God's Story: A Student Guide to Church History (12 page)

In 1843, Smith had another revelation in which he was told that polygamy (having multiple spouses) was to be an “everlasting covenant” and, therefore, was sanctioned by God. Several years later, in 1847, his successor, Brigham Young, moved the Mormon headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they remain to this day. Additionally, Mormons have developed a number of other extra-biblical practices such as the wearing of “holy underwear” and performing marriages and baptisms for the dead.

Like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) deny the historic doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus, they contend, is not God. And, like Mormons, they too have their own “translation” of the Bible, which obviously doesn’t come from the original Greek and Hebrew languages.

JW began in the 1870s under the teachings of Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), who led the Bible Student movement in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Russell taught that Christ had invisibly returned to earth in 1874 to prepare for the Kingdom of God which was expected to come to full fruition in 1914. The group’s original name—the Watch Tower Tract and Bible Society—changed to Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931. Russell’s publication,
Zion’s Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence
, changed to what is now called
The Watchtower
and is currently the most widely circulated magazine in the world (nearly 45 million copies per month). JW are well known for refusing to honor symbols of national identity (flags, pledge of allegiance, etc.), their refusal of participating in blood transfusions, their refusal of military service, and their door-to-door evangelizing.

While extra-biblical revivalism, liberal theology, and various cults all demonstrated an abandonment of the Bible,
the
dominant force that would shape and has continued to shape the worldview of Christian and non-Christian alike in the Western world was the advent of anti-Christian, evolutionary theory—thanks in part to the watershed book by Charles Darwin (1809-1882),
The Origin of  Species
(1859). Remarkably, by the 1870s, most of the scientific community and the general public accepted evolution as fact. For his part, Darwin didn’t invent evolution, but simply caught the mood of his time, added “evidence,” and made it popular.

Generally, the term “evolution” refers to the belief that all animals (humans included) have descended from one common ancestor. How? Evolutionists argue that rain fell upon the rocks of the earth billions of years ago (the numbers keep changing), and then the subsequent primordial goo somehow came alive (though nobody knows how). All of a sudden, the simple cell (which is actually incredibly complex) formed on its own and then—through a series of mutations and the process of the “survival of the fittest”—we get the plethora of species, plants, wildlife, animals, and humans that we see today.

Simply put, evolutionary theory was meant to explain all that we see and observe
apart
from the supernatural creation of God as it is revealed in the Bible. Interestingly, “science,” technically speaking, refers to that which can be observed, tested, and repeated.
Evolution from one species to another (a dog to a non-dog, ape to human, etc.) has never been observed
. Thus, evolution is technically not science and it certainly hasn’t been proven.

The fact of the matter is that evolution takes a great deal of faith. Not only does it go against the clear teachings of Scripture, it is not supported by unbiased scientific fact. Nevertheless, Darwin’s thought has infiltrated every aspect of society—from schools to Sunday schools, government policy to environmentalism and it was set up as an entire worldview in opposition to the Christian faith.

Despite the overarching abandonment of the Bible during the 19
^th
century, there was some light in the darkness. Notable theologians like the Princetonians, Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921), and preachers such as Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), and Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843) continued to champion the historic Protestant faith. God always preserves a remnant and he continually supplies his church with able minsters, teachers, and shepherds.

Extra-biblical revivalism, liberal theology, cults, and the theory of evolution converged to make the 19
^th
century a period of time of the
abandonment
of the Bible for a large segment of once-professing “Christians.” Together, they mark a decisive break with the historic, Protestant, and biblical faith of previous generations.

1. Give a summary statement of each of the four
   “abandonments” as surveyed in this chapter.
   
2. Many today try to predict when Jesus will
   return. Do you think this is biblical? Why or
   why not?
   
3. It was noted that “liberal” churches are
   declining in membership at a rapid rate. Why
   do you think this is happening?
   
4. Were you taught evolution in school? There
   remains to this day no documented scientific
   observation of evolution (e.g. a dog to a nondog).
   Why, then, do you think it is so emphasized
   by academic institutions?
   

1
The “anxious bench” was a bench or a series of seats near the pulpit at revivals reserved for those who were especially concerned about their spiritual condition. These concerned individuals were expected to sit near the front for special prayer and attention by the preacher or spiritual leaders.

L
iberalism and evolutionary theory didn’t have the last say. Christians from a variety of backgrounds and denominations rallied to the
fundamentals
of the faith while others directly addressed the theological fallacies of liberal theology. Still others, seeking to re-establish a first century expression of Christianity, sought to engage the “signs and wonders” (healings, speaking in tongues, etc.) as seen in the Bible. The message from all of these was clear: historic Christianity was far from over.

