word liberal. Sometimes it just means the people we don't like. They're the liberals. But classical liberalism has a more distinct focus. The real focus is that the heart of religion, the heart of Christianity, is religious experience, not propositional truth. Friedrich Schleiermacher is really the father of this movement. And the idea is the core of The core of the faith is our religious experience and it's really not about propositional truth, doctrine. What's more important is the Christ of faith, not the Jesus of history. So you can have the Jesus of history You know, and in higher criticism, well, who knows what he really did and really said? Did he rise from the dead? Well, probably not. We've never seen anybody rise from the dead. Was he born of a virgin? Come on, probably not. And when does that happen? But liberalism coming along, theological liberalism coming on and saying that really doesn't matter. The actual Jesus of history doesn't matter as much as the Christ of faith. What's your experience with Christ? So you have this this movement within theology. And, of course, you can see how this would fit in with higher criticism. We have no problem with talking about errors in Scripture, where Jesus, just as a good religious teacher, you can see how it fits in with the social gospel, Jesus as the example of one who says and lives, love your neighbor, changing and transforming society. So you have these movements cropping up within the church. Higher criticism, social gospel, liberalism. And in the midst of it, you have the church a little confused about what does it truly mean to be Presbyterian. End of the 20th century, for the most part, the Presbyterian church is still very conservative. But there's a disagreement within what does that really mean to be orthodox and conservative? In many ways, it's still some of the issues that came up in the old school-new school split. You know, what's our identity? The old school wing of the church is saying, you know, what it means, what our identity is, is wrapped up in our common confession. It's Westminster Calvinism. It's our Presbyterian practice, according to Scripture. This forms our identity. But there are others who are saying, no, our identity is more wrapped up in our religious experience, a more conservative religious experience, wrapped up in moral crusades, in revival, and perhaps a more, and usually a more stripped-down version of doctrine, a list of key points, as we'll talk about, the fundamentals of the faith. Our identities, we hold to these fundamentals of the faith and we're promoting revival and moral reform. So even within conservative circles, what does it really mean to hold on to this Presbyterian identity? There's differences of opinion. So in the midst of this, of course, you have Princeton Seminary. taking a very firm line on solid doctrine according to the Westminster standards, historic reform theology, combining that with warm piety, Presbyterian government. Early 20th century, things really start to come to a head. Here's one of the key players, J. Gresham Machen. Jay Gresham Machen, his dates, he was born in 1881. He dies in 1937. Machen actually grows up in the South. He grows up in Baltimore, south of the Mason-Dixon line, grows up in the Southern Presbyterian Church, though his role in the debates is in the Northern Church. But he grows up in the South. He grows up in a very well-to-do family. But a very devout family, very passionately devout family. Studies at Johns Hopkins and then goes to Princeton Seminary. Studies at Princeton. He does postgraduate work in Germany. I remember what's going on in Germany. Germany's the hotbed of biblical criticism and theological liberalism. And if you read some of the history of Nietzsche and even some of his letters, they're really interesting, talking about his time in Germany. He is very enamored with these liberal preachers. I mean, some of them are just their passion for Jesus. is just, it really captures Machen, and he's very caught up in it, and he talks about kind of almost being swayed by their piety. But he isn't. At the end of the day, he sees the error, though he definitely can take in that they have a passion for Jesus, he sees the problems. He comes back from Germany, and he's teaching at Westminster Seminary. World War I starts. He's convinced he has to do his part. And so he volunteers to serve with the YMCA in France. And he serves in a non-combat role. He serves food to the soldiers. He makes hot chocolate. That's a lot of what he does. Makes hot chocolate and serves it to the soldiers, but right in the midst of the war going on around him. And so you read these accounts of him stirring up hot chocolate, and then the bombs start coming, and he's got to retreat. And a very powerful experience. He sees the ugliness and the horrors. of war. But after World War I, he comes back and begins teaching again at Westminster Seminary. A couple of his key works, and you get a sense here of who he is and what he stands for. The Origin of Paul's Religion. It's a book that he writes, and it's a book that defends the belief that Paul's teaching was founded on the historical Jesus of Nazareth. That is, Paul talked about this Jesus and his salvation, what he does, and it actually brings about transformation, it actually changes individuals, this message to be proclaimed. This isn't just some Christ of faith that's divorced from history. That was part of the liberal, the higher critical line, where you have the Jesus of history, and then you have Paul taking it in a whole different direction coming up with this Jesus who is God and this Jesus who