Billy Graham & The Rise of Neo-Evangelicalism

So this will be the final lesson, part 4 of lesson 13, the battle for the

Bible. We're picking up with the fundamentalist modernist controversy.

So this is section number 4, fundamentalism versus modernism.

I'll just read here, it says in the early 1900s an ideological battle was fought within the mainline

American denominations between Bible -believing Christians and theological liberals.

This is known as the fundamentalist modernist controversy.

Okay, so we see here that the term modernist and theological liberal, it's it's the same thing.

So the modernists were the liberals and they were battling with the fundamentalists or the

Bible believers. That controversy was especially heated in Presbyterian circles.

The conflict began to brew when several Presbyterian seminary professors were removed because they denied the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.

And we remember what inerrancy means. It means, yeah, the

Bible is without error. So all of the Word of God is true without error.

So these professors didn't believe that, so they were fired or removed from their position.

In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist minister, preached a sermon at the

First Presbyterian Church of New York entitled, Shall the Fundamentalists Win?

And he adamantly insisted that they should not win. Fourteen years later, in 1936,

J. Gresham Machen, who lived from 1881 to 1937, he left the

Presbyterian Church USA, or PCUSA, to establish the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is also known as the OPC.

Machen was one of the last theological conservatives to teach at Princeton Seminary.

When Princeton grew increasingly favorable towards liberalism, Machen left.

This controversy within Presbyterian circles was representative of what was happening in all of American Christianity.

As a result of these struggles, American Protestantism was split into, quote, the mainline

Protestants on the one hand and the fundamentalists on the other. Okay, so let's think about this for a moment.

When you hear the term mainline denomination, what do you think of? What churches are part of the mainline churches?

Congregationalist UCC, that would be considered mainline. The United Methodists would be considered mainline.

Southern Baptist, I don't know if Southern Baptist would fit, because the mainline churches don't believe the

Bible is inerrant. So they're the liberals. A lot of them don't believe

Jesus rose from the dead. They reject the idea of hell for sure. Some of them reject the idea of heaven.

So they are very liberal in the mainline churches. These are the churches in New England where you see the rainbow flag out front.

If you see the rainbow flag in front of a church, pretty safe bet that's one of the mainline denominations.

The Southern Baptists are more conservative generally, although they are starting to slide in the liberal direction as of late.

The Southern Baptist split. Rick Warren's, to my knowledge, the

Southern Baptists have not split. Some congregations have been kicked out.

Last year it was a huge story. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church was kicked out of the

Southern Baptist Convention because they were getting too liberal.

So the denomination kicked out their church and several others. But the

Southern Baptists are still intact. And for the most part, there's still a lot of conservatives within the denomination.

So I would say the Southern Baptists are Bible -believing, but as of now, for the most part.

But the mainline churches are very liberal. So yeah, the

UCC, United Methodist, the Episcopalians, the

PCUSA, so the Presbyterian Church USA, the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, I think ELCA, they're super progressive.

They use evangelicals in the name, but they're not evangelical at all.

So it's just left over from the past. So it's really helpful to understand the differences between churches.

And this has been a long time coming because you're going back to the 1920s, 1930s, and that divide was already forming.

And I've told the story, you know, a thousand times about our church, where back in the 1940s, this church was part of the

Congregationalists, and we had to break away because the denomination was denying the blood of Christ.

So we became independent. You actually said it literally 1 ,000 times?

Probably not. Maybe a lot. Maybe a hundred. It's closer to it.

So that's the divide, and like I said, it's been going on a long, long time.

I have a question. Yes. Is evangelical free, is that a denomination, or is it?

Evangelical free is a, I think it's a smaller denomination,

I believe. Don't quote me on that because I'm not all that familiar with them. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of denominations that I'm not familiar with.

Even within Congregational, there's the Conservative Congregational. Right. Something that was open.

Right. Conservative, yeah, UCCC is more conservative. UCC, with two

C's, is the rainbow, the rainbow churches. So public opinion against fundamentalism increased as the result of the

Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Who has heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial? All right, let me explain that.

John T. Scopes, a substitute high school biology teacher in Tennessee, was accused of teaching the theory of evolution in a public school which violated

Tennessee law. So teaching evolution was illegal back, back in the 1920s.

The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, a three -time presidential candidate.

So a lot of attention was on this trial, obviously. The defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, was also well known, which brought national attention to the trial.

Although Scopes was found guilty, the trial itself generated negative publicity for the fundamentalists and their creationist views, which were perceived to be outdated and contrary to scientific progress.

