He wanted to modernize, liberalize Christianity for a new revolutionary age. The catalog of what he didn't believe when it comes to biblical doctrine is far longer than the catalog of what he did believe, but there was no shame in it for Harry Emerson Fosdick because he was a modernist after all. He didn't believe in the divine verbal inspiration of the scripture. He didn't believe in any Orthodox understanding of Christ. Fosdick, for example, didn't believe in the virgin birth. The husk was doctrine, and Harry Emerson Fosdick was big on throwing away the husk. The argument was made by many of the early Protestant liberals that they wanted to save, as Adolf von Harnack said in Germany, they wanted to save the kernel and throw away the husk. We would put it in the larger context of theological liberalism, going back, particularly to the enlightenment, where there was the idea that modern forms of thought could liberate Christianity from, say, the belief in an infallible, inerrant scripture, belief in doctrine, such as the virgin birth. That's how the modernists got their name. He didn't believe the society could exist without that moral structure, but he very much as a part of Manhattan in the early part of the 20th century, he wanted to see the Christian faith updated. was himself very interested in the survival of Christianity as a cultural force, not as a theological message, not as the saving gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, but primarily as something that would bind culture together, give a moral structure to American society. Who was that patron? Well, you'll recognize the name, John D. That left Harry Emerson Fosdick without a pulpit, but not for long, because he had an economic patron. It eventually cost him the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church, where they simply decided that they would evade the question of his theological liberalism by deciding, of all things, that a Presbyterian Church ought to have a Presbyterian in the pulpit. Harry Emerson Fosdick didn't back into this controversy. It was a battle between conservatives and liberals in the denominations that would now be known as Mainline Protestantism.īut as I said, the hottest battles at this time were basically, especially in the Presbyterian and Baptist churches and conventions, they’re in the north of the United States. And even at that point, the Presbyterians and the Baptists, especially in the north were very much involved in what was known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy. He was eloquent, he attracted mass crowds, but he also attracted controversy. It was considered, in many ways, the citadel of American theological liberalism and Harry Emerson Fosdick wanted it that way.īack in the 1920s, Fosdick, as a Baptist of sorts, had become the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City. He was the pastor, ultimately, of what became known as the Riverside Church in New York City there in Morningside Heights, very close to Columbia University, very close to Union Theological Seminary. No, I wasn't there a hundred years ago, but I have known that sermon for virtually all my adult life.įirst of all, who was Harry Emerson Fosdick? He was pastor, very influential, twice on the cover of Time Magazine. I'm indebted to Jacob Lupfer of Religion News Service for reminding me of this anniversary, because it has a lot to do with my own theological pilgrimage. The date of his sermon was so this week marks the 100th anniversary of that sermon and of that preacher asking that question. His question, shall the fundamentalist win? The preacher was named Harry Emerson Fosdick. It is when a pastor stepped into one of the most distinguished pulpits in the entire United States of America, and he preached a sermon that asked a question. Indeed, you could say in American religious history. I want to take a little bit of time on this Friday to set the stage for a 100th anniversary of a very important event in American Protestant history. In the second part of the program today, we will get to questions from listeners, but first I want to go back in history a bit.
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