WILLIAM C. DOUGHTY AND CREEDALISM: THE FUNDAMENTALIST-MODERNIST DEBATES IN THE EVANGELICAL COVENANT CHURCH

by

Jonathan B. Root

A Research PaperPresented to the

Department of HistoryBethel College

In partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the course

Social Science Seminar, History 481Mark Jantzen and Penelope Moon, Advisors

North Newton, KansasApril 2006

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Origins of the Evangelical Covenant Church 5

2. Modernist and Fundamentalist movements 12

3. Gustaf F. Johnson and the Two Types of Christianity 14

4. Nils Lund: The Authority of Scripture 17

5. William Doughty and “A Cause for Concern in the Covenant” 23

6. What Does Freedom Mean? The Committee on Freedom and Theology 32

7. Does Having a Creed Really Matter? The Trial of Rev. David Swing 35

8. The Meaning of Freedom 37

Bibliography 41

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One evening while listening to Percy Crawford’s radio show, William C. Doughty felt

led to dedicate his life to Christ. After the experience, Doughty started attending church with his

mother but in the months following his conversion Doughty suffered a spiritual crisis. Doughty

felt disabled in his prayer life so he met with the pastor of the church in order to find a solution.

The pastor, sensing Doughty’s despair, offered to pray with him. “I don’t know what he prayed

and I can’t recall what I prayed either, but he must have had me pray the right thing, because the

Lord really led,” Doughty remembered. “And I arose from my knees and left that study a

changed person, a transformed individual.”1 Doughty’s religious experience led him to pursue a

career as a minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church. The nineteen-year-old Doughty who

experienced a dramatic religious awakening would later lead the attack against modernism in the

Evangelical Covenant Church.

In April 1957, Doughty distributed “A Cause for Concern in the Covenant” in which he

attacked the Covenant for allowing modernity to enter its ranks. Similarly, in 1874, Francis

Patton, a Presbyterian minister charged David Swing, also a Presbyterian minister with heresy.

The “mechanism” used by both denominations created major differences in the way they handled

the debates.

The Covenant Church came out of the free-church tradition, which rejected the use of

creeds to define doctrine, while the Presbyterian Church had a creed in the form of the

Westminister Confession. The Westminister Confession gave the Presbyterian Church a

mechanism in which to try theologians for heresy. The Covenant Church, lacking such a

mechanism, was not prepared to handle doctrinal disputes in a non-juridical manner. The

1 William Doughty, “William C. Doughty: One Man’s Cause for Concern in the Covenant,” interview by Donald T. Robinson, Unpublished, Doughty Series number: 6/1/2/1 Box 8 Folder 4 (hereafter: 6/1/2/1 8/4), The F.M. Johnson Archives and Special Collections, North Park University Library, Chicago (hereafter: F.M. Johnson Archives), 3.

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existence of a creed fundamentally shaped the way a denomination responded to the

fundamentalist-modernist controversies.

Interpretations of freedom within Christian testimony also contributed to the debates in

both denominations. The most important question over freedom in the denominations was: What

limits, if any, should be placed on one’s doctrinal interpretations? In the Covenant, Doughty

believed that there could be freedom when it came to minor doctrines, as long as disagreement

did not get in the way of Christian unity, but the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith were not

open to interpretation. Lund, on the other hand, had a wider interpretation of freedom that

allowed for open exploration of one’s faith.

This paper compares the ways the Evangelical Covenant and Presbyterian churches

handled the fundamentalist-modernist debates. Since the Covenant is a relatively obscure

denomination compared to the Presbyterian Church, a short history of the Covenant is necessary.

This section will look at the origins of the Covenant and why freedom was an important concept

for its founders. During the 1920s and 30s, Gustaf F. Johnson emerged as the voice of

fundamentalism in the Covenant and challenged the notion of freedom. Nils W. Lund, one of the

main figures in this paper, offered Johnson plenty of ammunition in which Johnson could base

his attacks against modernism. The main focus of the paper will be William C. Doughty and his

attacks against modernism in the Covenant. The Doughty controversy prompted the Covenant to

define what it meant by freedom, resulting in the formation of The Committee on Freedom and

Theology. The heresy trial of Swing in the Presbyterian Church also tested the limits of

freedom. A lot has already been written on the Presbyterian Church so my analysis of the

fundamentalist-modernist debates will not focus primarily on the situation between Swing and

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Patton.2 The paper ends with an explanation of the argument over freedom in the Covenant and

Presbyterian churches.

Origins of the Evangelical Covenant Church

The Evangelical Covenant Church has its roots in the Swedish Lutheran tradition. In

“The Swedish Mission Friends in America,” Alex Mellander, professor at the Covenant’s largest

university, North Park wrote, “Historically, the Mission Friends belong to the Lutheran division

of the Church, for they grew up in that church. In doctrine, they generally stand on Lutheran

ground to the means of grace.”3 In Covenant Affirmations, Donald Frisk wrote that the Covenant

Church followed Luther’s teaching that grace is the work of God and that it is “through grace

that we are saved.”4 The Evangelical Covenant Church believed they represented the “right

evangelical order” as proposed by Martin Luther because they allowed only born again

Christians into their congregations.

One of the first major problems for the Mission Friends, so-called because of their

emphasis on mission work, was a law passed by the Swedish government that made it mandatory

for all citizens to participate in communion.5 “It placed born-again Swedes into a dilemma,”

Frederick Hale wrote. “Mission Friends had either to participate shoulder-to-shoulder with the

ungodly in a ritual in which they regarded as too inclusive to be the Lord’s Supper or risk legal

action by refusing to commune.”6 They had three possible plans of action: remain members of

the church, but have communion in small groups without clergy; form communion societies with 2 For more on the Presbyterian Church see William R. Hutchins, The Modernist Impulse in American

Protestantism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976) and George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980),

3 Alex Mellander, “The Swedish Mission Friends in America” in Covenant Roots, ed. Glenn P. Anderson (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1999), 72.

4 Donald C. Frisk, Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2003), 113.5 For more on other influences on the formation of the Covenant Church such as politics, economics, and

pietism see Scott E. Erickson, “David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church,” (Ph.D diss., Uppsula University, 1996), 38-44.

6 Frederick Hale, Trans-Atlantic Conservative Protestantism in the Evangelical Free and Mission Covenant Traditions (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 138.

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the help of sympathetic state ministers; or become a separatist organization and split from the

church.7

Pietist theology influenced the doctrine of the Mission Friends by offering a clear

example of the correct evangelical faith. During the sixteenth-century, pietism emerged because

doctrine had replaced Christ as the focus of Christian faith.8 The Mission Friends felt a

connection to the early pietist movement because they threatened by the participation of

unbelievers in communion and a spiritually weak clergy. The Mission Friends sought a revival

that would restore the “true evangelical faith.”

Since the Mission Friends felt so strongly about the spiritual situation surrounding them,

it became important for them to define what faith meant to them. P.P. Waldenström, one of the

most influential founders of the Covenant Church and an editor of the periodical, The Pietist

highlighted some misunderstandings of faith in God’s Eternal Plan of Salvation. Waldenström

highlighted five main misunderstandings, 1) Faith in Christ and faith in the Bible are not the

same, 2) Faith is not the same as having a correct doctrine about Christ, there must be faith in

Christ, 3) Believing in the forgiveness of sins is not the same as having faith in Christ, 4) Faith

does not require a particular view of the atonement, and 5) Faith in Christ is not the same as faith

that one is saved.9 An inner trust that Christ is the Lord and Savior and a deep trust in God’s

saving grace were the attributes of faith for the Mission Friends. Faith, for the Mission Friends,

had to be experienced and also offered humanity the means for salvation.10

The Mission Friends concerns went beyond keeping a pure congregation. In “Our

Original Principles,” Otto Hogfeldt, editor of the Covenant publication, Missions-Vannen and

7 Ibid., 139.8 Frisk, Covenant Affirmations, 8.9 Ibid., 10.10 This is a very general look at the influence of Pietism on the Evangelical Covenant Church. For a more

in-depth look see Karl Olsson, By One Spirit, 7-121.