So what was the scientific progress? Well, yeah, the

Bible, you know, you can't take the Bible literally. God didn't really create the world.

It was, well, the Big Bang, I think, came later. But it's the idea that the Genesis account is not literally true.

Evolution is true. And then the Big Bang, and that leads eventually to just an outright denial of the

Bible. Because if the beginning of the Bible isn't true, and those same people who don't believe the first few chapters of Genesis, they certainly don't believe the book of Revelation is to be taken literally.

So if the beginning isn't true, and the end isn't true, then how do you believe anything in between?

And that's the slippery slope. So sadly, in both the mainline denominations and the court of public opinion, fundamentalism began to lose support.

It seemed as if Bible believing Christians were being marginalized in American society.

In leaving the mainline denominations, fundamentalists started new organizations, such as the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, that's OPC, the Presbyterian Church in America, PCA, and the

Conservative Baptist Association of America, and the General Association of Regular Baptists.

Okay. And then later on in the next section, we're going to be talking about the rise of what is called

New Evangelicalism, which is really a blending of fundamentalism, a little bit of fundamentalism with liberalism.

And it's a blending of the two. And who is the most famous neo -evangelical, new evangelical, the most famous Christian of the 20th century?

Billy Graham, that's right. In my opinion, I think Billy Graham saw all of this, because Billy Graham grew up as a fundamentalist.

And then he had a crisis of faith and kind of went in the other direction. He still held to the inerrancy of Scripture, to be fair.

And he preached to his crusades that Christ was the only way, but when he would get in front of a different audience, he would kind of say the opposite.

At least that's how it seemed. So what I can tell after studying, and I've studied this a lot, it seemed as though Billy Graham miscalculated.

I think he really believed that fundamentalism was dying and would be dead.

So we had to kind of go in this enlightened direction. But by the time

Billy Graham was an old man, I think he probably realized that that's not really the case.

That the fundamentalist, you can't get rid of the fundamentalists. Because at the end of the day, the fundamentalists are the true

Bible believers, and there's always going to be that remnant. And I'm not saying Billy Graham wasn't a Bible believer.

I'm just saying he compromised in a lot of these areas.

And I have the video to prove it for those who, you know, want to say that that's not the case.

But here's the discussion question. One of the challenges fundamentalists faced during this time was when to separate from a denomination that was slipping into theological liberalism.

So let's read, or let's turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6. And this really is a big question and a difficult thing.

Because it's one thing to say, okay, that is wrong, or this teaching is wrong. But when you actually have to put it into practice and separate from maybe even people you know, or even leave your church, or a church leaving a denomination.

I mean, that can be, that can be a really difficult decision. But that's, it's real life.

And this is where you have to take biblical doctrine and actually put it into practice.

And that's where it really matters. So it says here, read 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 verses 14 through 18.

So I'm going to read that, and then there's going to be a question. All right, 2nd Corinthians 6, 14 through 18.

The Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?

In what communion has light with darkness? In what accord has Christ with Belial, that is

Satan? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? In what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among among them.

And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the

Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the

Lord Almighty. So do not be unequally yoked. And this applies to several areas of life.

A Christian should not get married to an unbeliever. Okay, it applies to that. I think a

Christian probably would be it would be unwise to even go into a legal partnership like in a business with an unbeliever.

So do not be unequally yoked. But the primary context is ecclesiastically.

You cannot have religious fellowship with people who are not saved.

I mean that's the primary meaning here. So with that in mind, what does that passage teach about separating from unbelievers and apostates?

Well what does it teach? You should do it. Yeah, but what if it's hard and you're friends with someone who's an unbeliever or an apostate?

Do it anyways? Do it anyways. See that that's where it's hard. That's where people have loyalties to men instead of God.

They're siding with men. They have a fear of man over God. Listening to the Bible, listening to God, that's the right thing to do.

But sometimes it's the hard thing to do and people would rather go along to get along. Okay, here's the other question.

How do you think those verses were interpreted and applied by fundamentalist leaders in the 1920s and 1930s?

Well I think they were interpreted literally and they were applied correctly because they they followed through and they broke fellowship with the theological liberals.

So if I can just, you know, what would that look like right here and now? Morris Corner Church, we would have fellowship with the other

Bible -believing churches in the area and that includes some independent churches, some

Baptist churches, and maybe even the Presbyterian Church or two. I could have fellowship with those churches.

We cannot have fellowship with the Episcopalians though. We cannot have fellowship with the

UCC. And it really comes down to, do you guys believe the

Bible? Do you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture? Yes? Okay, we can fellowship with you. You don't believe it?

