War

Baptists. Episcopalians. Methodists. Presbyterians.

Here are the four great creed-bearing* denominations of Protestantism in the U. S. Today they have one thing in common: a dispute. It is a dispute between old-timers and new-timers. The old-timers call themselves Fundamentalists. The new-timers don't call themselves anything, but they are called Modernists. This fact is of elementary importance. It reveals that the old-timers are organized, that the new-timers are not. The old-timers are forcing the new-timers to organize. Last week, as never before, clergymen throughout the country began to "take sides."

Now, the big question in the mind of the man-on-the-street is this: Is the dispute mostly hot air? Or, is the dispute the beginning of a religious war? If it develops into a religious war, it will disturb the peace of every community; it will affect local and national politics; it may touch business, in which case, it affects the man-on-the-street.

At the moment, the dispute is no more than a dispute. But angry words are flying.

"It is a shamefully incidental scrap in which the evangelical church is engaged," said Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick (Modernist) last week. On the contrary, Rollin Lynde Hartt (Modernist) after a trip from coast to coast, reports that the row has just begun, that Fundamentalists everywhere are planning a real fight to kill Modernism.

The first skirmish is begun. It centers about the First Presbyterian Church, Manhattan, where Dr. Fosdick, Baptist, preaches most every Sunday. Three Presbyterian ministers lead the fight to oust Dr. Fosdick from that Presbyterian pulpit. One is Dr. Maitland Alexander of Pittsburgh. He is a rigid man, pastor of the biggest and richest Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh, himself rich. He is also President of the Board of Directors of Princeton Theological Seminary, famous for its changeless conservatism from generation to generation. The second leader is Dr. Walter D. Buchanan, pastor of the Broadway Presbyterian Church of New York City. He is an accepted spokesman of Fundamentalism, The third is Dr. John McNeill, of Manhattan. Dr. McNeill is of less importance nationally, but is the best orator of the three, and is conspicuous because most of the prominent Presbyterian clergymen in New York are not Fundamentalists.

Last week 1,000 ministers, Fundamentalists, met in Philadelphia. Dr. Alexander talked about "our offensive and defensive program." His point was that Fundamentalists would not get out of the Presbyterian Church but that Modernists would be forced to get out. "Let them get out," repeated

Dr. Buchanan, and from a thousand throats came back the answer: "Amen."

A few days later the call-to-the-colors was sounded in New York. Said Dr. Alexander: "Social radicals can join the Rand School. Germans can go to Germany. Why cannot they (Modernists) go where they are welcome ?"

Simultaneously appeared The Presbyterian, accusing the Presbytery of New York of standing in 'defiant challenge" because it has not yet ousted Dr. Fosdick, and bitterly resenting the appearance of a monthly magazine to be called The Church Tower, in which Dr. Fosdick's sermons and news of the First Church will be disseminated.

Last May, the annual meeting of Presbyterians at Indianapolis took steps to oust Dr. Fosdick. But he remains. If he is not ousted before next May, the Fundamentalists will be angrier than they now are.

The Fundamentalists in the Episcopal Church quickly followed the lead of the Fundamentalists in the Presbyterian Church. Sixty-five bishops went down to Dallas, Texas (TIME, Nov. 26). They issued a pronouncement commanding every clergyman to teach the Apostles' creed word for word, literally. At the same time the rector of a parish in Fort Worth, Texas, was charged with heresy and was told that he would be summoned to trial. The rector is Lee W. Heaton.

But no sooner did the bishops leave Texas than clergymen in every state denounced them for their insistence on literal interpretation of the creeds and for their arrogation of the right to dictate the theology of their church. The Modern Churchmen's Union, headed by Dr. Elwood Worcester, rector of the fashionable Emanuel Episcopal Church of Boston, came out last week against the bishops. Money began to be collected for the defense of Mr. Heaton in his heresy trial.

The strongest blow for the Modernist cause was struck by a venerable rector in Manhattan--Dr. Leighton Parks, who has for many years shepherded the flock of St. Bartholomew's. He defied his reactionary bishop-- William T. Manning. (Bishop Manning had been a conspicuous leader at the Dallas meeting.) Last Sunday, Dr. Parks entered his pulpit, without a cossack, but wearing the gown of a Doctor of Theology. And as such, he defended the denial of the virgin birth and the denial of other "fundamentals." He challenged Bishop Manning to bring him to trial, saying, in effect: "Why do you bring to trial a poor, friendless man in Texas? Are you afraid to try Bishop Lawrence or me? (Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, is considered a Modernist.) And he added, that to try Bishop Lawrence would "shake the Church to its foundations."

* The Congregationalists, for the most part, leave creedal matters to individual churches.