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secretary of the Covenant, wrote that, “To our original principles, in the second place, belonged a

sharp delineation of the borders between the righteous and the unrighteous, between those who

had been born again and those who had not, between the light and darkness, life and spiritual

death.” 11 Thirdly, their stance on Scripture distinguished the Mission Friends from other

denominations. Instead of a creed, the Mission Friends made the Bible their final authority on

questions of faith.

In 1872, Waldenström published his sermon on the atonement titled “Sermon for the

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity” which caused controversy in Sweden. Waldenström’s sermon

also emphasized the central role played by Scripture amongst the Mission Friends. In his

sermon, Waldenström rejected the satisfaction theory which was advocated by most evangelicals

at the time. The satisfaction theory of the atonement taught that God’s wrath required the death

of Jesus so God could be reconciled to humanity.

While investigating the atonement, Waldenström found that the expression “God

reconciled in Christ” was not in the New Testament.12 The theory of the atonement proposed by

Waldenström argued that sinfulness created a separation between humanity and God. Instead of

God being reconciled to humanity, Waldenström argued that humanity had to reconciled to God.

“For when he gave his Son, it was not in order that he might find a person on whom he could

stake his anger, in order to be able to love the world,” Waldenström wrote, “but in order to find a

person through whom he could save man, his fallen child, whom he still loved.”13

Waldenström’s sermon received harsh criticism from other Swedish clergy who accused

Waldenström of destroying the Gospel and denying the Augsburg Confession. According to

Hale, “Waldenström was not impressed by his opponents’ appeal to historic creeds, which he 11 Otto Hogfeldt, “Our Original Principles” in Covenant Roots, 89.12 Olsson, By One Spirit, 110.13 P.P. Waldenström, “Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity” in Covenant Roots, 108. Originally

published in July 1872 but was never formally preached.

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regarded as dubious touchstones of doctrine.” In response, Waldenström pointed out

inconsistencies between the Latin and German translations of the Augsburg Confession and

accused his critics of betraying the Lutheran principle that Scripture was the final authority in

spiritual matters.14

Up until the 1870s, many of the Missions Friends did not want to separate from the state

church. Some of the state church’s policies regarding issues like communion troubled the

Mission Friends, but they were not ready to separate and hoped to bring about change from the

inside. The state had previously ruled that communion had to be served in one of the state-

owned churches in order for it to be considered legitimate. During the “Uppsala Communion

Case,” in 1876, some members of the Mission Friends held communion in a chapel that was not

owned by the state. After hearing the news, the Swedish government charged the Mission

Friends with violating the law. After this incident, the Mission Friends decided to define their

ecclesiology15

Defining its ecclesiology proved to be difficult for the Mission Friends because two of its

most prominent leaders, Waldenström and E.J. Ekman, did not agree on issues like baptism and

whether the Mission Friends should separate from the state church.16 In August 1878, a

compromise was finally reached at the Third Ministerial Conference among Mission Friends

which led to the establishment of the Swedish Mission Covenant.

That same year, Waldenström and some others met in order to write a statement of their

ecclesiology, which stated that the church was a communion of saints and a local gathering of

believing Christians. The Covenant came to a compromise on the issue of baptism and accepted

14 Quote and paraphrase from Hale, Trans-Atlantic Conservatism, 152.15 Erickson, “David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church,” 143.16 Ibid., 143. Ekman believed that adult baptism was the right doctrine to form a church while

Waldenström supported infant baptism. On the issue of separation, Ekman wanted to break with the state church and Waldenström wanted to form what Erickson called a “double ecclesiology.”

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members who had been baptized as either infants or adults.17 In America, in 1885, Swedish

immigrants who were members of the Mission Friends decided to follow suit and formed the

American Covenant based on “theological and structural freedom, a representative form of

church governance, and biblical primacy, among other issues.”18

Out of these controversies there were three important factors that helped define the

Covenant Church. First, the Covenant did not adopt any creeds as conditions of membership.

“In the context of accepting this New Testament and ideal church principle,” C.V. Bowman,

president of the Covenant from 1927 to 1932 wrote, “there naturally followed the surrender of

any established confessions (creeds) as conditions for membership in the churches.”19 As

Waldenström said in defense of his theory of the atonement, creeds were dubious points of

doctrine and the Bible needed to be the final authority.

Second, the Covenant Church adopted the Bible as its only doctrinal authority. The

American Covenant Constitution, passed in 1885, read, “This Covenant confesses the word of

God, the Holy Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament, as the only perfect rule of faith,

doctrine, and conduct.”20 The Bible became the sole authority for issues of faith in the Covenant.

However, freedom did not mean that one could openly contradict the teachings of the Bible.

Thirdly, the Covenant Church also faced the question of whom to allow into the church.

Should they be so inclusive that non-believers could join or should they adopt a confession of

faith and become totally exclusive? The Covenant Church wanted to allow freedom in doctrine,

but did not want such an open congregation that non-believers were granted membership.

Bowman said, that the local church shall be exclusive in allowing only believers to become

17 Hale, Trans-Atlantic Conservative Protestantism in the Evangelical Free and Mission Covenant Traditions, 143.

18 Erickson, 145.19 C.V. Bowman, “About the Principles of the Mission Friends,” 81.20 Mellander, “The Swedish Mission Friends in America,” in Covenant Roots, 69.

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members, but not so exclusive that members cannot disagree on controversial doctrines.21 This

made the Covenant inclusive and exclusive; inclusive in the way it allowed for a wide variety of

interpretations to enter the church, but exclusive in that only true believers were granted

membership. “This concept is the fundamental principle” David Nyvall, one of the most

influential members of the early Covenant articulated. “[T]hat the Christian church is a voluntary

fellowship of spiritually alive people on the foundation of a common faith in Jesus, love, and

mutual confidence; and that this fellowship shall be open to all who believe in Jesus and

evidence this in a Christian life, independent of their doctrinal views as long as these do not

contain a denial of the word and authority of the Holy Scriptures.”22

The Covenant also used its Swedish heritage as a way to separate itself from other

American denominations. When Swedish immigrants arrived in the United States, they faced the

common problem of culture shock experienced by foreign immigrants, so they sought ways in

which they could keep their Swedish heritage alive. The American Covenant was “formed in

order to give a religious identity to this group among Swedes in America…The Mission Friends

sought their own Swedish-American religious identity and culture within the diverse American

environment.”23

Swedish ethnicity not only played an important role in the formation of the American

Covenant, but it also influential the formation of a free church. In America, Swedish immigrants

encountered the idea of an independent church. Scott E. Erickson wrote, “The Mission Friends

did not adopt confessionalism by remaining tied to the Augustana Synod, nor did they join the

Baptists, Methodists or Free. Their free-church heritage provided the basis for the founding of

21 Bowman, Ibid., 80.22 David Nyvall, “Statements of the Covenant’s Doctrinal Heritage,” in Covenant Roots, 137.23 Erickson, “David Nyvall,” 73.

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an ethnic denomination.”24 In 1889, the Congregational Church tested the Covenant’s desire for

ethnic purity by asking the Covenant to join its denomination.

In its early years, the American Covenant depended on Congregationalists’ money, which

helped fund a Swedish-speaking Bible professor to train its pastors in the United States. In 1889,

the Congregationalists formally asked the Covenant to join its denomination and become a

permanent member of the American Congregational Church. According to Erickson, this would

have meant the loss of the Covenant’s independence to unify around a federation of local

churches.25 The Congregationalists promised that it would grant the Covenant full freedom but

Nyvall worried that “such a freedom was impossible in that the Covenant itself would cease to

exist if it did not maintain its Swedish-American mission purposes.”26

The denominational structure the Covenant established was that of congregational polity

where the local congregation was allowed to run its own business. Even though the

congregations had “full freedom,” there was still some structure to the denomination, Scott E.

Erickson called this harmony in the midst of diversity.27 28 Church business was carried out at

the annual meeting where each church in the denomination sent two delegates. In order to give

more structure to the denomination, it was decided that the churches should divide themselves

into district conferences, out of which came ten different districts. The strength of Covenant

freedom and its denominational structure was put to the test with the emergence of the modernist

and fundamentalist movements in the 1920s.

