In our previous articles, we established that the Church has done more to advance the cause of education than any other institution in history. The nations most aligned with Christianity enjoyed the highest rates of literacy, established the world’s most prestigious universities, produced renowned artists, paved the way for the Enlightenment, introduced the scientific process, and birthed the western notions of justice and liberty. Indeed, America’s Founders believed that Christian education was not only necessary for the souls of future generations but essential for the survival of the American republic.
In contrast, today’s public education system is openly hostile to Christianity. How did this happen? For more than two centuries, most of our universities were distinctly Christian, and churches carried enormous sway over the nation’s educational institutions—promoting the Bible as a divine authority over mankind. For such a radical transformation to occur, the churches must have either abandoned their biblical fidelity or they were ousted from the institutions they once established. Tragically, both are true.
For such a radical transformation in American education to occur, churches must have either abandoned their biblical fidelity or they were ousted from the institutions they once established. Tragically, both are true.
This revolution did not happen in a vacuum. As America entered the “Progressive Era” (1901-1929), cultural elites in the West were flirting with the theories of Karl Marx expressed in The Communist Manifesto, the fourth best-selling book of all time. Germany formally adopted “State Socialism” in 1883. The Bolshevik Revolution ushered in the first communist regime to Russia in 1917. Progressive icons like John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Bertrand Russell, Margaret Sanger, and Roger Baldwin returned from trips to the Soviet Union praising the communist system as the model for Americans to follow. Many progressives believed that a utopian future was within our grasp if only our government could be entrusted with the power necessary to impose this new Marxist vision.
The Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914) fueled this optimism in human ability. Our entrepreneurial spirit led to the invention of air conditioning, telephones, radios, skyscrapers, automobiles, and airplanes—all in the span of a few decades. Medicine saw the dawn of new vaccines, surgical techniques, and x-rays. The world was changing at an unprecedented pace, leading many to believe that a utopian society was attainable through scientific advancement alone—apart from God. In his 1927 essay, Why I Am Not A Christian, Bertrand Russell captured the sentiment of the progressives during this era:
Science can teach us… no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.[1]
As the Church faced immense pressure to embrace the “progressive” agenda, Christians were also wrestling with doubts created by Darwin’s theory of origins. Unsure of how to navigate the relationship between science and faith, many Protestants wavered in their commitment to the authority of God’s Word, enabling the rot of theological liberalism to spread through our Christian institutions.
In 1891, Union Theological Seminary appointed Charles Briggs to be the new chair of its Biblical Studies department. In his inaugural address, Briggs openly challenged the authority of the Bible and claimed that it was both “unwise” and “unchristian” to require seminary students to affirm “the divine authority of the Bible.” In a clear departure from historic Christianity, he declared, “We cannot know God, we cannot be certain with regard to ultimate realities.” When the Presbyterian Church USA rightly overturned his appointment, Union formally severed all ties with the church and became a leading seminary of theological liberalism. As liberalism spread, this same story played out in dozens of institutions. Under tremendous societal pressure, either the churches abandoned the Bible, or the institutions would abandon the churches. In either case, the nation’s universities began to abandon their historic Christian affiliations.
In 1910, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA sought to safeguard the church against liberalism by adopting a list of “Five Fundamentals.” All ordained ministers in the denomination would be required to affirm (1) the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, (2) the Virgin Birth, (3) the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, (4) the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and (5) the historical reality of Jesus’ miracles.
These were not new doctrines. They simply espoused basic tenets of historic Christianity, yet they were controversial inside the mainline denominations. Those who affirmed these fundamentals were labeled as “fundamentalists,” a pejorative label thrown around by progressives. Opponents of fundamentalism called themselves “modernists” and launched a nationwide campaign to portray Bible-believing Christians as the enemies of modern progress and scientific advancement.
In 1922, New York City Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, preached a sermon titled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” calling upon Christians to abandon the core doctrines and moral teachings of the Bible. Fosdick bragged that he would have been branded a heretic by past generations, yet the modernists rallied behind him. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was so enthusiastic about his sermon that he paid to print and distribute it to 130,000 ordained pastors throughout the nation.
One year later, Professor J. Gresham Machen of Princeton Theological Seminary wrote his classic book, Christianity and Liberalism, warning that liberal Christianity is no Christianity at all.
