The Auburn Affirmation

I.The Auburn Affirmation was published on January 9, 1924, and by May of the same year 1283 Presbyterian clergymen had signed it. a.The whole episode confirmed to Fundamentalists what they already knew- i.that once the church surrenders the doctrine of inerrancy, it is only a matter of time before it casts other fundamentals into the heap of nonessentials. ii.Most conservatives felt that they could still take these matters to the next General Assembly.

1.    Billed by the media as one of the most potentially explosive meetings in the history of the church, the 1924 General Assembly, meeting in Grand Rapids, elected conservative Clarence E. Macartney as moderator.

2.Macartney won by only eighteen over Charles R. Erdman, the liberals’ candidate. a.William Jennings Bryan made the nominating speech for Macartney, who in turn appointed Bryan as vice-moderator

3.When the issue of the Auburn Affirmation came up, the Committee on Bills and Overtures allowed it to be tabled. a.Ironically, a conservative, Mark Allison Matthews (1867-1940), who pastored the largest Presbyterian church in the world (First Presbyterian in Seattle, Washington), was reportedly the one who urged the committee to table this matter. b.Fundamentalists soon discovered that it was just this kind of amiable conservative who would allow the denomination to fall to the liberals. c.When Fundamentalists eventually separated from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Matthews refused to join them, and he died still supporting the denomination. 21

4.The Judicial Committee ruled that the General Assembly has no power to use a doctrinal test with officeholders because the church had never specifically defined its doctrinal essentials. a.This amounted to an official refutation of the great Portland Deliverance of 1892 and of the famous five-point declaration of 1910, 1916, and 1923. b.The liberal Affirmationists had won the war. b.One can imagine the frustration that staunch conservatives like J. Gresham Machen felt as they watched the denomination go down. i.To these Fundamentalists, such vital, historic, Christian doctrines as inerrancy, the virgin birth, the atonement, Christ’s resurrection, and biblical miracles were not matters of interpretation, nor theories for philosophical speculation. ii.They were matters of belief versus unbelief. iii.Speaking to the Moody Founder’s Week Conference in 1924, Machen expressed these deepest concerns of his heart:

1.    “Paganism has made many efforts to disrupt the Christian faith, but never a more insistent or insidious effort than it is making today. There are three possible attitudes which you may take in the present conflict. In the first place, you may stand for Christ. That is the best. In the second place, you may stand for anti-Christian Modernism. That is next best. In the third place, you may be neutral. That is perhaps worst of all. The worst sin today is to say that you agree with the Christian faith and believe in the Bible, but then make common cause with those who deny the basic facts of Christianity. Never was it more obviously true that he that is not with Christ is against Him. “