All of these were reactions to the offspring of the Enlightenment, which include liberal theology, evolutionary theory, Deism, cults, and the “scientific/modernism” revolution. Those reacting to these various heresies and unbiblical propositions eventually merged into the movement now known as
evangelicalism
. Today, evangelicalism—despite its manifold stripes and diversity—generally holds to conservative, historic, orthodox, and biblical doctrines. Strikingly, while the evangelical movement is shrinking in America and Europe, it is exploding in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Two men, A. C. Dixon and Reuben Archer Torrey, edited and released twelve volumes entitled
The Fundamentals
between 1910 and 1915, which sought to explain the “non-negotiables” of the Christian faith. They defended orthodox Protestant Reformed Christianity against liberalism, Catholicism, Mormonism, atheism, and (to some degree) evolution.
The Fundamentals
sparked a movement, joined by the rank and file of conservative Protestants of all denominations (especially Baptists and Presbyterians) in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe.

As the first title was being released in 1910, the Presbyterian Church in the USA declared that there were “five fundamentals” that were necessary and essential to the Christian faith: (1) inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, (2) the virgin birth of Jesus, (3) the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross, (4) the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead, and (5) the historical reality of Jesus’ miracles. These five fundamentals became a test of Christian orthodoxy for ministers.

Fourteen years later, these five fundamentals were directly attacked in the “Auburn Affirmation” of 1924 (from Auburn, New York and Auburn Theological Seminary), which garnered more than 1,200 signatures from church leaders and ably expressed the growing division within the church—what is now called the “Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.”

Fundamentalism, broadly speaking, also found expression in a small-town courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee during the blistering-hot summer of 1925—at the
Scopes “Monkey” Trial
. John Scopes, a high school science teacher, taught evolution in the public school, which violated Tennessee’s Butler Act. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decided to fund the defense—led by the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow—while the three-time US presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan, represented the prosecution. In this high-profile, highly-publicized trial, the issue over evolution and creation in government education became an expression of the undercurrents of division within the United States between fundamentalism and modernism.

Interestingly, at the heart of the Scopes trail was the
Civic Biology
textbook by George Hunter (published in 1914) used by Scopes, which affirmed the following:

The Races of Man. At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

This racism isn’t too dissimilar to the subtitle from Charles Darwin’s famous book, the full title being:
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
. Evolution is, from its foundation, racist.

Another response to the modern and liberal theology movement of the 19
^th
century was
Neo-orthodoxy
, its chief proponents being Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Emil Brunner (1899-1966), even though they weren’t too fond of the label and they sometimes differed on each other’s particular theological issues.

Neo-orthodoxy revived various themes of Reformed theology that had been snubbed by liberal theology (i.e. the sovereignty of God, human sinfulness, etc.). Theology, Barth and Brunner taught, was to be founded upon the Bible (though they didn’t believe it to be inerrant). The Bible is God’s revelation to humanity; religion, on the other hand, is man’s attempt to grasp God. Thus, one cannot attain to a right understanding of God simply through observing nature. They also stressed the absolute transcendence of God; that God is wholly independent of the material universe—the “wholly
Other
.” Though erroneous at places and left unfinished, some have argued that Barth’s
Church Dogmatics
remains the most detailed and extensive expression of Protestant doctrine since the time of the Reformation.

A third reaction to the rise of modernism was
Pentecostalism
. Remember John Wesley? Wesley believed, among other things, that a Christian could actually become holy or sanctified in this life. During the 19
^th
century, the
Holiness movement
—as it came to be known as—borrowed Wesley’s theology and promoted it, affirming instantaneous sanctification.

Though started in the Methodist Church (which Wesley founded), bishops during the later 19
^th
century started to separate themselves from the Holiness movement. The withdrawing Holiness groups from the Methodist Church emphasized “alter calls,” invitations, testimonies, decisions for Christ, and other revivalist-leaning techniques. Physical healings and speaking in tongues would also become associated with the Holiness movement.

Then, in 1906, an event would break the mold. William J. Seymour, an African-American son of former slaves, began preaching in a small house in Los Angeles concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit and why speaking in tongues accompanied true conversion. After the house became no longer adequate to accommodate the large crowds, an old mission on Azusa Street was purchased. Immediately, revival broke out. Thousands filled the mission and surrounding areas and the three-year Azusa Street Revival became the birthplace of the modern Pentecostal movement.