Then we can. And that's really the bottom line. Larry? Well, Paul goes on to say,

I'm not sure if it's a little later, somewhere right around that area too, but he said, you know,

I think he's referring to, don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers, but he also then goes on and says, but I'm not saying separate from the unbelievers, you know, to draw them to Christ, because then we'd have to go out of this world.

Yeah, you're talking about, you know, sitting down and eating with someone to maybe, you know, can you be friends, sit down and share a meal with a brother who's under excommunication?

No. Can you sit down and have a meal and be friends with an unbeliever? Yes. But you shouldn't yoke with them and have some binding agreement with them.

You cannot enter into a covenant with an unbeliever, whether it's marriage, business, legal contracts.

This goes back to the old Testament. Israel was to enter into no covenant with the heathen.

And then, of course, they didn't listen to God and they, they broke God's law and created an endless amount of trouble.

But this is why God tells us these things, not to just give us rules to make our lives difficult because we can't do all this stuff.

I mean, this is to protect us because God knows if you go down this road, it's going to be painful.

It's going to lead to problems. All right. Now we're moving into the next section, the rise of new evangelicalism.

So you had to take that biblical teaching on separation and rightly interpret it and apply it.

So separate from the unbeliever. And this is where Billy Graham really did fail. And listen,

I grew up just to let you know, I grew up thinking Billy Graham was the greatest

Christian who ever lived, except the apostle Paul, you know, that that was the idea

I had. And when I first started hearing people saying things like negative about Billy Graham, I thought, you know, how can you do that?

But then I then I saw some of the interviews that he gave and then I understood.

So Billy Graham was criticized and the fundamentalist broke fellowship with Billy Graham because he would fellowship with theological liberals, with the mainline denominations and with the

Pope and the Catholic Church. So this is when we're talking about the rise of new evangelicalism.

Billy Graham is kind of that that face of the movement. So he all that to say this, he tried to bridge the gap.

And you can say that he you can believe in your heart that Billy Graham had the best intentions trying to bring people together because he thought it would be the best for the furtherance of the gospel.

But I think in the end, well, there were some problems. Even if you believe that's true, there were still problems that came along with that.

So the book says this group, the new evangelicals began to identify themselves that way.

In 1942, they established an organization called the National Association of Evangelical.

So evangelical way back when meant it meant fundamentalist

Bible believer. Today, the word evangelical. It could mean that you could find some evangelicals who are fundamentalist, but you can also find some evangelicals who are, you know, way out in left field.

I mean, evangelical. The term is sort of lost its meaning today because it's been blended with a bunch of other things.

So these early evangelicals openly affirmed their belief in the inspiration and inerrancy of the

Bible, which Billy Graham did. Do that. The deity of Christ, his atoning death on the cross, his bodily resurrection from the grave.

So it all sounds good so far. However, they insisted that their tone needed to be more friendly than that of the earlier fundamentalists.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a preacher named Billy Graham emerged as a popular evangelist.

Though Graham grew up in fundamentalist circles, his willingness to partner with theological leaders liberals and Roman Catholics in his evangelistic crusades caused many fundamentalists to separate from Graham.

By contrast, many American evangelicals viewed Graham as a spokesman for their movements.

You can see that I would say the majority of people love Billy Graham thought what he did was wonderful.

The majority. But there was this healthy segment that thought what he was doing was bad enough to break fellowship with him.

So the term evangelical, that's what you should have filled in in your book. The term evangelical comes from the

Greek word for what? The gospel, right? So the evangel, a one galley on,

I think, and then it goes through the language. Evangel means gospel. So an evangelical is somebody who what reaches the believes the gospel preaches the gospel.

So that means a non -evangelical. What are they preaching?

Be nice and you might go to heaven if there is such a place. Yeah, a non -evangelical is not preaching the gospel that they tend to preach what is called the social gospel, which you know, it's a social activism trying to make the world a better place do good.

And you know, there's you could say some it's good to do good. Okay, but if the gospel of Jesus Christ is removed or worse yet denied, which

I shared before the class, there was that article on Easter Sunday or Saturday before Easter in the in the paper where a mainline minister.

She basically said that she didn't believe in the the resurrection of Jesus.

She said some people do believe it basically and if you believe it, that's okay, but we kind of know

Ben. She she rejected the resurrection on Easter, but that that's the thing about these churches.

They don't really believe that Jesus was the son of God who died on the cross for our sins who rose again the third and they reject that which that that is the gospel.