Modernist and Fundamentalist Movements

24 Erickson, “David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church,” 98 and for more on the Swedish free-church heritage see, 43-52.

25 Ibid., 156.26 Ibid.27 Ibid., 163.28 Mellander, “The Swedish Mission Friends,” in Covenant Roots, 71.

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In Fundamentalism and American Culture, George Marsden wrote that modernism is

“the adaptation of religious ideas to modern culture.”29 This carried itself out in several ways

including Biblical criticism. Modern culture was rapidly changing and some modern theologians

sought ways to reconcile their Christian faith with the drastic changes. Some changes occurred

in scientific thinking which influenced the emergence of biblical criticism. Biblical criticism

challenged many of the popular views of scripture including its inerrancy.

Besides biblical criticism modernists also reinterpreted their theology to mesh with new

cultural developments. They believed that God revealed himself in cultural developments was

prevalent among modernists which became one of the ways modernists distinguished themselves

from the fundamentalists. Modernists believed that as human society progressed, it moved

toward the culmination of the Kingdom of God.

The Social Gospel emerged out of the new modernist theology and became one of the

most popular movements among modernists. In Social Gospel theology, good works were given

priority over evangelism, however, proponents of the Social Gospel did not totally rule out

salvation. Walter Rauschenbusch, the most prominent advocate of the Social Gospel, said that

he struggled with how to combine “old Christianity,” which he claimed only covered part of the

Christian faith, with a concern for social advocacy.30 “And then the Kingdom of God offered

itself as the real solution for that problem. Here was a religious concept that embraced it all,”

Rauschenbusch wrote. “The powers of the kingdom of God well up in the individual soul; that is

where they are born, and that is where the starting point necessarily must be.”31 Rauschenbusch

believed that the Kingdom of God not only answered the personal side of salvation, but it also

29 George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 146.

30 Walter Rauschenbusch, “The Kingdom of God,” in The Social Gospel in America, ed. Robert T. Handy (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1966), 266-267.

31 Ibid., 267.

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fulfilled the God’s will on earth. Despite the belief in salvation found in Rauschenbusch’s

theology, fundamentalists felt that “the Social Gospel emphasized social concern in an

exclusivist way which seemed to undercut the relevance of the message of eternal salvation

through trust in Christ’s atoning work.”32

As modernism continued to grow and reject important evangelical doctrines like the

inerrancy of the Bible, missionary work, and salvation in Christ alone, some evangelicals were

concerned. This coalition of concerned evangelicals eventually formed the fundamentalist

movement. Fundamentalism was an evangelical movement but it “was a loose, diverse, and

changing federation of co-belligerents united by their fierce opposition to modernist attempts to

bring Christianity into line with modern thought.”33

Fundamentalists were not only defined by their actions, but they also had deeply- rooted

theological beliefs. These included the defense of the inerrancy of the Bible, virgin birth of

Jesus, the resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, and Jesus’ subsutionary atonement.34 In order to be

a fundamentalist, one had to believe in these “fundamentals” of the faith.

In a 1922 letter to Reuben Torrey, a leading fundamentalist, Alex Mellander asked

Torrey about his view on the substitutionary atonement. In a speech at Moody Bible Institute in

January 1922, Torrey proclaimed that anyone who denied the substitutionary atonement of Christ

served the Antichrist instead of God.35 Mellander explained to Torrey that the majority of

pastors in the Covenant had adopted Waldenström’s theory of the atonement and wanted to know

if the Covenant, by accepting this theory, were following the Antichrist. Torrey responded that

although Waldenström and other members of the Covenant were good Christians they believed

32 Ibid., 92.33 Ibid., 4.34 Ibid., 180.35 Prof. Alex Mellander to R.A. Torrey, Forbunets Veckoblad, March 7, 1922. The F.M. Johnson Archives.

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falsely about the atonement. Torrey wrote, “the doctrine of the substitutionary death of Jesus

Christ is so fundamental that there can be no union between those who believe in it as it is taught

in the Word of God and those who deny it.”36 This correspondence between the two theologians

is important because it shows that the fundamentalists did not leave room for dissenting doctrine.

For the Covenant, anti-substitutionary atonement also symbolized its break with creedalism. The

Covenant did not advocate for one particular theory of the atonement, although many of its

members believed in Waldenström’s interpretation, it allowed its members to search the Bible

for their own answer. The break with the substitutionary atonement and the acceptance of

Waldenström’s theory showed that the Covenant accepted doctrinal interpretations that stood

outside of the famous Christian creeds

Gustaf F. Johnson and the Two Types of Christianity

In the fundamentalist-modernist debates that would emerge in the Covenant Karl Olsson,

the most prominent Covenant historian, saw two different sides of the conflict. In By One Spirit,

he wrote that the so-called modernists, he refused to call them modernists or liberals were

opposed by the Right whom he had no problem labeling as fundamentalists. Olsson wrote, “The

difference between them [the Left] and their opponents [the Right], as will become clear, was

that they [the Left] represented a dynamic conservatism whereas the right represented a static

conservatism.”37 According to Olsson, the Left believed that Covenant freedom allowed an open

exploration of the truth while the Right felt that Covenant piety made open exploration

unnecessary. During the 1920s, the rise of Gustaf F. Johnson brought the fundamentalist

movement to the Covenant.

36 Ibid. 37 Olsson, 535.

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According to Olsson, in 1915, when Johnson arrived in Minneapolis to assume his

position as a pastor in the Covenant, “something in the church was changing: there was a lack of

fervor, a loss of first love, an increasing worldliness,” Olsson wrote. “This was concurrent with

the growth of liberalism, the advocacy of the social gospel, and the flowering of optimism about

the state of the world.”38 Like the other fundamentalists in the larger movement, Johnson wanted

to drive any sign of modernism out of the Covenant and bring the Covenant toward theological

definition.39

In 1934, Johnson published “Comments” in the Covenant publication Missions-Vannen

in which he addressed the two types of divergent Christianities he saw in the Covenant. Johnson

drew a line between what he called revival Christianity and educational Christianity. He saw

that the times were changing, as more members of the Covenant were better educated than

previous generations. “It had become evident that knowledge,” Johnson argued, “even

knowledge of the Scriptures, could exist without the slightest knowledge of life in God. It had

also been experienced that clear understanding of God and spiritual experiences could exist

where learning and culture were weak.”40 According to Johnson, a life in God did not require an

education, but simply the experience of a new birth. For Johnson, the proliferation of university-

trained pastors offered enough evidence that the Covenant promoted modernism and that an

education did not guarantee spiritual stability. The new ministers might have been able to

deliver eloquent sermons, but if they could not win souls for Christ than their work was futile.41

38 Ibid., 533.39 Ibid., 532. Olsson used the phrase theological definition. I did not find any evidence in Johnson’s

writings that would indicate he wanted a creed so it may simply mean that he wanted the Covenant to explain what it meant by its stance on Scripture.

40 Gustaf F. Johnson, “Comments,” in Missions-Wannen April 24, 1934, Series number: 1510 Box 3 Folder 3 The F.M. Johnson Archives and Special Collections, North Park University Library, Chicago, 1.

41 Ibid., 2.

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Johnson also saw a problem with the rise of biblical criticism which, according to

Johnson, questioned the old-time understanding of the Bible. The “old-time” understanding of

the Bible did not require an education because one could know the truths of the Bible without

any education. If the Covenant decided to adopt biblical criticism as the norm then it could

expect its path to be filled with darkness.42 Johnson believed that choosing “educational

Christianity” was too risky because one could not be sure whether an educated minister could

win souls for Christ. Johnson admitted that an educated minister could be spiritually strong but

it was not guaranteed.

In 1927, Johnson and other like-minded individuals joined together during the Annual

Meeting of the Northwest Mission Association. The men who met at the meeting were

concerned that the Covenant was becoming too indifferent about spiritual matters. They sought

to create a revival within the denomination that would save it from its downhill descent. The

causes observed by Johnson and the others were, “a shaken faith in the infallible authority of the

Bible, in the lust for pleasure, in avarice, and in fraternization with the world.”43 The committee

decided that if the Covenant rejected a revival then it could expect to become victims of

worldliness. This discussion did not leave room for middle ground; the Covenant could either

experience a revival and save itself or die.