is the savior from sin. That doesn't have anything to do with the historical Jesus, kind of a split between them. And here is Machen coming along and doing this study on Paul. And so now the origin of Paul's religion is the historical Jesus. There's no discontinuity between them. He writes another book called, What is Faith? And here, he defends the idea that faith is centered around true belief in the real Jesus and Jesus' atoning work. That's the core of biblical faith. You see how he's really taking on that liberal line, that faith is just about your own experience. Regardless of what really happened in Nazareth in the first century, it really doesn't matter. Here's Machen saying, no, no, no, no. Biblical faith is centered around true belief in the real events of history. That's biblical faith. Machen's most powerful and influential work, the one that really puts his name out there in the midst of the controversy, is the book Christianity and Liberalism. Christianity and Liberalism. If I'm remembering, 1923, I think it is. Or 24. Christianity and Liberalism. And what Machen argues in this is that what you have is actually two different religions. biblical Christianity and Christian theological liberalism. These are two different religions. And he breaks it down. Let's talk about it. And see that they actually have two very different views of who God is, two different views of who man is, two different views of what the Bible is, two different views of Christ, of salvation, and of the church. These are very different things from what the scripture teaches. So you have to conclude at the end of the day, these are actually two different religions. And there's his argument right in the midst of this. Hopefully you see that we're not just talking about history here. If you read this today, you would think this guy could have written this two weeks ago. As we're driving around and here in the midst of Christmas, all kinds of churches talking about Jesus and his coming. Are we all on the same page? Right what's being spoken from various pulpits and and and nation speaks into it and says no, let's look about it Let's look at is this the same faith at the core or is this really two very different religions He also makes the claim in the midst of this that liberal ministers within the Presbyterian Church were really being dishonest because after all they took ordination vows and and their ordination vows were that they sincerely received and adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scripture. And yet, they took that vow, and yet from their pulpit, they're preaching theological liberalism. He's saying that that's dishonest. That's dishonest. You can't believe both. So he calls out liberal ministers on this. As you can imagine, Machen in this work, which becomes a very popular thing, thing people are talking about, people are reading, conservatives love him, liberals hate him in terms of within the church. Although it's interesting that even secular elites speak very well of Machen. And guys like Walter Lippmann, H.L. Mencken, These are not like Christian pastors. These are very secular elites who are writing at this time. They say very positive things about Machen, basically saying, here is a capable, honest churchman who is just telling it like it is, even though they might not agree with him. They hail him as being upfront and honest. And so you get this work and Machen in many ways becomes, because of his work, because of his place as a teacher in Princeton, the flagship seminary of the church, he becomes a leader of this battle within the North. Remember, we're talking about what's going on in the Northern Church. We'll get to the Southern Church next week. So you have the battle lines going on, the movements are rising, you have Princeton trying to defend historic orthodoxy. And the big question is, well, where does the church actually stand? Well, you get some things that pop up that really bring the controversy to a head. Here's one of them. A famous sermon, Shall the Fundamentalists Win? It's a sermon preached on May 21st, 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick was actually a Baptist pastor, but a Baptist pastor who was employed as the stated supply of First Presbyterian Church in New York. This is New York that had already exonerated Charles Briggs back in the 1890s. And so here you have Fosdick, a very liberal Baptist pastor serving as stated supply of this First Presbyterian Church. Fosdick, a very big name. He was known as one of the great preachers. You see his face here on Time Magazine. I mean, how many preachers make the cover of Time Magazine? But Fosdick did. And he preaches this sermon, which gets printed and talked about. Shall the fundamentalists win? Shall the fundamentalists win? This term fundamentalists crops up for the first time in this general area. As these different movements are taking place in the church, one of the things that conservatives do is they start to write this series of little booklets. in the early part of the 20th century. On each one taking a different doctrine and talking about it. Doctrine of scripture, the virgin birth, things like that. And these booklets were called the fundamentals. And they were put together in collections. And so you started to get this term of fundamentalists. These were those who believed in the fundamentals. Well, what Fosdick does, he says, are these guys going to win in the church? Basically what the sermon was, was a plea for toleration. He accused conservatives of being intolerant, that these doctrines that they keep talking about again and again and again, virgin birth, the