Liberalism is totally different from Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible…. Liberalism on the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men.
This advancement of liberal theology not only ravaged our institutions, but it emptied our seminaries of deep thinkers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous German pastor martyred for his opposition to Adolf Hitler, attended Union Theological Seminary in 1930. At the time, Bonhoeffer wrote of his experience:
There is no theology here…. They are not familiar with even the most basic questions. They become intoxicated with liberal and humanistic phrases, are amused at the fundamentalists, and yet basically are not even up to their level.[2]
The debate between fundamentalists and modernists reached its climax in 1925 with the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” In a spectacle that drew international media attention, prosecutor William Jennings Bryant squared off against defense attorney Clarence Darrow to argue that John Scopes, a substitute teacher, had violated a Tennessee law by teaching Darwinian evolution in public schools. The Church’s influence on public education became the central focus of Americans. The entire trial was a masterful public relations stunt. Scopes deliberately violated the law to force a trial. His legal defense was prearranged by the ACLU. Many reporters packing the courtroom were recruited due to their opposition to fundamentalism.
H.L. Mencken, perhaps the most famous journalist at the trial, was well known for his atheism. He once suggested, “One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is…that religious opinions should be respected.” Of course, Mencken portrayed the small-town residents as “yokels,” “morons,” and “ignoramuses” plagued by a “simian imbecility.” He referred to Bryan’s legal arguments as “theologic bilge.” Though fundamentalists technically won the Scopes trial, they decisively lost the public relations battle. In the aftermath, one modernist quipped, “A fundamentalist is a besieged Christian anxious to dictate the terms of surrender to Science.”
Modern historians often fail to mention that the science textbook used by John Scopes, A Civic Biology by George Hunter, offered progressive justifications for racism. The textbook claimed that five different races of humanity were at varying stages of evolutionary progress. Black people were listed as the lowest race of humanity while “the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America” were listed as “the highest type of all.” These proud modernists were defending the same Darwinian worldview that unleashed devastating consequences upon the world in the coming decades. In 1941, as the Nazis sought to exterminate the Jewish race, Adolf Hitler offered the reasoning behind his vile campaign of conquest and extermination.
By means of the struggle, the elites are continually renewed. The law of selection justifies this incessant struggle by allowing the survival of the fittest. Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.[3]
Sadly, theological liberalism infected each of the mainline denominations, their seminaries, and their publishing houses. Many American pulpits were filled by ministers who rejected the authority of the Bible. Less than two years after the Scopes trial, the same Presbyterian denomination that adopted the “Five Fundamentals” ruled that they were no longer binding requirements for ordained ministers. In 1929, Princeton Theological Seminary, America’s flagship Presbyterian seminary and the most resolute defender of historic Christianity, reorganized its leadership and embraced liberalism—leading Machen and other faithful professors to leave and establish Westminster Theological Seminary as an alternative.
As these institutions abandoned Christianity, the so-called progressives were eager and ready to fill the void. Columbia University’s Teachers College, the nation’s oldest and largest college of education, had been founded in 1887. In 1905, the Teachers College hired John Dewey, known as the Father of Modern American Education. As an outspoken proponent of Marxism, secular humanism, and atheism, Dewey championed the classroom as “the primary and most effective instrument of social progress.” His ideas, which revolutionized education in America, presented a godless alternative to Christian education.
Godless and amoral ideologues seized control of the American classroom. So long as this remains, nothing can stand in the way of indoctrinating future generations into the extremes of folly and wickedness.
J. Gresham Machen warned that this model of education was incompatible with liberty. When the Church embraced the immutable truths of scripture, it served as a check on political propaganda and the whims of culture. However, Machen rightly understood that if godless and amoral ideologues seized control of our classrooms, nothing would stand in their way of indoctrinating future generations into the extremes of folly and wickedness.
A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument for tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.
Machen’s warning proved prophetic. In our final article of this series, we will examine the devastating impact that John Dewey and Columbia’s Teachers College have had upon the American education system.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. Simon and Schuster, 1957, 22.
[2] Mawson, Michael, and Philip G. Ziegler, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Oxford University Press, 2019, 30.
[3] Hitler, Adolf. Hitler’s Wartime Conversations: His Personal Thoughts as Recorded by Martin Bormann. 2018.
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