Johnson and the other fundamentalists in the Covenant Church focused some of their

attention on North Park. Their attacks centered on the reading material and class lectures.44

Observing book lists would have been an easy task, but investigating what lectures presented

interesting challenges because none of the fundamentalists were students at the seminary.

According to Olsson, in 1927 Axel B. Öst, one of the leading fundamentalists in the Covenant,

42 Ibid.43 Olsson, By One Spirit, 536.44 Olsson, By One Spirit, 537.

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secretly interviewed seminary students in order to find out what the professors were teaching.45

The testimony of the students gave the fundamentalists a stepping-stone on which to base their

attacks against North Park. Nils W. Lund became the target for many of the fundamentalist’s

attacks.

Nils Lund: The Authority of Scripture

The questionable methods used by the fundamentalists in their attacks against North Park

did not sit well with North Park Seminary professor and dean, Nils W. Lund. The president of

North Park, Algoth Ohlson, wrote a public letter harshly criticizing Öst and the other

fundamentalists.46 Lund justified Ohlson’s letter because he did not approve of the tactics used

by Öst and Johnson which he felt pushed Ohlson into a defensive position. “In the first place,”

Lund argued, “Öst had rushed into print with a criticism which every known standard of

brotherly Christianity conduct demanded that he should have brought privately to the attention of

President Ohlson. In the second place he set aside every rule of procedure which governs such

complaints within the Covenant.”47

Lund also had to defend the attacks that the curriculum at North Park led to the demise of

the spiritual well-being of North Park students. “People may say what they will about our

school,” Lund said, “but they cannot truthfully accuse [us] of neglecting the spiritual welfare of

our students.”48 According to Lund, the only students who were losing their faith were those

who did not take advantage of the eagerness of North Park professors to privately discuss matters

of faith.

45 Ibid.46 Ibid. 47 Nils Lund to Rev. Arvid Nygren, 11 March 1929, Lund Series number: 6/1/2/1/18a Box 20 Folder 1

(hereafter: 6/1/2/1/18a 20/1) The F.M. Johnson Archives, 1.48 Ibid., 2.

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Lund expected his students to think critically and this training, according to Lund,

inevitably led to spiritual challenges. “Now, do not misunderstand me,” Lund explained, “I am

not saying this by way of criticism. In fact, I do not see how the mental attitude of the student

can be otherwise, for he would not be a student in any true sense of the word, unless he in some

measure at least has these experiences at school.”49 North Park’s spiritual life was far from

perfect, but Lund believed that he and the other professors were doing their best to nurture the

spiritual lives of the students.

Lund continued his commitment to the importance of critical thinking at the Annual

Meeting of the Covenant in June 1928, where he delivered a lecture titled, “The Authority of

Holy Scriptures.” As Karl Olsson noted, “A great deal of tension had preceded the meeting, and

the assembled delegates sensed that crucial decisions were in the offing.”50 Lund was in the

middle of the fundamentalist-modernist debates over the authority of Scripture during the 1920s.

He wrote, “In recent years the conflict between fundamentalists and modernists has once more

made it necessary to clarify what one really means when one speaks of the inspiration of the

Bible and the authority of the Bible.”51

The atmosphere in the Covenant surrounding the meeting in 1928 can be seen in the

controversy surrounding Lund’s remarks about the resurrection of Christ. In a series of articles

in Förbundets Veckotidning, Gustaf Johnson claimed to have overheard a conversation of Lund’s

where he questioned the bodily resurrection of Christ.52 In May 1928, as a result of these

accusations, Lund, Johnson, and the Executive and School Boards met in order to discuss Lund’s

views on the resurrection.

49 Ibid., 3.50 Olsson, By One Spirit, 539.51 Nils W. Lund, “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures,” trans. Eric G. Hawkinson, Covenant Quarterly,

Nov. 1972 vol. 30 no. 4, 5.52 Olsson, By One Spirit, 539.

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Considering the seriousness of the charges, the board felt that an investigation was

absolutely necessary. The results of the investigation, which included interviews with seminary

students and the meeting between Lund and Johnson, were that Lund fully believed in the

resurrection and that in he taught it as fact. “We deplore that this and other similar utterances

have been made publicly without first being shared with the board of directors of the school,” the

board concluded in a statement that would later become crucial in the William Doughty

controversy.53 The board regretted that the accusations brought against Lund were false and that

as a result of the charges, Lund’s reputation in the Covenant had suffered.

Lund believed that the 1928 Annual Meeting was crucial because it could determine the

educational policy of the Covenant, “The practical task for the Covenant annual meeting will be

to determine whether they shall continue their educational enterprise along the lines of a liberal

education, or whether they shall confine it to a Bible Institute.”54 The Bible institute perpetuated

a sense of anti-intellectualism which Lund found very threatening.55

Despite the possible consequences, Lund decided to publicly announce his position on

Scripture. Lund felt that the educational well-being of North Park faced serious consequences if

he remained silent. Lund also said, “It is at this point that I hope [both my] lectures will serve to

clear a lot of fog which these brethren [the fundamentalists] have spread over the landscape

during the last few years.”56

The Covenant Church claimed that the Bible was the “only perfect rule for faith, doctrine,

and conduct” and depending on how one reads the Bible this affirmation of faith can be

interpreted many different ways. On one side were the fundamentalists led by Johnson and Öst

who argued that the Bible was inerrant. They were opposed by people like Lund, who believed in 53 Ibid., 774.54 Nils Lund to Paul Lindquist, Feb. 11, 1928, 6/1/2/1/18a 3/16, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 2.55 Marsden, 129.56 Nils Lund to Paul Lindquist, Feb. 11, 1928, 2.

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the authority of Scripture, but did not believe that the Bible was inerrant. The fundamentalists

wanted the Covenant to adopt the inerrant stance on Scripture as its doctrine but the modernists

wanted there to be room for all interpretations of Scripture. In “The Authority of Holy

Scriptures,” Lund wrote, “When we now hold firmly that the Scriptures shall be the norm for the

message, it does not imply that research is forbidden or that a more intimate and deeper

experience is repudiated. It means only that I am willing to test by the Scriptures the discoveries

that I bring home from my own journeys in thought.”57 Lund believed that the Bible was useful

as a guide for one’s religious life, but drew the line when it came to the belief that Scripture was

inerrant.

Lund saw two different ways people approached the Bible. First, there were those who

read it for personal edification.58 “For them the Bible is a large and glorious house with many

differing rooms, some more inviting than others,” Lund wrote, “In this house they visit a few

rooms often, others less frequently, and some never.”59 They did not trouble themselves with

questions of the historicity of the Bible, nor did they deal with difficult questions of authority

because the mere existence of the Bible was enough.

On the other side, Lund said there were those who read the Bible not only for personal

edification, but they were also interested in the historical and scientific questions raised by the

Bible. Lund said that an alert reader of the Bible would notice its inconsistencies and would try

to understand them.60 Lund believed that the inerrancy approach to scripture offered the most

problems. “If he holds fast to the theory of verbal inspiration,” Lund said, “he has no way out

but to assume a different inspiration of the Spirit upon different authors.”61 For Lund, this view

57 Lund, “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures”, 4.58 Ibid., 5.59 Ibid.60 Ibid., 6.61 Ibid., 7.

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of Scripture was too impersonal because it did not take into account personal experience. He

believed that Scripture in the inspiration of scripture, but that the Spirit worked through personal

experience: “No, he illumined their understanding and sanctified their wills through a divine

inspiration which was in the deepest sense united with all the shifting experiences of human

life.”62

The inconsistencies that Lund saw in the inerrancy argument were heightened by the

historical context of the biblical writers. He saw this in the different ways modern humans view

the universe. Ancient astronomy taught that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around

the earth, but through modern astronomy learned that the earth is round and that the earth

revolves around the sun. The cultural context of the biblical writers also offered more

complexities for Lund. In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul wrote that women should not be allowed to

teach, but Lund argued that most modern Christian churches had abandoned this ancient

worldview. He wrote, “Modern man’s conception of the world is so completely different from

that which people had when the holy authors wrote the books of the Bible…It is their conception

of the world which appears in Scripture, not ours.”63

Lund saw a sharp distinction between the biblical message and the form. The form, the

actual written text, was only temporal and could not stand on its own due to factors like the

differences in the Gospels, but the message within biblical text remained true. Lund was afraid

that people would become slaves to the form. Instead, he encouraged Christians to look for the

message within the text. “In the reading of these texts,” Lund explained, “the reader of the Bible

separates the principle imbedded in each text from its more or less limited temporal form and

62 Ibid., 8.63 Ibid.

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makes it available for the Christian life as a whole.”64 Lund believed that to reject such an

approach to Scripture would make most of the Bible irrelevant for the modern reader.