inspiration of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture, the substitutionary atonement, these key doctrines, these are really open to interpretation. uh... and and what the conservatives are presenting as definitive these are really theories and we can disagree on these and uh... well here's a quote from his sermon Fosdick preached this, he says, the present situation smells to heaven and now in the presence of colossal problems, colossal problems think in society, in the presence of colossal problems which must be solved in Christ's name and for Christ's sake. The fundamentalists propose to drive out from the Christian churches all the consecrated souls who do not agree with their theory of inspiration. What immeasurable folly. You can hear the social gospel there. You can hear the liberalism, like, hey, come on. These are not the key issues. We shouldn't be fighting and dividing, certainly not driving out people from the church. We need to come together and work on what's really the core problems. There's problems in society. We need to work together in Christ's name. preaches this sermon, gets talked about. One conservative pastor in Philadelphia, Charles McCartney, the pastor of Arch Street Presbyterian Church, very quickly preaches his own sermon entitled, Shall Unbelief Win? I see where he's going with that. It's a rebuttal to Fosdick. But this becomes an issue in the church. And it actually goes up to the General Assembly about, what are we going to do with Fosdick? Eventually, on more procedural grounds, the New York Presbytery determines, or the church determines not to, I guess it's the Presbytery, not to have him continue as stated supply. Anyway, but still, clearly there's tension within the church. Here's another, in the midst of this, another key event that stokes the fire, the Auburn Affirmation of 1924. the Auburn Affirmation of 1924. See, in the midst of some of these early 20th century controversies, one of the things that the Presbyterian Church does is, and they do this repeatedly, they'll pass these resolutions in General Assembly saying, we believe in the core doctrines of historic Christianity. And then they list what would become known as the fundamentals. List things like inerrancy of the scriptures, the virgin birth and deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus. We believe in these things. And they did it early in the 20th century, and then a controversy would come up again, like the Fosdick controversy, and GA would reaffirm them. We still believe this. Well, then in response to this, you get a group of ministers who put together this Auburn Affirmation. And here's the opening part of the document. They describe it as an affirmation designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. And what they say in the midst of this is that these fundamentals that I have listed there, these fundamentals, they're really just theories. They can't be used as tests of orthodoxy. So that you believe this, you're in. You don't believe this, you should be out. They cannot be used as tests of orthodoxy. So in other words, we can disagree on this stuff and still be considered orthodox, still be a part of the Presbyterian Church. The General Assembly has no right to require such belief of ministers. It's signed, by the end of the day, by over 1,200 PCUSA ministers. 1,200. So clearly, you have some real differences of opinion within the church. 1,200 ministers saying, these things are just theories. We should be allowed to disagree on these things. You can imagine Machen and the other conservatives are saying, this is evidence of what we've been talking about. There's a problem within the church. There's a different religion even within our own ranks. So another piece of the controversy has to do with Princeton Seminary. Now, in the midst of this, you have the Auburn Affirmation coming up, all these ministers signing it, the General Assembly decides, okay, we need to do something. Clearly, there's division and difficulty within the church. Let's erect a committee, a commission, to study why is there division within the church. That's what Presbyterians do. If there's a problem, you make a committee. And they do. Make this committee, study, are there divisions within the church? Is there problems? Is there liberalism? What's going on? Study it. Come back to General Assembly. They do, they study it. They find, first of all, we don't see any evidence of of modernism, of heresy within the church. We don't see it. We think the church, for the large part, the other exceptions, is sound. It's an orthodox body, one. And then in the midst of it, there is, in part, a blame placed on the feet of conservatives. And part of the tension is you have these conservatives within the church that are stirring up controversy. They're being obstreperous. They're being difficult. They're being picky. And in the midst of the discussions that flow out of this, people start looking at Princeton. There's the seminary that's the flagship for conservatism. And there's the seminary that's run by the General Assembly. So a committee goes to study, what do we do about Princeton? And the recommendation comes back to the General Assembly that what we need to do is reorganize the administrative structure of Princeton. Princeton had this strange structure where you had a board of directors and a board of trustees. And they had slightly different responsibilities. And so part of what this committee recommends to GA is we need to reorganize it. Let's just come up with one board that can take care of the whole thing. administratively. But people like Machen