The Peace Commission 1925-1927
I.The Peace Commission 1925-1927 a.Militant Presbyterian conservatives were especially saddened in 1925 with the outcome of the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee, and the subsequent death of William Jennings Bryan. i.The General Assembly, meeting that year in Columbus, Ohio, elected Charles R. Erdman as its leader.
1.Premillennialist Bible conference speaker, 2.contributor to The Fundamentals, and 3.Princeton professor 4.Erdman was not one to let his conservative position stand in the way of peace and tolerance. ii.Posing as a peace advocate, Charles R. Erdman moved that the Assembly create a special peace commission to “study” the denomination’s.
1.His resolution proposed “that a Commission of Fifteen members be appointed a.to study the present spiritual condition of our Church and b.the causes making for unrest, and c.to report to the next General Assembly, d.to the end that the purity, peace, unity and progress of the Church may be assured.”
2. The Assembly unanimously adopted the proposal.
3.The new Commission of Fifteen included both liberals and conservatives however, who advocated peace above purity. a.Although such members as Mark A. Matthews and Robert E. Speer were theological conservatives, they tolerated apostasy. b.They would prove more dangerous to the conservative cause than the heresy itself because they could not be counted on to stand firm in the heat of battle and they would influence others to take a soft position.
4.Even Clarence E. Macartney, former militant conservative, now identified with this same philosophy. iii.In 1927, the Peace Commission of Fifteen delivered its landmark recommendation to the General Assembly.
1. since the church had never defined its doctrinal “essentials,” then the final answer in matters of belief is “the Word of God as the Holy Spirit speaks through it.”
2. Distinguishing between the “Word of God” and “the Scripture,” the commission concluded that Christ “is Himself the Word Of God.
3.Therefore Scripture can have errors while the Word of God has none. iv.From that point in 1927 the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. had only Princeton Seminary, and the liberal party already had plans to capture this West Point of Orthodoxy.