At the end of his speech, Lund addressed the fundamentalist-modernist debates that were

dividing the Covenant Church at the time. Lund argued that the fundamentalist approach to

Scripture created a spiritless orthodoxy that was sterile and legalistic. According to Lund,

fundamentalists were too worried about the form and not focused enough on the message of

Scripture. If the fundamentalists were allowed to take over, then Lund believed that, “The Bible

will be used as ammunition in theological conflicts but not as food for the spiritual life. With

this displacement of the essential in Christianity, which is neither doctrine nor cult but the hidden

life with Christ in God, even brotherly love will weaken.”65 It took over twenty years for a

prominent and powerful voice to emerge that challenged Lund’s opinion on Scriptural authority.

William Doughty and “A Cause for Concern in the Covenant”

On May 17, 1949, William Doughty, a senior at North Park Theological Seminary

delivered a farewell sermon at graduation. Throughout his speech Doughty spoke of the

importance of the Covenant Church remaining unified even through doctrinal disputes. “They

seem to forget the word of the Lord to Paul as he cried out,” Lund said, “Saul, Saul, why

persecutest thou me?” and that our Lord Jesus Christ regarded every attack upon one of his loved

ones as a personal attack on himself.”66

“There is a separatist sentiment which exists in some areas of the Covenant,” Doughty

observed, “And I say if a man can’t get along with the majority of the men in the Covenant, then

I don’t think he can get along in any group.”67 Doughty did not see any reason for division in the

64 Ibid., 13.65 Ibid., 22. There is very little information on the resolution of Johnson conflict. Olsson in By One Spirit,

544 did mention how Johnson was censured but only devoted one sentence to the matter.66 ? William Doughty, “Farewell Sermon,” (sermon preached at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago on May 17, 1949), 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives.67 ? Ibid.

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Covenant because it granted its members freedom in regard to minor doctrines like communion,

baptism, speaking in tongues, and millennialism.68 Disputes over minor doctrine were

unnecessary because they only served to divide the Church’s unity in Christ.

Before joining the Covenant Church, Doughty had been affiliated with the Presbyterian

Church where he first encountered the harmful effects of the fundamentalist-modernist debates.

“And although I did not understand fully the issues involved at that time,” Doughty explained,

“one thing I did know as a babe in Christ, that the bitter spirit of such controversy was

unbecoming a representative of Jesus Christ. As a result I withdrew my membership in 1937.”69

It is not exactly clear why Doughty decided to leave the Presbyterian Church because in

an interview from 1978 he gave another reason. Doughty said that in 1937 the Lord called him

to attend the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago where his eyes were opened to the liberal leanings

of the Presbyterian Church. His education in the fundamentals of the Christian faith showed

him, “I was a member of an evangelical church, was under the control of the philosophy known

as modern religious liberalism or modernism. I did not feel that I wanted to be affiliated with a

group that was under the control of this philosophy, feeling that it was false and wrong.”70

Following his ordination in the Covenant, Doughty assumed the role of pastor at Bethany

Covenant Church in Mount Vernon, Washington in 1953.

The addition of Dr. Earl Dahlstrom and Henry Gustafson to the North Park Seminary

Staff in 1954 raised important questions for Doughty and his congregation. The theology of the

two candidates raised questions during the Bethany Covenant quarterly business meeting the

congregation sent a letter to the Chairman of the Board of Education, Harold Anderson. “The

68 ? Ibid.69 ? Ibid.70 ? William Doughty, “William C. Doughty: One Man’s Cause for Concern in the Covenant,” interview by Donald T. Robinson, Unpublished, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 3.

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members of our congregation,” the letter read, “were interested to know where these men stand

relative to the historic evangelical position of the Covenant.”71

The questions presented a wide variety of issues that ranged from creation, Jesus’ birth

and resurrection, and millennialism. Doughty and the congregation were looking to see where

the two candidates stood in regards to the “fundamentals.” The questions lined up with the five

essential doctrines passed by the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1910, “(1) the inerrancy of

Scripture, (2) the Virgin Birth of Christ, (3) his substitutionary atonement, (4) his bodily

resurrection, and (5) the authenticity of miracles.”72

The first eight questions were formulated as such that there was a right and a wrong

answer. For example, one question asked, “With regard to the creation of living creatures in the

Genesis account do they believe that God created finished products within each species, or do

they hold to some form of evolutionary development?”73 The candidates could accept what

Doughty believed to be the historical evangelical position of the Covenant and answer that God

created finished products or they could answer in favor of evolution. The ninth question asked

about Dahlstrom’s and Gustafson’s views on the millennium. “With regard to a specific aspect of

eschatology do they hold to a post-millennial, pre-millennial, or a-millennial position?”74 During

his farewell sermon, Doughy listed millennialism as a minor doctrine that was open to

interpretation. Doughty’s first real attack against modernism came in 1955 with the release of a

pamphlet from the Youth Department of the Covenant.

The Youth Department released a pamphlet titled, “The Exile and Restoration of a

Nation” that suggested the book of Isaiah may have been written by two different authors.

Doughty responded negatively to the article by writing a letter to Rev. Aaron Markuson, the head 71 ? William Doughty to Harold Anderson, 8 June 1954, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 1.72 ? Marsden, 117.73 ? William Doughty to Harold Anderson, 8 June 1954, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 1.74 ? Ibid., 2.

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of the Youth Department. “Since the Composite Authorship Theory had its origin in liberal

theology and this theory is far from conclusive in its facts and evidences,” Doughty argued, “and

since the traditional evangelical view of the Covenant has been that of Isaiahian authorship, I

would think that we should uphold the unity of the book.”75

In his response to Doughty, Markuson said that the Youth Department had no official

stance on the authorship of Isaiah and wanted to allow their writers to display their own

convictions, as long as the writers did not “conflict with what we consider basic Christian beliefs

and practices.”76 According to Markuson, the authorship of Isaiah fell into this category.

Markuson said that he did not see any reason to edit the article because the author did not deny

God’s inspiration on the Isaiahan authors.

Doughty took objection to Markuson’s statement that belief in the authorship of Isaiah

was not central to the Christian faith. “When, in the course of Christian instruction,” Doughty

argued, “the issue of the authorship of Isaiah arises it becomes an issue basic to the Christian

faith and effects the Christian’s relation to the Holy Spirit and the blessing and power of God

upon his life.”77 Doughty said that when the authors of the New Testament quote from the book

of Isaiah they give credit to one author. If the Covenant wanted to remain consistent in its belief

that the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the New Testament then it must deny the dual

authorship theory. According to Doughty, if there were two authors of Isaiah then it would have

been mentioned in Scripture.78 “It is an issue of faith itself,” Doughty demanded, “Faith in the

Holy Spirit’s inspiration of, and instruction through, the N.T. There is no neutral ground here. A

75 ? William Doughty to Aaron Markuson, 6 Dec. 1955, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives.76 ? Aaron Markuson to William Doughty, 4 Jan. 1956, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives.77 ? William Doughty to Aaron Markuson, 17 Jan. 1956, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives. 78 ? Ibid.