and other conservatives at the seminary are saying, hold it, we know what this is. This is a backdoor attempt, a backdoor attempt to tone down the conservatism of Princeton, to make it fit more in line with the rest of the denomination. And indeed, you end up, the reorganized board that gets put in place over Princeton Seminary includes a couple of ministers who signed the Auburn Affirmation. So you get the seminary of Hodge and Warfield, and you have guys running it, making the decisions, who say, you know, these things, the inerrancy of scripture, the atonement of Christ, these are just theories. Virgin birth, these are theories. We can disagree on this stuff and still be orthodox. And so Machen and others say, this spells the end of old Princeton. And so Machen and a couple other professors determine now's the time to pull out. And they pull out and start a brand new seminary, Westminster Seminary, 1929, in Philadelphia, to be what old Princeton was. And that really was the vision. We're going to continue the path of old Princeton. We have to do it now in a new seminary. So you start to see these controversies kind of piling up on top of one another. Princeton, is there liberalism within the church? The Auburn Affirmation. The new battleground then becomes foreign missions. Foreign missions. Is there problems with our missionaries and with our mission board within the Presbyterian Church? A book comes out, a big study called Rethinking Missions. This is this massive study and a part of a lot of different contributors from different denominations studying foreign missions. What is foreign missions to be about? What's our goals? And the prescription from this great study is basically, we need a change in strategy. The old strategy of foreign missions was focused on claims of truth, doctrine, and salvation. But we need to change that. That's really not what the world needs. What the world needs is a change of emphasis from evangelism and discipleship to humanitarian work. What the church should be involved in doing is things like education, medicine. Essentially what it ends up being, Rethinking Missions, is a liberal Protestant manifesto. It becomes a, you know, this is what the church should be about. It's a little bit of an embarrassment to the moderates and the conservatives who ran the Foreign Missions Board, because people were already raising concerns. Is there liberalism within our missionaries and with our mission board? And now this study comes out, and people are hailing it. One very famous voice who hails this work is the Presbyterian missionary Pearl S. Buck. You've probably heard that name. Pearl Buck was a missionary in China. She becomes super famous because she wins the Pulitzer Prize for her book, The Good Earth. Maybe you read that in high school. I had to read a portion of that in high school. But Pearl Buck, very famous, but very liberal. And I forget the exact quote, but she basically says about her experience in China, I learned more from the Chinese than I could have ever taught them. In other words, I wasn't there and I wasn't able to give them anything, the gospel, Jesus, salvation, but they taught me. I learned from them. And she concludes about rethinking missions, I think this is the only book I've ever read which seems to me literally true in its every observation and right in its every conclusion. Which is a little strange, you know, we would say, that kind of sounds like the Bible, but okay, well, you know. That bell was the choir bell, by the way, so we still have a little bit of time. So here's Pearl Buck, a missionary under the supervision of the Presbyterian Church Mission Board. saying this this liberal manifesto we need to not preach the gospel we need to we need to do education and medicine uh... she's this this this is it this is this is exactly it And Machen and other conservatives within the Presbyterian Church is saying, this is exactly what we feared. This is what we've been talking about. There's liberalism within the church. Here it's within our own foreign mission board. And the moderates and even many conservatives saying, no, there's nothing to worry about. We have an orthodox church, nothing to worry about. And they're saying, here's proof. Here's proof of it, right in the midst of foreign missions. While Machen and others decide what it's time to do is establish an independent board for Presbytery Foreign Missions. An independent missions agency. Basically, we can't trust the Denomination Missions Board anymore. Clearly they're supporting missionaries who don't truly believe the gospel. Though it is true after this whole controversy, Pearl S. Buck, her support from the Presbyterian Church was pulled after this. But still, I'm not sure we can really trust them. What we need to do is create an independent board. and a board run by Presbyterian ministers committed to Westminster Calvinism and Presbyterian form of government, but that we can, someone we can trust, that we can encourage conservative churches to give to because we know that the resources will be spent on the Great Commission, on the preaching of the gospel, and the discipleship of the nations. But this causes quite a stir. Now remember the church is already talking about, you know, are we divided and concerned about being divided? Along comes this independent board. So General Assembly talks about this and they conclude that the independent board is divisive and orders an administrative decree from on high that ministers are to resign immediately. Actually, it gives them a couple months, I think, but a very short period of time. Ministers on the independent