Religion: Presbyterians

Dr. Stone. The hero of a psychological novel is the man whose reactions are most important. In this sense, John Timothy Stone, leading churchman of Chicago, was a hero.

Last week Dr. Stone went to Grand Rapids (furniture town in Michigan) as a commissioner to the annual

Presbyterian Assembly. Himself an ex-Moderator (1913-14), he found the delegates tremendously excited about the election of a Moderator— Chair man and chief executive of the Church. Among the candidates was Clarence Edward Macartney, 44, of Philadelphia, a bitter-ender, a die hard, a Fundamentalist. Dr. Stone was informed that Presbyterian politicians had packed the Assembly with enough votes to elect Macartney. He was told that the final balance of power had been secured when 18 Negroes were secretly pledged to vote for Macartney. Dr. Stone refused to believe a word of this. Then on the eve of election, appeared William Jennings Bryan who, having once been crucified on a cross of gold, is devoting his chief energies to a pitched battle with the ghost of one Charles Darwin. Political gossip boiled. Now Dr. Stone is a Fundamentalist. He is a busy churchman who has to his credit one of the U. S.’s finest Churches and Church-houses. He believes ardently in the good old Bible and the good old Gospel. He has no time to investigate the theological tenets of neighboring “liberal” pastors. He is inclined to let them live, so long as they appear to be doing more good than harm in a practical way. When, therefore, he heard that Charles R. Erdman of Princeton (also a Fundamentalist but not a bitter-ender) was a candidate, Dr. Stone accepted the responsibility of nominating him on a Peace-and-Unity platform.

After the sermon of the outgoing Moderator came the elections. Mr. Bryan began: “The world needs the supernatural Christ, of whom the Bible tells, the Jesus whose blood has colored the stream of time.” He concluded by saying that the Presbyterian Church needed Dr. Macartney “whose vigilance first detected the insidious attacks on the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church.” Dr. Stone began: “Dr. Erdman has no commitments or alignments. His loyalty to the creeds and standards has never been doubted.” He concluded: “This is a conference, not a political meeting.”

Dr. Macartney was elected, 464-446. He at once appointed die-hards to all the important committee chairmanships. He made Mr. Bryan Vice Moderator. So implacable was the Fundamentalist machine that J. M. T. Finney, eminent surgeon of Johns Hopkins, lost his temper. Clenching his fists, he turned to the Philadelphia delegation saying: “This is Philadelphia ward politics of the worst kind!”

But all this politics was merely preliminary to the chief purpose of the Fundamentalists which was to kill Modernism once and forever. Specifically this means ousting Harry Emerson Fosdick from his pulpit in Manhattan. Then it means ousting several professors like Charles P. Fagnani of Union Theological Seminary, and, if possible, a group of educated ministers like Henry Sloane Coffin, Henry Van Dyke, William Pierson Merrill. Then it means the domination of the missionaries, by ejecting them from their not particularly lucrative jobs if they refuse to swear to whatever the Fundamentalists decree a Christian should swear to. And all this depends upon Dr. Stone. If the Macartney-Bryan forces can persuade Dr. Stone that it is a sin against the Holy Ghost to tolerate “liberals,” Dr. Stone, a Fundamentalist, will vote with the die-hard Fundamentalists. But if their actions persuade him that brotherly love is not one of their fundamentals, he will vote against them. So, the Presbyterian Church waited for the psychological reactions of Dr. Stone.

In a sermon following his election Dr. Macartney said:

“You may wonder whether I am a Modernist or Fundamentalist, especially as I come from New York, but you will not wonder nor make any mistake when you know that I come from what we call the right end of Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn, thank God, is still the City of Churches, and is still the City of Christian faith. Heresies originate in New York, not in Brooklyn.

“Between us geographically is the East River, but theologically there is something far broader and deeper than the East River. Brooklyn still believes in the Bible as the inspired word of God. Brooklyn still believes in Jesus as the Son of God, as ‘very God of very God.’ Brooklyn still believes in ‘the five points as affirmed and reaffirmed by our General Assembly. Brooklyn still contends earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.”