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man and a Dept. must take a stand either for or against the Holy Spirit in this matter. It is a

matter of faith or unbelief.”79

In 1956, Doughty perceived that unbelief had made its way all the way to the North Park

University campus. One of the main activities hosted by North Park was “Tuesday Evenings at

North Park,” where guest speakers were invited to speak on campus. The university offered the

students a wide variety of speakers so they could grow intellectually. Doughty objected to one

of the guest speakers that hailed from Union Theological Seminary. “Union Theological

Seminary is well known as a stronghold of religious modernism,” Doughty wrote to North Park

president Clarence Nelson. “It does not engender confidence in our school when our people learn

that our college invites and fellowships with a representative of this type of seminary. It

certainly does not enhance the evangelical standing of our school to entertain a speaker from a

heretical institution.”80

Nelson gave two reasons why the college invited a wide variety of speakers. First, the

university wanted to expose the students to a wide variety of opinions. Secondly, the college did

not claim to endorse everything a speaker said by simply inviting them to speak on campus.81

Nelson stated that regardless of the speakers it invited, the Covenant maintained its evangelical

identity. “So long as we stand in the framework of our historic faith in an fellowship with

Christ,” Nelson wrote, “we know that we cannot escape being criticized and misunderstood, but

that may well be one of the radiant hallmarks of a living school.”82

The policy stated by Nelson was “legitimate for a secular educational institution but not

for an evangelical Christian institution claiming to stand within the framework of the historical

79 ? Ibid.80 ? William Doughty to Dr. Clarence Nelson, 26 Dec. 1956, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson.81 ? Clarence A. Nelson to William Doughty, 9 Jan. 1957, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 2.

82 Ibid.

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faith presented in the New Testament.”83 If the college wanted to expose its students to

modernism, according to Doughty, than it must be taught by the professors so they could

uncover its deceitfulness

In addition to his duties as pastor of the Bethany Covenant Church, Doughty was also

editor of the regional publication, The Conference News. As editor Doughty wrote an article

titled, “The Covenant and the Middle Way,” which explained the dangers of taking a neutral

position between liberalism and fundamentalism. There was nothing wrong with a true middle

of the road position because the Covenant Church could “demonstrate to the American scene the

possibility and reality of men of divergent views on minor doctrines, but who hold strongly to

the fundamental doctrines of historic Christianity, working in close harmony within the family of

a denomination.”84

The middle of the road position adopted by the Covenant, according to Doughty, enabled

a move to the left of center. Doughty argued that any move to the life inevitably led to

theological inclusivism. “Such inclusivism eventually leads to compromise, compromise leads

to capitulation, and capitulation leads to captivity. This kind of an undefined middle of the road

position with a drift to the left ultimately brings about a vitiating of the positive presentation of

the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.”85

The publication Covenant Weekly also came under Doughty’s attack. The article that

Doughty took issue with was titled, “People I Have Known: Fighter for Free Speech, Nils W.

Lund.” In the article, the author spoke highly of Lund and wrote that in his 1928 speech in

Omaha, Nebraska, Lund could not accept the theory of verbal inspiration.86 Doughty articulated

83 ? William Doughty to Clarence A. Nelson, 12 Feb, 1957, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives.84 ? William Doughty, “The Covenant and the Middle Way” The Conference News (Sept. 1957): 6, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives.85 ? Ibid.

86 William Doughty to Carl P. Anderson, 15 Feb. 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 1.

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that verbal inspiration was not just a theory and that it was the teaching of Scripture. “The

uniform testimony of the Bible,” Lund argued, “concerning itself is to the effect that Holy Spirit

inspiration included not only the thinking process of the writers but also descended to their

words spoken and written.”87

The editor of the Covenant Weekly, Carl Anderson, replied that Doughty missed the

point of the article. The author did not intend to refute the theory of verbal inspiration but

simply wanted to highlight Lund’s intellectual contribution to the Covenant. Covenant freedom,

Anderson wrote, left room for all theories of inspiration as long as Covenanters shared a

common faith in Jesus Christ. Anderson argued that importance of the controversies surrounding

Lund’s 1928 speech was not his view on inspiration but the recognition that “there is room

within the Covenant for diverse points of view when men share a common faith in Jesus Christ

and are willing to grant each other freedom of thought and expression.”88

Doughty’s attempts to remove modernism from the Covenant culminated in, “A Cause

for Concern.” “The purpose of this present paper,” Doughty explained, “is to bring before our

people facts which will show why such statements have been made and to reveal to our people

that there is a real cause for concern within the Covenant.”89 Doughty exposed five programs in

the Covenant that he believed had abandoned the evangelical tradition of the denomination.

Doughty argued that the denominational paper, The Covenant Weekly, used its influence

as a propaganda machine in order to spread liberalism. First, the publication openly supported

the National and World Council of Churches, both of which were deemed liberal by Doughty.90

Secondly, the Covenant Weekly allowed liberal theologians to contribute articles to the paper.

Doughty described one of the contributing authors as a liberal that did “not accept any of the 87 Ibid. The speech referred to was most likely “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures.”88 Carl P. Anderson to William Doughty, 5 March 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 2.

89 ? William Doughty, “A Cause for Concern,” 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 1.90 ? Ibid., 1.

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doctrines which were listed as they have been understood in the conservative and fundamental

wing of the church.”91 Doughty asserted the Covenant Weekly condoned liberal theology by

allowing liberal thinkers to contribute to the publication.

Doughty also went after the Covenant Press for selling liberal and conservative books

alongside each other without making any theological distinctions. One such work was

Understanding the Christian Faith by Georgia Harkness in which she denied the deity of Christ.

Doughty judged the press guilty by association, “This inclusivistic policy is a denial of and a

disobedience to the scriptural teaching and doctrine that a true child of God is not to honor or

help to spread the unbelief and false doctrine of false teachers but rather to rebuke them as

“anathema” and to be reproved and rebuked.”92

In “A Cause for Concern,” Doughty also expanded his attacks against the Youth

Department. This time Doughty took issue with articles that denied the literal story of creation

found in Genesis. The particular article Doughty singled-out denied the belief that the fall of

Adam had an effect on history. The article argued that each human being loses its moral stature

by poor decisions and that humanity needs to see itself in the story of Adam instead of taking the

story literally and blaming Adam for humanity’s downfall. Doughty perceived the publication of

this article as a direct assault on the well-being of the youth in the Covenant.93

The final Covenant institution attacked by Doughty was North Park seminary. The

professors at North Park were known for challenging their students by presenting them with a

number of theological opinions but Doughty wanted the seminary professors to expose their

students to the heresies of liberalism. “The greatest weakness and failure in our Seminary,”

Doughty asserted, “is the lack of a strong moral directive against the heresies of liberalism and

91 ? Ibid., 2.92 ? Ibid., 3.93 ? Ibid., 4.

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neo-orthodoxy and the lack of an equally strong moral directive in favor of fundamental and

historic Christianity.”94

Like Öst and the early fundamentalists in the Covenant, Doughty faced the problem of

finding evidence to prove that North Park seminary was indeed liberal. The North Pacific

Ministerial Associates Board confronted Doughty about the class notes he used in “A Cause for

Concern.”95 Doughty admitted that a student had provided him with the class notes but refused

to give a name.

Doughty chose theology professor Donald Frisk as his main target from North Park

Seminary. A major problem for Doughty was Frisks’ stance or lack thereof, on the revelation of

Scripture. “Well, I think that the problem is still before us,” Frisk told the class, “I don’t pretend

to have given any answer but if we have sharpened up the issues it is of value, and above all, I

hope that we have found that we have difficulty with verbal inspiration as it has been

understood.”96 Not only did Doughty believe that Frisk’s conclusion on revelation was wrong,

but it also lacked moral directive for the students.97

In June 1958, the president and secretary of the Covenant sent a letter to all the Covenant

churches informing them that Doughty had been requested to remain silent until his grievances

could be evaluated at the Board of Ministerial Standing in Miami. When Doughty saw that the

letter accused him of going over the heads of the ministerial board he responded that it “would

be true only if history and experience showed that procedure through channels could bring basic

corrections to grievances. But this they do not show.”98 The ministerial board, upset with

94 ? Ibid., 8.95 ? Transcription of minutes of Board of North Pacific Ministerial Associates Meeting, April 17, 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 3.96 ? Doughty, “A Cause for Concern,” 12.97 ? Ibid., 12. In “A Cause for Concern” Doughty also reiterated his frustrations with North Park University for inviting liberal speakers, like Dr. Pauck, to speak on campus.