board are to resign immediately or face charges of being divisive. Well, you have Machen and other ministers on the board who said, no. Why? We can't do this. And furthermore, we're justified in doing this. And you're not justified in issuing this extra confessional decree. And so Machin and several other ministers are brought up on charges. Machin is tried in the Presbyterian New Brunswick. New Jersey area presbytery. He's tried and he's convicted, along with some others, for violating his ordination vow, specifically the vow to seek the peace and purity and unity of the church. You're not seeking the unity of the church because you created this foreign mission board and you refuse to resign. It's really, it's very much a sham trial. Machen wants to present evidence why this is justified. wants to present evidence that there really is a justification for this because, look, I can provide evidence that there's liberalism on our foreign mission board, on the denomination board. But he's not allowed to present any of that evidence. And he basically gets to the point where I can't defend myself. You just said everything to my defense. I'm not allowed to present. He's convicted. It goes all the way up to the General Assembly in terms of appeals. His appeal is upheld. His appeal is upheld. And so Machen determines our hand has now been forced. Literally, we've been kicked out of the church. But clearly, you have a church now that's not standing on the side of the gospel. It's time to leave. It's time to leave. And so, you get a new Presbyterian church started. June 11, 1936, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is born. Actually, originally, it wasn't called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Originally, it was called the Presbyterian Church of America. The PCA. Not to be confused with the Presbyterian Church in America, the current PCA. But it was originally called the Presbyterian Church of America. But they got sued. They got sued by the mainline denomination, saying, that name is too close to our name. People will get confused. You can't do it. Well, this young little church starts with 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders. More join later. But it starts off with a small group. You'll have to ask Danny Olinger. He probably can quote the exact amount that they had in their bank account. But this couple hundred dollars in the bank account for this young church, and they decide, are we going to use this tiny little bit of money in the bank account to defend in court our name, or are we going to just change it? So they decided, no, we need that money to advance the work of the gospel. We're just going to give in. We're not going to fight this lawsuit. They change their name. They debate, OK, so what should we be called? And eventually they settled on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As I said, starts with 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, more join. What you have is really an interesting scene. You have these ministers and churches at great cost leaving the mainline church. These are ministers who leave their pensions behind. Can you imagine doing that? You're an older minister and you walk away and you leave your entire pension. It doesn't go with you. You forfeit it. For the sake of the gospel, there were many who did. Churches lose their buildings. There are some court fights. Ross, perhaps you remember how many churches there were. Was it two churches that actually got to keep their buildings? Two. Two churches got to keep them. Vast majority literally walked out. Some churches, you know, they walked down the street and started meeting at a rented facility or a home down the street. to form new congregations in this young Orthodox Presbyterian church. But as you can see from even that figure, starting off with 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, there's more that join. It's a very small group. compared with the huge size of the PCUSA. Now that doesn't mean that there were only a tiny amount of conservatives and Orthodox within the church. There were many who decided that this just wasn't the right thing to do, to leave. This wasn't the time, this wasn't the way to do it. Could it have been that some of them didn't leave because they wanted to keep their pensions and their church buildings? For bad reasons, perhaps. But others were genuinely convinced, no, we need to stay within and fight the good fight from within the mainline denomination, and they stayed. I mentioned earlier about Charles McCartney, who is a passionate conservative, right? Shall unbelief win? Pastor in Philadelphia becomes a famous pastor of a famous church out in Pittsburgh, first Presbyterian in Pittsburgh. He stays, along with a number of others, a lot of others, the vast majority of conservatives stay within the mainline church thinking, let's continue the fight within, now's not the time to leave. But still, you have this small group that ventures out on their own, We're going to attempt to be a genuine Presbyterian church, committed to the Westminster standards. We're actually going to believe our vows when we take them. We're going to be committed to Presbyterian form of government and to sending out missionaries who believe that as well. And so you get the birthday of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, June 11th. 1936. Now what we'll pick up on next week is a little bit of what happens after that. and then talk about what's going on during some of the same period of time in the South. This is the North. Even though we're in the 1900s, there's still very different