The Hundred Years War

Written for the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions
By Dr. Bob Wenz

There is an online game called TYW: The Hundred Years War. It allows people to join in the “fun” of history’s long running conflict between France and England. Never mind that the war actually lasted 116 years. Never mind that almost no one can tell you what the conflict was really about. Hundred-year long wars take on a life of their own in history.

So, also, the war that marks its one-hundredth year in 2009. The counting of years began in 1908 with the publication of Federal Council of Churches’ “social creed” and the counteractive The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Written to affirm orthodox Protestant beliefs and defend against ideas deemed hostile to them, 300,000 sets of 12 books were sent without cost to pastors and teachers in the US, financed by two wealthy Christian oil magnates. Contributors included Orr, W. J. Eerdman, H. C. G. Moule, James M. Gray, B.B. Warfield, Episcopalian bishops, Presbyterian ministers, Methodist evangelists, and even an Egyptologist. As one historian noted: "They were certainly not anti-intellectual, snake-handling, cultic, obscurantist fanatics."

While 1909 marked a major escalation of the conflict fundamentalism and modernism, the feuding began in the remarkable period of the late 1800's. The industrial revolution was in full bloom bringing unprecedented prosperity to many and all-too-familiar poverty to many others. Some historians argue that it was the "Protestant work ethic" that jump started the entrepreneurial boom for the haves – a boom which left millions of have-nots – mostly new immigrants from Europe – in dire poverty. It was an era of Robber Barons, sweatshops, unregulated child labor, and a Pandora's box of social problems. It was a time of great social conflict: anti-trust laws, union busting, corruption and exploitation. Not surprisingly, it was also an era of religious [theological] conflict as well.
Following the Second Great Awakening and the Finney revivals of the middle of the 1800's, a new wave of immigrants came from Europe. So, also, a wave of theological liberalism arrived from Europe, disembarking not at Ellis Island but at Union Theological Seminary. Also known as modernism, it was a major shift in theology, but an elusive one that was born of the desire to adapt Christianity to modern culture and modern thinking. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the all-star liberal of the first decade of the 1900's wrote, "we must express the essence of Christianity, its 'abiding experiences,' but we must not identify them with the 'changing categories' by which they were expressed in the past." The Bible was recast as the work of human writers who were limited by their times, not the supernatural and therefore an infallible record of divine revelation. The "essence of Christianity" was to take the place of scriptural authority.

One of the tenants of liberal theology and modernism was its emphasis on divine immanence, with God seen as present and dwelling within the world, not apart from or elevated above the world as a transcendent being. There was no distinction between the natural and supernatural for God is found in the whole of life -- not just in the Bible or a few revelatory events there [which led some to a western form of pantheism]. God's presence is reflected in a "universal religious sentiment" that was expressed in all religions of the world, with good works – not doctrines or creeds – being the most important expression of that religious sentiment.

Theological liberalism, imported from Germany is really only a part of the broader "modernist" movement which also embraced the ideas of John Dewey [progressive education movement], who argued that man was basically good and only in need to education. Theological liberalism saw sin as imperfection, ignorance, and immaturity – with education leading to salvation or regeneration as the means of removal. Sigmund Freud posited that all guilt was false guilt, even as liberalism gutted the Christian faith of its distinctive concept of the atonement for sin. Modernist Karl Marx taught that history was driven my economic forces and that religion was a mere opiate for those on the losing side of the struggle. [In the 1930s some adherents moved much further to the left and embraced secular humanism. Their 1933 manifesto repudiated the existence of God, immortality, and the supernatural in general. The Humanist Manifesto substituted faith in man and his capabilities for faith in God. Others identified with an empirical philosophy of religion based entirely on the scientific methods and experience.]

The industrial revolution brought with it an amazing advance along a wide technological front: electric lights, the radio, the airplane, and more. Liberalism reflected this humanistic optimism in an eschatology of sorts, suggesting that society was moving toward the realization of the kingdom of God on earth in which an ethical state of human perfection would be attained. The church would be a catalyst by following the principles and ideals set forth by Jesus who provided the ultimate example of an unselfish life of love.

Flowing out from theological liberalism and modernism came the Social Gospel that sought to apply Christian principles to a variety of social problems engender by industrialization. Pastors Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch tried to address and counteract the economic and social consequences of what they regarded as unrestrained capitalism. The Federal Council of the Churches (the forerunner of the National Council of Churches) in 1908 formally adopted a “social creed of the churches” calling for the abolition of child labor, a day off each week, and the right of all workers to a living wage.

Orthodox Protestantism did not go quietly into the theological night. What would become known as Fundamentalism – a name derived from the publication of the twelve volumes – was galvanized in 1909 to take the theological battle to the modernists.

About this time a number of Bible institutes, such as the Los Angeles Bible Institute [publisher of the Fundamentals] and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, were established or began to teach the fundamental beliefs and doctrines of historic orthodox Christianity – and became known as
Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism was initially led by many strong intellectuals, many of whom were the pillars of Princeton Seminary. So Fundamentalism was initially a northern. It was originally urban. And, paradoxically, in the early days, it was both elitist and populist at the same time.

As the conflict continued through the first half of the 20th century, Fundamentalism would become increasingly separatistic, and become exclusively focused on matters of personal faith and personal salvation which were seen only in terms of the cardinal doctrines: the inerrancy of Scriptures, the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ, substitutionary atonement, the physical resurrection of Christ, and the need for personal salvation. This limited focus on fundamentalism in response to liberalism brought about what some historians call the “the Great Reversal." It was called that because, for a hundred years, orthodox evangelical Protestants had always been leading the charge for social reform, most notably the abolition of slavery.