98 Donald T. Robinson, “William C. Doughty: One Man’s Cause for Concern in the Covenant (unpublished, Covenant Archives), quoted in Karl Olsson, Into One Body…by the Cross vol. 2 (Chicago: Covenant Press: 1986),

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Doughty’s non-compliance, censured him for acting in an “unchristian manner.”99 He lost his

ministerial license for one year with the hope of reconciliation, but on February 19, 1958,

Doughty submitted his resignation from the Covenant Ministerium.100

In response to the decision of the Board to censure Doughty, delegates from Bethany

Covenant wrote a letter of protest. The letter addressed a wide variety of issues, including

whether or not the Board truly asked Doughty not to send out “A Cause for Concern” until there

could a full evaluation.101 For this study, the most important issues addressed in the letter dealt

with the handling of the content in “A Cause for Concern.” According to letter-writers, the

Board censured Doughty because he exposed the encroachment of modernism in the Covenant.

The delegates felt that the charges of behaving in an unchristian manner were false. Doughty’s

supporters also argued that the issues exposed by Doughty in “A Cause for Concern went largely

unacknowledged in the public by the leadership in the Covenant.102 “We hear thru [sic] him the

pure and unchanging word of God, preached in all humility of spirit,” the delegates wrote about

Doughty. “What the Covenant Board of Ministerial Standing has done and is doing to our Pastor

does not change his status with us. We are praying for a continued revival of the Holy Spirit to

fall upon our church as well as upon our Covenant that we may be found faithful when our

Savior comes for us.”103

What Does Freedom Mean? The Committee on Freedom and Theology

350.99 Karl Olsson, Into the Body…by the Cross vol. 2 (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1986), 351.100 William Doughty to the Covenant Ministerial Board 19 Feb. 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson. In his

letter of resignation Doughty quit because of additions to the Covenant constitution. He did not specify what was added to the constitution that caused him to resign. Olsson also never mentioned the addition.

101 Robert Elde and Eva Collinson to fellow Covenanters, 21 Oct. 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives, 2.

102 Ibid., 3.103 Ibid., 3.

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The outcome of the Doughty controversy showed that the Covenant was ill-prepared to

handle major doctrinal disputes. First, prior to 1958, “there was no procedure for the board to

deal directly with an erring minister.”104 Also, the Covenant did not have a clear procedure

detailing on what grounds one could be censured. Doughty had been accused of airing his

criticisms without going through the proper channels, but this meant that anyone who criticized

the Covenant without “going through the proper channels” could possibly be censured.

The most important issue to emerge out of the Doughty controversy dealt with the

meaning of Covenant freedom. In order to deal with this issue the Committee on Freedom and

Theology was formed to study “problems which have been with us for a long time: first of all,

the nature and scope of our freedom which we look upon as a unique part of our tradition; and

second, our theological position related to our biblical heritage and to historical Christianity.”105

The task of the Committee on Freedom and Theology was twofold. First, it had to deal with the

authority of Scripture and second, freedom within authority. The committee decided that the

Bible was authoritative because it revealed God’s redemptive work in Christ. The test of the

validity of the Bible was not human reason, but the inward working of the Holy Spirit. “Because

the Bible is the Word of God,” the opening statement read, “the church is obliged to treasure its

message, guarding it against every temptation to obscure its plain teaching or evade its truth, and

humbly submitting itself to responsive obedience in the Holy Spirit.”106

The committee not only affirmed in what sense the Bible was authoritative, but it also

clarified what was meant by the constitutional statement that the Scriptures “are the only perfect

rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.” Olsson read three meanings in this affirmation of

Scripture. The first affirmed that the Covenant was bound to the Bible because it was the way

104 Olsson, By One Spirit, 619.105 Yearbook, 1958, 242, quoted in Karl Olsson, By One Spirit, 620.106 Olsson, Into One Body…by the Cross vol. 2, 357.

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God revealed himself to humanity. The second affirmed that the Bible set out judgment on our

sins, but also revealed the means to grace. Finally, the Bible was necessary for a faith community

if it expected to remain spiritually healthy.107

When deciding what the Covenant meant by freedom within authority, the Committee

focused its attention on intellectual freedom. The Church had just experienced Doughty’s

attacks which had centered on academic freedom. The Committee came to the conclusion that

there could be intellectual freedom as long as it was done within the limits of Christian

testimony.108 The connection between faith and intellectual freedom can be seen in the different

ways that Lund and Doughty interpreted Covenant freedom.

According to Olsson, the faith of Lund and Doughty were actually very similar; he

maintained that they both “had the same faith in the Bible, in essential Christology, in sin and

grace, in the centrality of the new life in Christ, in the resurrection, and the life to come, but they

sometimes talked about these things differently, and they differed in details.”109 The theological

separation between the two can be seen in the vastly different ways that they approached the

Bible. Both strongly believed that the Bible was the main source of authority for any Christian,

but disagreed on whether or not it was inerrant. Their disagreement over how to read the Bible

also influenced their views on freedom.

Doughty did not want to leave room for one to question the inerrancy of Scripture, while

Lund advocated using modern methods to explore the Bible and questioned the validity of the

inerrancy argument. Both thought that their view of the Bible was the norm and that it deserved

a place in the Covenant Church. The dispute could have been solved by a creed, but adopting a

107 Ibid., 357.108 Ibid., 358.109 Olsson, By One Spirit, 544. For some more insight into Lund’s theology see his sermons titled “The

Abiding Glory of Jesus,” “The Ideal Life,” and “Our Full Joy,” 6/1/2/1/18a 2/2, The F.M. Johnson Archives.

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creed did not necessarily mean that the Covenant would have avoided doctrinal disputes. The

same disagreements over theology occurred in denominations that had a creed.

Does Having a Creed Really Matter? The Trial of Rev. David Swing

In 1873, Francis Patton accused David Swing of violating the Presbyterian Confession of

Faith.110 Patton claimed Swing denied the truths of the Gospel and betrayed the Westminister

Confession. More specifically, Patton accused Swing of denying the Trinity, the total depravity

of humanity, predestination, and the inerrancy of the Bible.111 William R. Hutchinson in The

Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism argued that the fight between Patton and Swing

came down to a disagreement over the legitimacy of the Presbyterian creed. It also highlighted

the ways that the existence of a creed shaped a denomination’s response to the fundamentalist-

modernist controversy.

“That the constitution, as is well known,” Patton argued, “expressly requires of all

candidates for admission a solemn declaration that they sincerely receive and adopt the

confession of faith of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy

Scriptures.”112 If the jury acquitted Swing of his charges, then the creed was irrelevant and the

Presbyterian Church may as well abandon its confession of faith, Patton argued.

When Swing took his ordination vows he promised to uphold the Westiminister

Confession of Faith, but according to Patton, Swing repeatedly broke his promise. If Swing had

denied the Westminister Confession when he was taking his ordination vows, then he would not

have been named a minister of the Presbyterian Church because “doctrinal truth is of great

110 William R Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 60. For more on the Presbyterian Confession of Faith see the Presbyterian Church in America’s website at: http://www.pcanet.org/general/cof_preface.htm.

111 For a complete list of the charges and specifications see The World’s Edition of the Great Presbyterian Conflict (Chicago: Geo. MacDonald & Co., 1874), 107-132.

112 The World’s Edition of the Great Presbyterian Conflict, 115.

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importance.”113 Swing admitted that some of his doctrinal views rejected the Presbyterian creed,

but the problem was not with his theology but the creed.

While defending himself, Swing said that creeds should be abandoned because they were

only human expressions and therefore imperfect.114 He said that creeds held back inevitable

human progress because any new idea could be perceived as a threat. According to Swing, one’s

cultural context played the biggest role in influencing one’s theology. “The prosecutor had

expounded the confession of faith and declared that he had a standard,” Swing said. “But

unfortunately the whole religious world are not Presbyterians, and unfortunately these

Presbyterians who are here to-day, do not understand it alike.”115

The jury acquitted Swing after a month of testimonies.116 “In rendering the judgment we

by no means indorse [sic] all the expressions and sentiments of Mr. Swing,” the jury decided, “or

assume the responsibility of defending his particular style of preaching. We would be

understood as simply pronouncing our judgment on the points involved in the indictment,

according to the evidence that has come before our minds in the progress of this distressing

trial.”117 Shortly after the trial, Swing left his position as a Presbyterian pastor in order to lead a

non-creedal church.