So they end up having to preach, you know, whatever whatever else basically, you know, gay rights and civil rights and social activism climate change, you know, whatever kind of the spirit whatever the things that are popular in the culture the new causes in the culture.

That's what they end up preaching to kind of stay relevant and a lot of people a lot of people like it, of course,

I think people realize that that's not really Christianity. So he even those churches are in decline, but any comments on on this?

But as long as every and I think the members of this church understand that there is a great divide just because a building has the the word church on the sign.

I mean that there's a great difference between Bible believing churches and these other mainline churches.

So in their quit back to the book in their quest for influence evangelicals have sometimes compromised their

Fidelity to biblical truth too often success is measured in terms of numbers or popularity rather than in terms of faithfulness to God.

Do you think that's true? I've been told okay over the years.

I've been told Mike if you want this church to grow there's a few things you need to do number one guess coffee.

We have coffee. Okay, we have what? Okay, the one thing

I've been told is you need to get rid of the hens and you need to bring in a praise band.

So you need the drums and the electric guitar and all of that which let's be fair.

That's not a doctrinal issue. I suspect some people probably would like that and some people wouldn't like that.

I'm not so sure that's compromising the truth of the gospel. That's more of a maybe a superficial type of thing.

Although it's connected to a lot of other issues, but the main thing I've been told is you need to change your position on LGBT that that's the one thing.

I've been told and needless to say those people who have told me that do not attend here anymore.

Okay, not because I told them to it's just they wanted to see the church go in another direction and they realized that as long as I'm alive as long as I'm here that ain't going to happen.

Yes, may I make a comment about hymns and hymnals? Yeah, one of the purposes there's many purposes.

The message of the gospel is so beautiful that this is why we try to put it to music because music is beautiful to the ear or should be.

But hymnal because I just went through this at my cousin's husband's funeral yesterday.

I was asked to leave and they did not have the music nor did the accompanist know the tune.

Okay, so another one of the purposes of hymnals is unity among us.

Not one person trying to sing louder than everyone else his own way holding verses or holding words where there's it's not written.

The notes are written there and so and we should be striving. I mean, this is what we do in the quartet.

Honestly, it's not the most beautiful quartet I've ever heard, but we strive to blend.

We strive to blend our voices and when we sing and you need the hymnal. Now, I know not everyone can read music the solid black ones are the ones with a hole or what the dot or the flag means or all that stuff.

But the purpose is is unity and unity in the church is one of the main things of the whole

New Testament. And I like the congregational singing for a reason now.

I want to be clear. I'm not I'm not against someone with a guitar up because we have that, you know, we've had in the past.

We'll have in the future. I'm it's not really about guitar versus piano or organ.

It's that the the hymns and certain types of music. It's easy for everyone to sing along to that's what's important to me that the words are doctrinally sound and that everyone can sing along because this is corporate worship.

Where we're all doing it together because if it's just a concert you're sitting there.

Why if it's only you observing then it's more of a show.

I want everyone involved because worship everyone should be involved. So that's why I think this way is better in my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really important.

One of the reasons we chose this church was because of the fact that there were hands being. Yeah, it wasn't a performance.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't about the music. The music was about God.

Yeah, and that was really important to us as we've been in many churches where it had become about the band, right?

And oh, I like the way it makes me feel. Well, it's not about how I feel. It's about the worship that it is true worship in spirit and in truth, right?

I think that's a really fine line to walk for anybody that's leading music. At least for me whenever I do stand up to lead is to make sure that I'm worshiping.

Yeah, everybody else is able to follow in worship as well. And it's not about whether I sing the note perfectly or if I read the music perfectly.

Yeah, that the music is there to honor God and not the performer. Yeah, well said and really

I mean this type of stuff is what often is kind of most visible. You know the way people dress the style of music that type of thing.

That's not really what's the most important. It's you know, holding on to the truth of the gospel and God's word and the tendency among whatever liberals modernists.

They want to cut they want you to compromise on all the big issues of our time.

And that means you have to compromise what the word of God says because the Bible is so it's so the

Bible is out of step with modern culture. I mean, let's let's face it because this world is under the power of the

Prince of the airs. I mean, that's just the way it is. But okay, so this is the discussion question.

What comes to mind when you hear the term evangelical? There's no wrong answer here.

It's just whatever comes to mind for you. I always thought it was somebody, you know, giving people the opportunity to be saved someone who preaches the gospel.

Yeah, right. Yeah, and that's still technically true. But like I said over time the word seems to be losing its meaning because it's applied to people who sometimes don't like like that denomination the evangelical

Lutheran Church in America. I think right ELCA me evangelical is in the name, but they are not evangelical at all.

