Evangelicals on the Ockenga Trail

The source of this address was as startling as the content. Harold Ockenga was a student at Princeton Seminary when in 1929 Gresham Machen led the split of the seminary and founded Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Ockenga followed his mentor and graduated from Westminster a year later. He served several years as an associate pastor to Clarence McCartney. As a pastor, he became an outspoken critic of the secularism prevailing in the culture and of the modernism prevailing in mainline Protestant denominations. His credentials as an emerging leader of the fundamentalist movement were impressive.

However, Ockenga found the current fundamentalist movement to be lacking in impact what it was not lacking in demagoguery. The opening lines of his address expressed his concern: “Fundamentalism as presently constituted is impotent. Fundamentalism has lost every major ecclesiastical battle for twenty years.” He added, “…fundamentalism has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.”

Had he abandoned the biblical faith? Not at all. “Yet, fundamentalism most nearly approximates theological truth. Certainly its objective teaching, concerning God, the world, man, sin, salvation and last things, is a sincere attempt to state biblical doctrine accurately and without prejudice.”

So what was the problem? “Fundamentalism is divisive. Fragmentization, segregation, separation, criticism, censoriousness, suspicion, solecism, is the order of the day for fundamentalism. Utter incapacity for cooperative action is evident. All want to be generals or at least officers, and no one wants to be part of the army.”

He particularly bemoaned “the attitude of many fundamentalists that when error or evil appears in a denominational organization they must separate themselves from it… Such fundamentalists believe that the church must be absolutely pure, unaware that every new organization has very quickly become contaminated. Thus their plan is division in every denomination and every church where Modernism or error appears. The absurdity of division ad infinitum has become apparent.”

He added that “some so-called cooperative groups of fundamentalists …smear and besmirch their brethren with such names as ‘disloyal,’ ‘compromiser,’ ‘coward’ for not renouncing all previous Christian connections and placing themselves under a new hierarchy of intolerant bigots.”

He concludes: “Fundamentalism is negative… [It] stands alone and aloof…”

No Longer Fundamentalists, but…

Do any of these behaviors arise in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) today? Few Presbyterians remain who would accept the label “fundamentalist.” But the methods and behaviors he describes sure seem familiar to some of us who wear the label “Conservative-Evangelical.”

Yes, we apply ourselves energetically to state biblical doctrine accurately and without prejudice. Our commitment to proclaim and live the Word of God is unflinching. But it is hard to deny our tendency to foment “enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, [and] factions…,” which the Apostle Paul calls the “works of the flesh” (Galatians 6:19).

What’s to do about all this?

Well, we could revisit our chosen label, “conservative-evangelical.” We have proudly adopted that label, given its tie to the Great Ends of the Church. The first Great End is “the proclamation of gospel for the salvation of humankind”—hence evangelism. The third Great End is “the preservation of the truth”—hence, conservatism.

To Be Conservative . . .

This focus consumed much of Ockenga’s time. He served as founding president of the National Association of Evangelicals as a way to promote cooperation in the context of theological orthodoxy. He was the founding president of Fuller Seminary and later of Gordon-Conwell. In 1956, he helped launch Christianity Today as a mouthpiece for the evangelicals.

However, those institutions did not grow in isolation from the secularism and modernism that questioned the church’s message. He promoted the radical notion that the best way to preserve the church’s truths was by engagement with those who wished to change them or even refute them. He saw the modernists and secularists as dough needing to be leavened or as earth needing to be salted. He also possessed sufficient humility to know that he and his fellow neo-evangelicals needed to learn a few things from their “opponents,” too. So he and his peers came out of hiding to engage the sharpest minds of the day in dialogue—yes, with those of differing theological convictions, as well as secular scholars.

In the process, these neo-evangelicals gradually developed the intellectual acumen to match their counterparts argument for argument. They also built relationships of mutual respect with what were now becoming colleagues in academia — thereby producing better scholarship all around.

How shall we conserve the truth? Not by shunning our theological opponents! Not by vanquishing our theological or polity rivals! But by engaging them in dialogue, by teaching them, by learning from them. Iron sharpens iron.

To Be . . . Evangelical

The first great end of the church demands greater effort than we have been giving it. Indeed, to look at the volume of articles published by conservative-evangelical organizations in the PC(USA), it is clear that our efforts to conserve truth eclipse our efforts at proclaiming the gospel. Much more time is spent teaching church members correct theology than in training them to share their faith. Much more time is spent educating seminarians in exegetical and theological methods than in equipping them for cross-cultural church planting. Much more time is spent arguing over ordination standards regarding theology and ethics than in testing candidates’ ability to evangelize the lost. If we conservative-evangelicals were half as evangelical as we are conservative, our greatest problem would be that of finding pew space to seat the crowds.

Which takes us back to Harold Ockenga. In 1950, while pastoring historic Park Street Church in Boston, he arranged a series of speaking engagements throughout New England for a young, promising preacher, Billy Graham. Yes, Ockenga helped launch the one ministry that has reached more persons with the gospel than any other in the church’s history!

Hearkening Back

In other words, Ockenga promoted evangelism, he worked to preserve the truth and, at the same time, he sought every possible way to cooperate with, learn from and positively influence every institution and denomination, every scholar and student that he could find. He also refused to follow the detour of “separation, criticism, censoriousness [and] suspicion” that so many others have taken.

Present-day progressive-liberals find vision and hope by hearkening back to the legacy built by Harry Emerson Fosdick. Present-day conservative-evangelicals — indeed all Christians — would do well to hearken back to the legacy built by Harold John Ockenga.