After Swing left the Presbyterian Church, he delivered a sermon titled “The Reasons for a

Central Church.” The language Swing used would have sounded very familiar to the proponents

of freedom in the Covenant Church. “I desire and fully intend to preach the religion of Christ,”

Swing preached, “but in a liberty of thought not accorded to me in my former relations…We do

113 Ibid., 114.114 Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, 63.115 The World’s Edition of the Great Presbyterian Conflict, 140.116 Ibid., 163-167.117 Ibid., 167.

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not ask for a church broad enough to permit us to be atheists.”118 This membership policy was

very similar to the one adopted by the Covenant.

The Meaning of Freedom

The meaning of freedom played a central role in both denominations during the conflicts.

Patton limited to one’s individual preaching style, but the confession of faith strictly limited what

one could preach.119 Patton believed that the confession of faith taught the Word of God and one

should be held responsible if one broke from the Presbyterian confession of faith. “When he

subsequently comes forward for ordination and is about to assume a pastoral charge,” Patton said

in regards to ministers, “he is called upon to answer another series of questions, by which he

promises to preach and maintain these doctrines and the Confession of Faith.”120

In opposition to Patton, Swing argued that creeds hampered human progress and

individual freedom. In “The Reasons for a Central Church,” Swing said that any church that has

a creed enslaves the thoughts of its members.121 Swing said that the “church actual” was

different from the “church historical” and that this meant certain beliefs in the Westminister

Confession should be abandoned. He argued that the Presbyterian Church had evolved and that

some ministers no longer preached some of the essentials in the creed or they disagreed over the

details.

Even after the Committee on Freedom and Theology made its conclusion, the idea of

“freedom” within the Covenant still seemed vague. Did freedom allow for one to raise serious

questions about the Bible, as seen in the theology of Lund? Did allowing intellectual freedom

permit the Covenant Weekly or North Park Seminary to invite theologians that might be labeled

118 David Swing, “The Reasons for a Central Church,” from David Swing: A Memorial Volume, Helen Swing Starring, ed. (Chicago: F. Tennyson Neely, date), 383.

119 The World’s Edition of the Great Presbyterian Conflict, 132.120 Ibid., 117.121 Swing, “The Reasons for a Central Church,” 383.

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liberal or neo-orthodox to publish articles or speak at the Seminary? While both Lund and

Doughty cringed at the thought of the Covenant adopting a creed, they both approached the issue

of doctrinal freedom from different perspectives.

Even though Doughty was deeply concerned about the problems he believed were ruining

the Covenant Church, he never demanded the adoption of a creed. In 1949, during his

graduation address, he praised the Covenant for allowing its members to seek the truth freely.122

Doughty believed that there could be a true “middle of the road” position but that it had to be

done within the framework of evangelical Christianity.123

“There are groups which are conservative, congregational, evangelical,” Doughty

explained, “but the groups are far and few between of an evangelical, conservative nature which

are willing to subordinate the minor doctrines – Lord’s Supper, baptism, eternal security,

millennialism, speaking in tongues, prophecy – for the sake of the unity of the spirited effort of

the church.”124 Some disagreement was allowed in regards to minor doctrine but Doughty drew

the line at the “fundamentals” of the faith.125

According to Doughty, the Christian faith did not allow one to question scripture.

Scripture, for Doughty was inerrant beyond a reasonable doubt and any belief otherwise was

nothing less than unbelief. “This is not an issue that falls within the scope of “Covenant

freedom” and “differences of interpretation,” Doughty said. “It is an issue of faith itself. Faith in

the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of, and instruction through, the N.T. There is no neutral ground

here.”126

122 Doughty, “Farewell sermon,” 2.123 Doughty, “The Covenant and the Middle Way.”124 Doughty, “Farewell Sermon,” 2.125 Doughty, “The Covenant and the Middle Way” 126 William Doughty to Aaron Markuson, 17 Jan. 1956, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives. The same

interpretation of freedom can also be seen in the letter written in protest of Doughty’s censure. Robert Elde and Eva Collinson, 21 Oct. 1958, 6/1/2/1 8/4, The F.M. Johnson Archives

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Doughty did not believe that Covenant freedom allowed what he called, “theological

inclusivism” and that any fellowship with Christians must be limited to other conservative

evangelicals. Any fellowship with liberals was a “clearcut disobedience to the expressed word

and revealed will of God. This practice is what is known as theological inclusivism,” Doughty

said and he could not support it.127 Like Doughty, Lund did not want the Covenant to adopt a

creed but Lund’s view of freedom allowed for one to openly explore the Bible as seen in his

speech, “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures.”

According to Lund, the only advantage of a creed was that it made definitive statements

on difficult faith issues. He went on to list six disadvantages to a creed: (1) the historical

precedence set by the Mission Friends, (2) the situation in the church was too complex to allow

for a written creed, (3) the problem of finding authors and what interests would be represented,

(4) who decides when someone has deviated from the creed, (5) a creed would prove to be too

divisive, and (6) denominations that have creeds have not avoided doctrinal disputes.128

Debates over doctrine like those seen in the Covenant and Presbyterian denominations

are important because they reveal the complexities of evangelical Christianity. Every person

involved in the disputes believed that they were the representatives of true Christianity. Swing

saw traditional Christianity through the lens of progress. Patton believed it was tied to the

Presbyterian Confession of Faith. Doughty viewed traditional Christianity through a literal

reading of the Bible. Their beliefs were so strong that they were willing to go to great lengths in

order to defend their faith. Doughty believed so strongly that the Covenant Church was

promoting modernism that he overstepped his power in order to spread his message. Lund,

127 William Doughty, “A Cause for Concern,” 2.128 Nils W. Lund to President Theodore Anderson, 2 Aug. 1940, 6/1/2/1/18a 20/3, The F.M. Johnson

Archives.

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knowing that his stance on scripture in “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures” would raise

eyebrows articulated his beliefs anyway.

The controversies also raised the question of Christian freedom. Should a church adopt a

creed or allow its members to interpret doctrine for themselves? Lund and Swing wanted to

grant Christians doctrinal but they also wanted to remain exclusive enough so that only believing

Christians were members. For Patton, there was no reason to look beyond the Presbyterian

Creed because it revealed God’s Word. Somewhere in the middle was Doughty who believed

that a Christian could have freedom when it came to the minor doctrines, but denied the right to

reject the fundamentals of the faith.

The debates between fundamentalists and modernists are still alive today. One of the

issues that has recently resurfaced as a popular topic of debate is the place of evolution in public

schools. Many Christians are divided on the issue and to make the issue more complicated, both

sides claim to represent the true biblical interpretation on the origins of the earth. As long as

people are allowed to read the Bible for themselves this is an issue that will probably never be

resolved. Some may interpret debates among Christians as a negative, but arguments over

doctrine reveal the richness of the American evangelical tradition. Through examining these

doctrinal debates we can see that the evangelical tradition is far from static and is very much

alive.

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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Anderson, Glenn P., ed. Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations. Chicago: Covenant

Publications, 1999.

The F.M. Johnson Archives and Special Collections at North Park University. (The F.M

Johnson Archives.

Doughty series number: 6/1/2/1

Lund series number: 6/1/2/1/18a

Johnson series number: 1510

Handy, Robert T, ed. The Social Gospel in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Swing, David. The World’s Edition of the Great Presbyterian Conflict. Chicago: Geo.

MacDonald & Co., 1874.

Swing, Helen, ed. David Swing: A Memorial Volume. Chicago: F. Tennyson Neely.

Secondary Sources

Erickson, Scott E. “David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church.” Ph.D. diss., Uppsula

University, 1996.

Frisk, Donald C. Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe. Chicago: Covenant Publications,

2003.

Hale, Frederick. Trans-Atlantic Conservative Protestantism in the Evangelical Free and Mission

Covenant Traditions. New York: Arno Press, 1979.

Hutchinson, William R. The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1976.

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Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-

Century Evangelicalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Olsson, Karl. By One Spirit. Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2002.

__________. Into One Body…By the Cross, vol. 2. Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1986.

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