Gospel Conversations Reimagined: Understanding Revivalist Roots, Part 4, A Summary

By way of reminder, the past three posts, Understanding Revivalist Roots, provide insight into my quest and my path to understand Bill Bright’s mid-twentieth century context, which included considering the historical influence of evangelicalism on Bright’s development of Four Spiritual Laws. My research helped to inform the thesis that Four Spiritual Laws were written in a particular context—and context very different than today’s. What is striking as I write today’s post is the “pattern of schism” that marks the church as much today as it did in the twentieth century and every century before.

This will conclude the section on Understanding Revivalist Roots. In review, Part One provides a quick overview of the twentieth century events that preceded Bill Bright’s development of Four Spiritual Laws. Part Two includes a quick overview of the First (1730–1755) and Second Great Awakening (1790–1840), and Part Three highlights the Third Great Awakening (1850–1920) and the Mid-Century Awakening (1940-1950).

Here, as in previous posts, I provide only a cursory look at the rise of the Fundamentalist Movement, Liberalism, and the Social Gospel. I cover only a sliver of available information on the topics I present, but I hope it is enough to whet your appetite to learn more. If you would like recommendations for additional sources, let me know.

Fundamentalism

The fundamentalist movement surfaced at the turn of the twentieth century out of a theological project conceived and funded by Lyman Stewart for the purpose of “stemming the tide” of liberalism and modernism.[1] Fundamentalism defended orthodox Christianity and attacked liberalism, higher criticism, Darwin’s evolution, and modernism. The five core tenets of fundamentalism are captured in The Fundamentals: A Testimony of the Truth: the inspiration and authority of Scripture; the virgin birth of Christ; Christ’s substitutionary atonement for sin; Christ’s bodily resurrection; and the historical reality of Christ’s miracles.[2]

Fundamentalists responded with great vigor to the threat of Darwinism. Charles Hodge described Darwin’s theory of evolution as “atheistical”[3] and utterly inconsistent with Scripture. He declared, “Mr. Darwin’s theory does deny all design in nature”[4] and “banishes God from the world.”[5] The deep concern over Darwin’s theory is understandable and continue to influence secularization today. By the middle of the twentieth century, fundamentalists fought back against Darwinism and liberalism with a growing sense of militancy.[6]

Liberalism and the Social Gospel

Friedrich Schleiermacher’s (1768–1834)[7] theological liberalism and his revisionist Christian theology contributed to the raging dispute between modernists and fundamentalists concerning the authority of Scripture and the deity and bodily resurrection of Christ. Liberalism includes the denial of such doctrines as the fall, human depravity, divine wrath, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, and the need for definitive, individual conversion.[8] The advance of theological liberalism and a menacing Darwinism began to severely threaten biblical authority and contributed to the rise of the fundamentalist movement.

The turn of the century brought with it an expanding American population that was religiously diverse due to immigration and led to an increase of social needs. The previously successful and theologically conservative volunteer societies buckled under the growing demand. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918), sought to attend to these issues and became a key figure in the Social Gospel movement. This “Social Gospel” began to undermine the very core of orthodox tradition.

There has been a lot written about the fundamentalist/modernist controversy, these few paragraphs provide but a snippet of information.

Conclusion

Over the course of my studies, I had to learn how to cultivate a willingness to look at various points of view in order to inform my understanding of Bill Bright’s context. I learned to take a humble approach, to test my assumptions, and to respect those who have gone before me. I have learned, through trial and error, that a learner’s posture contributes to thoughtful scholarship, and allows for critical deconstruction and reconstruction. I will continue a thoughtful deconstruction and reconstruction in the weeks to come. Whether we like it or not, our shared history is embedded in the True Story of the Whole World and deeply informs who we are, what we believe and why we believe the way we do.

*Portions of this post are taken from: Monaco, Cas. “Bill Bright’s (1921–2003) Four Spiritual Laws Reimagined: A Narrative Approach to Meaningful Gospel Conversations For An American Twenty First Century Secularized Context,” PhD Diss, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Wake Forest, NC, 2020.

[1] Paul R. Rood II, “The Untold Story of the Fundamentals,” Summer 2014, http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-summer/the-untold-story-of-the-fundamentals/, n.p. [2] R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon, The Fundamentals: A Testimony of the Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003). [3] Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism?, Michigan Historical Reprint Series (Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2006), 173.[4] Hodge, What Is Darwinism?, 173. [5] Hodge, What Is Darwinism?, 174. [6] Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1997) is a fascinating look at the highly publicized trial of Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher, John T. Scopes, charged with violating state law by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. [7] W. A. Hoffecker, in “Schleiermacher Friedrich Daniel Ernst,” EDT:1064–65, describes Schleiermacher as the “father of the liberal Protestant theology or the theology of religious experience” and states, “Schleiermacher … redefined religion as a unique element of human experience, not located in the cognitive or moral faculties, which produce an indirect knowledge of God by inference, but in intuition which yields immediate experience for God” thus making religion “radically subjective.” Fredrich Schleiermacher, in The Christian Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 303, discusses his views on God-consciousness and God-forgetfulness. [8] Demarest and Feinberg, Cross and Salvation, 255.