Fundamentalists, Modernists, and media bias at the 1928 Presbyterian General Assembly in Tulsa

Searching through archives, I found this item that I drafted on 3/15/2007, but never finished. Since 2007, Time has placed its archives behind a paywall; the links are all still valid, but unless you pay for a pass, you'll only see an excerpt. But I was also able to find a new article about the 1928 conference and film of Tulsa at that time.

I was looking through Time magazine's archives for references to Tulsa. Time has put all of its back issues online, going back to the '20s.

Media bias in religion coverage is nothing new. Here are some examples from Time's coverage of the 1928 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA), which was held in Tulsa. This was the northern half of the Presbyterian mainline, which split over the Civil War in 1861 and reunited in the 1980s. Despite Oklahoma's Southern location and the Five Civilized Tribes' connections with the Confederacy, it was the Northern Presbyterian denomination that first evangelized the tribes and established the first church in Tulsa.

As you read what follows, keep in mind that "fundamentalist" at this point is used to describe Christians who affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, the doctrine that God created the heavens and the earth, and the truth of the miracles described in the Bible.

Here's an article from a March 12, 1928, preview to the 1928 PCUSA general assembly. The first sentence subtly paints fundamentalists as unreasonably refusing to abandon an important doctrine:

For Presbyterians, the Virgin birth is a bone of contention which fundamentalists will not permit liberals to bury. Recently Rev. Dr. Albert Parker Fitch, famed modernist, was installed in the pulpit of the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church. Last week, Rev. Dr. Walter Duncan Buchanan, fundamentalist, filed with the Presbyterian General Assembly a complaint about Dr. Fitch. At the annual meeting of the assembly, this year to be held at Tulsa, Okla., late in May, Presbyterian squabbles are given a good thorough airing. This may be one of the squabbles which will enliven this year's session: New York Presbytery against the field.

From the June 11, 1928, issue, a report on the decisions made by 1928 PCUSA general assembly. Note how a debate over doctrine is dismissed as an "unfortunate uproar." Fundamentalists are portrayed as raging beasts, blowing and stamping, while Modernists reason, and Moderates are clear-thinking:

Often enough in the past,, the annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. has been an unfortunate uproar concerned with such things as how a god can have a mortal father. Fundamentalists have blown and stamped, Modernists have scoffed and reasoned, Moderates have explained and pleaded. This year, the meeting in Tulsa, Okla., had a minimum of excursions and alarms. The Fundamentalists were apparently in sufficient majority to achieve victory in the things which lay nearest their hearts and Bibles; they could not, however, expect to work their wills...

The first thing for the Presbyterians to do was to elect a moderator to succeed Dr. Robert E. Speer. This they did with rapidity on the first ballot. The new moderator is Dr. Hugh Kelso Walker, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, a clear thinking moderate, who has never embroiled himself in the Fundamentalist v. Modernist controversy. He beat the Fundamentalist candidate, Dr. J. Ambrose Dunkel of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, by a vote of 593 to 318. The moderate moderator named a vice moderator to help him in administering the affairs of his church. This was the Rev. Joseph M. Broady of Birmingham, Ala....

Their chief officers chosen, the commissioners of the Assembly proceeded to perilous business. What was to be done about many recent proposals for uniting the Presbyterian Church with other denominations? The Presbyterians refused to consider amalgamation with such sects as Christian, Universalist and Congregational Churches, because doctrinal differences seemed too extreme to eliminate at this time.

From the following year, a June 3, 1929, report on the 1929 PCUSA General Assembly in St. Paul. The defender of Biblical doctrine is "ultra," a "mouthpiece," and he "stormed, often discourteously," "fulminated," "lashed." Orthodoxy is "dour."

The question was: should the government of Princeton Theological Seminary be changed? Upon the answer, even if it remained implicit, largely depended the Assembly's choice for Moderator (to succeed Dr. Hugo Kelso Walker of Los Angeles) and the policy and perhaps the doctrine of the greatest, wealthiest, oldest Presbyterian seminary in the U. S.

For several months, ultra-Fundamental and orthodox Dr. Samuel L. Craig had stormed, often discourteously, in the pages of his weekly, The Presbyterian. He fulminated against the President of Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, because he seemed liberal. He lashed the President of the Princeton Seminary, Dr. J. Ross Stevenson, because he wanted the change. With holy passion he appealed to his readers to realize the gravity of the question. There were other appeals for prayers, for votes.

The impending change meant vesting the control of the Seminary in one board consisting of the present board of directors and the board of trustees. These now form two individual groups, between whom there has been much friction. Slight though this change might seem to laity, Dr. Craig perceived therein the horrid possibility that President Stevenson might thus gain great individual power, that the dour orthodoxy of Princeton might become liberalized. Dr. Stevenson once said that he wanted Princeton to represent the whole Presbyterian church, instead of only the right wing of Presbyterianism. Dr. Craig, mouthpiece of the Right Wing, was assisted by Drs. John Gresham Machen and Robert Dick Wilson of the Princeton Seminary.

Meanwhile, from the May 21, 1928 issue, a report on the 1928 Methodist quadrennial conference describes an accusation against a liberal bishop as "brewed in bitterness":

This was the most important action taken last week by delegates to the Quadrennial Conference. Also, they:

Unanimously asserted their confidence in famed liberal Bishop McConnell of Pittsburgh and ordered expunged a charge against him, brewed in bitterness by one George A. Cooke, of Wilmington, Del., of "maladministration and immorality."

From November 21, 1927, issue, news of an overture to the next general assembly regarding divorce.

All U. S. rejoicing in economic prosperity and all self congratulations upon its vast educational system is like the sound of cheerful music as the funeral procession winds its way to the grave, so long as one out of six U. S. marriages ends with divorce. Last week Clarence Edward Noble MacArtney of Pittsburgh and William Chalmers Covert of Philadelphia who have studied the divorce problem for the Presbyterian church, sent that message to 10,000 Presbyterian ministers and recommended that the Presbyterian general assembly at Tulsa, Oklahoma, next May, permit only adultery as the ground for Presbyterian divorces.

This item is notable in that the aim of reducing the divorce rate is shown in a positive light, and it's taken as a given that marriage stability is more important to a nation than wealth and education. In 1928, modernists would say that the miraculous aspects of Christianity could be excised while retaining Christian moral and ethical standards. Forty years or so later, the PCUSA's moral objections to divorce, no longer anchored by the authority of the Bible, were washed away with the tide of the culture.

MORE:

In his 1923 book Christianity and Liberalism, Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen explains that modernist or liberal Christianity is an entirely different religion than Christianity, which uses Christian terms while rejecting its substance. This Day in Presbyterian History, an excellent blog by my friend Wayne Sparkman, director of the Presbyterian Church in America History Center, has an article about Christianity and Liberalism by Chalmers W. Alexander, writing in the Southern Presbyterian Journal in 1949.

This article about the 1928 General Assembly on the Presbyterian Historical Society website doesn't get into the issues and outcomes of the general assembly, but it does feature some history of First Presbyterian Church, the growth of the church and the city, and a postcard of the 1910 First Presbyterian sanctuary. In the five-minute silent film of the conference, you'll see the brand new Gothic Revival sanctuary next to the 1910 building, a glimpse of Boston Avenue Methodist Church still under construction, the original Kendall Hall at the University of Tulsa, and aerial views of downtown, TU, and the area.