So that's that's a common thing. All right, if there's no other if there's no other comments or questions, we'll move on to the final section.

It looks like we're actually going to finish lesson 13. So yeah part four. So we've been we've been on this for a while and remember next week is a whole new

Sunday school class. So this will be the end of this and we're on to something new about honoring

God with your finances. So that'll be a good good change.

Yes. All right number six standing firm in this generation.

Here's how we're going to end. We need the admonition here the exhortation to stand firm.

If evangelicals are to stand firm in this generation, they must ground their convictions in the doctrinal pillars articulated by the

New Testament. See already you're going to lose somebody because they hear the word doctrinal and they're like, oh, yeah, so you're already losing somebody with this.

Hopefully none of you because you're still here after after all of all of this doctrinal these doctrinal studies.

So good for you. First, we must hold fast to the authority of God's word without wavering you agree with that.

The Reformers commitment to Scripture alone should be our commitment as well.

I realize there's people who'd say that the Protestant Reformers themselves weren't always holding to Scripture alone and that's a different debate.

But in principle, yes, we we should do that Scripture alone is the authority as we've talked about before if it's not the

Scripture. That's our authority. What is it the Pope the culture me you like it has to be a solid foundation of God's word holding to doctrines like the inspiration in transparency and sufficiency of Scripture may make us unpopular you agree with that.

Yes with the world. It will make you unpopular. But if our goal is faithfulness the choice between honoring

God and pleasing men is a clear one to make and then it references

Acts chapter 5 verse 29 where you probably know that passage.

Remember the disciples standing in front of the Jewish Council and the

Sanhedrin told them do not preach in the name of Jesus and Peter and John were like, okay, we'll listen to you.

We just want to obey the rules now. Is that what they did? No, they they said well, who should we obey

God or men? Should we obey you or should we obey

God? You be the judge and obviously that's a rhetorical question. So if you're interested in being faithful to God, this is a no -brainer.

This lesson is titled the battle for the Bible historic fundamentalism contended earnestly for the truth of Scripture in the face of liberal attack evangelical isms.

Heritage going back to the Reformation and earlier is similarly rooted in a commitment to the authority and sufficiency of God's word.

If we are to be faithful, we must similarly take our stand on the truth of God's word second.

We must contend for the purity of the gospel centers are saved by grace alone through faith alone based on the finished work of Christ alone.

Our love for Christ should motivate our witness in the world at times. Our commitment to the truth of the gospel will mean we cannot condone or partner with groups or movements that distort the gospel

Galatians 1 6 through 9 gospel. Clarity is what the world around us desperately needs in an age where we are told that the truth is relative and all belief systems are equally valid.

It requires gospel courage to proclaim the exclusive message of salvation through Jesus Christ, but that is the very message people need to hear.

It's been so obvious to me that whenever you know, whether it's Oprah or NBC or you know, there's some mainstream media source when they bring on the evangelical preacher.

Have you ever seen these interviews? They always ask them the same questions.

Do you really believe Jesus is the only way and then the whole, you know,

LGBT, they always ask those two questions because they want to see. Is this guy really going to say something that unpopular on national television?

Because if he does, we got up, we can make him look bad to the whole world, right? But and sometimes they do hold firm, which usually the people who hold firm don't get invited back because they could because they're proclaiming the truth of the gospel on TV or some major platform.

Usually they get the preachers who they know will cave in and that that's why the word evangelical is losing its meaning because the popular evangelicals tend to be the ones on TV who are, you know, caving in.

But what does the Bible say? Acts 412 and there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven has been given among men by which we must be saved.

Finally, we ought to do all of this as an act of worship for the glory of God alone.

Doctrinally, we look to God's word to understand who he is so that we can worship him accurately. The truth of scripture ought to govern both our private devotion and our corporate worship.

Accordingly, churches should look to God's word to determine how they should conduct their services rather than giving into entertainment driven trends.

As noted above, faithfulness must be the goal, not popularity. Morally, we must seek to obey

God's commandments out of a love for him. We want our entire lives to be an act of acceptable worship.

Romans 12, 1 and 2. You agreeing with all this so far? See, a true evangelical who believes the inerrancy of scripture would never disagree with this.

And then finally, as we discussed in lesson one, we desire to be characterized by a right understanding of the word of God, the work of God, and the worship of God.

Armed with biblical convictions, we stand firm in this generation of church history.

We recognize the strength to do this does not originate in us, it is found in Christ.

He is both the Lord of the church and the Lord of history. To him be the glory forever and ever.