worlds, North and South. We'll talk about what happens in the South and how you get, later on in the 20th century, new conservative Presbyterian bodies being born. But for now, the birth of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Questions? Comments? Yeah, you can see how every mainline denomination went through this at one point or another and at various points where you have You know, conservatives that say, now, enough is enough. We're leaving. Fights over property, different times you get. Different groups being more or less successful with those lawsuits, but it's a pattern that continues, and continues to this day, as we'll talk about next time. As early as 2012, or as recent as 2012, you get another group that is now in the process of leaving the PCUSA for doctrinal reasons. Go ahead, Sam. The Vineland Church was one of the churches that Sunday morning And as you can even just see geographically, this area was one of the more conservative areas. Philadelphia Presbytery, Princeton, this area was one of the more conservative areas, so you get a lot of the young churches are right here. Ah, yeah. Currently, yeah. And we'll get into more of that next week. Currently what we are is we have official fraternal relations with one another, which means we recognize each other as churches of like faith and practice. We send fraternal delegates to each other's assemblies. What's that? They can't vote, no. But as we send delegates to each other's assemblies, they have the right to speak on the floor. We have agreements. There's a larger group of Presbyterian Reformed churches called NAPARC, North American Reformed Presbyterian Churches. It's a group of conservative Reformed and Presbyterian churches that have officially agreed that we're recognizing each other as having like faith and practice. There's certain agreements about we're not going to compete with one another in terms of church planning and things like that. how we do church membership. We're going to agree to transfer people in good faith. And so there's that official, we're recognizing one another. We're cousins, as it were, in the faith. And just on an informal level, we have close cooperation. We work together. We talk together in this area. We have the joint Reformation service. I get together once a month and have lunch with the OPC guys and PCA guys in the area, and we fellowship together. We pray together. We're on the same team. We're working together. We'll talk next time about efforts to merge the two and how that has, there have been efforts over the years to do that. It hasn't happened, but historically there have been talks among a lot of these bodies. Should we get together formally and officially and make one body out of the two? Yes. Yeah, there's another one. Our hymnals and sunny school material is published by Great Commissions Publications, which is a joint publishing effort of the OPC and the PCA. Oh, we don't need to have two publishing houses. We all agree on the same doctrine. Let's come together. And we do those kinds of things together. Yeah, Jesse. Yeah. Right. Right. It shouldn't be centralized in that way. Centralization is more efficient, but it brings us other risks. And that's why we're still in a rented facility. Yeah, exactly, exactly. All Orthodox Presbyterian church property, local churches, is owned by the local congregation. They own it. That's from learning the hard way historically. It wasn't that way, and still isn't. And still isn't. So for example, Faith Presbyterian Church down the street, we'll talk a little bit more about some of the details, but just recently, Faith Presbyterian Church voted to leave the PCUSA. Applied to the Presbytery. We want to leave, and we want to take our building with us. The presbytery said, essentially, no, get out of town. Case closed. They couldn't leave. I don't think it ever went to court. But we'll talk about it next week. There's another Presbyterian church in Medford. There's actually three of them. We'll talk about that next week. But yeah, and this is still, this is live news. And this idea of, you know, not just the practical level of property, but getting down to that core idea of what is our identity? What is true faith? Is it just religious experience? Is it just we have a kind of vague mission of good doing in the world? Or does it come down to the heart of what the scripture teaches? about who Christ is and what he did. And so these are live things, and you see the importance of when you stray on what the faith is, you end up with problems. And when you move away from sound doctrine, not as cold sound doctrine, Princeton showed that you could do warm faith and sound doctrine together, But you get rid of the doctrine, you end up with problems. And so it's a good encouragement to us today. Follow Christ passionately, but cling to the truths of his word at the very same time. In fact, it's one that feeds the other in a biblical way. Well, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the examples of fathers in the faith who went before us and, Lord, were brave and sacrificial. We thank you, Lord, that we can learn from their example, even though they, too, are men of clay and had their own flaws and weaknesses and blind spots. And we thank you that they followed the same Lord Jesus, and we need His grace as they did. We pray that we would have the grace of Christ to cling to the truths of the faith and to live that truth out in a passionate walk with Jesus and a passionate mission in the world. Father, encourage us now as we go to worship that same Jesus together. We pray in His name. Amen. thank you yeah yeah that's