In May 1922, the pastor of the New York City First Presbyterian Church, Harry Emerson Fosdick, preached what would become his most famous sermon: "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" This one sermon created a major firestorm within the Presbyterian Church as it was then constituted in North America. In part this was because the intense conflict between "fundamentalist" and "modernist" elements in the Presbyterian Church and a number of other American denominations at that time.

Because of the subsequent bitter controversies and the schisms that they produced in a number of American mainline Protestant denominations over the next half-century, the focus of Fosdick's sermon has sometimes been neglected. The basic theme was that both true liberals and true conservatives should seek common ground. Fosdick pointed to the counsel of Gamaliel to the Jewish leadership as recorded in Acts 5. Gamaliel's advice was to exercise tolerance toward Peter and the other apostles who were advancing their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah.

Fosdick's commentary on this episode is that "We know now that they [the Jewish religious leadership] were mistaken. Christianity, starting within Judaism, was not an innovation to be dreaded; it was the finest flowering out that Judaism ever had . . . Jesus believed in the progressiveness of revelation, and these Jewish leaders did not understand that. Was this new gospel a real development which they might welcome, or was it an enemy to be cast out? They called it an enemy and excluded it. One does wonder what might have happened had Gamaliel's wise tolerance been in control."

Fosdick noted the similarities between the views of the Jewish religious establishment of Jesus' time and the views of the "people who call themselves the Fundamentalists. Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions . . . We should not identify the Fundamentalists with the conservatives. All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists."

The following portions of Fosdick's sermon are quoted at length to allow the reader to reflect on how much of what he says is applicable to the current situation in First World Adventism:

The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant. The Fundamentalists see . . . a great mass of new knowledge has come into [our] possession: new knowledge about the physical universe, its origin, its forces, its laws; new knowledge about human history and in particular about the ways in which the ancient peoples used to think in matters of religion and the methods by which they phrased and explained their spiritual experiences; and new knowledge, also, about other religions and the strangely similar ways in which men's faiths and religious practices have developed everywhere . . .

We must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms. There is nothing new about the situation. It has happened again and again in history, as, for example, when the stationary earth suddenly began to move, and the universe that had been centered in this planet was centered in the sun around which the planets whirled. Whenever such a situation has arisen, there has been only one way out: the new knowledge and the old faith had to be blended in a new combination. Now the people in this generation who are trying to do this are the liberals, and the Fundamentalists are out on a campaign to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship. Shall they be allowed to succeed? . . .

Consider a matter on which there is a sincere difference of opinion among evangelical Christians: the inspiration of the Bible. One point of view is that the original documents of the scripture were inerrantly dictated by God to men. Whether we deal with the story of creation or . . . the Sermon on the Mount or the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, they all came in the same way and they all came as no other book ever came . . . Everything there--scientific opinions, medical theories, historical judgments, as well as spiritual insight--is infallible. That is one idea of the Bible's inspiration. But side by side with those who hold it, lovers of the Book as much as they, are multitudes of people who never think about the Bible so. Indeed, that static and mechanical theory of inspiration seems to them a positive peril to the spiritual life . . .

Here in the Christian church today are these two groups, and the question the Fundamentalists have raised is this: Shall one of them drive the other out? Do we think the cause of Jesus Christ will be furthered by that? If he should walk through the ranks of this congregation this morning, can we imagine him claiming as his own those who hold one idea of inspiration, and sending from him into outer darkness those who hold another? You cannot fit the Lord Christ into that Fundamentalist mold.

Fosdick concluded his sermon with a prayer that: "God keep us . . . intellectually hospitable, open-minded, liberty-loving, fair, tolerant, not because the tolerance of indifference as though we did not care about the faith, but because always our major emphasis is upon the weightier matters of the law."

In the eighty years that have elapsed since that sermon was preached, fundamentalism has been a major factor in forcing schisms and divisions within a number of mainline Protestant denominations. It has also been a potent force within the Adventist Church. For the first half of the 20th century, traditional Adventism was dominated by a fundamentalist ethos. Adventist historian George Knight dates the period during which Adventist Fundamentalism was clearly dominant as 1919 to 1950. Since the middle of the 20th century, fundamentalists have had to wage an active campaign to maintain control of a church body they think it is their God-given right and duty to control. This is one factor involved in what Dr. Knight's characterization of our current period as "Adventism in Theological Tension." At many large centers of North American institutional Adventism, the traditional Adventist fundamentalist ethos and its theological underpinnings no longer hold absolute sway.

It was in this context that the Adventist Theological Society (ATS) was formed to defend a fundamentalist Adventism, which their founding members felt was under siege. The Adventist Review, the "official organ of the Seventh-day Adventist Church," currently has as regular columnists two effective spokesmen for the ATS perspective, one the current editor of the ATS journal, and a second, the most visible and vocal exponent of the ATS agenda, Clifford Goldstein.

Goldstein's most notorious recent declaration in the Adventist Review was "Seventh-day Darwinians." In this article he calls for the effective excommunication of all Adventists who "attempt to harmonize evolution and Christianity." One assumes that even he would agree that there are serious and difficult theological problems raised by the results of scientific approaches to the study of the natural world. Many of these problems are much more intractable to a fundamentalist understanding of the world than was ever envisioned in Fosdick's day.

However, Goldstein's approach to addressing these complex issues is to insist that anyone that holds to a literal, six-day creation does not "worship the God of the Bible." Furthermore, if someone might dare to accept the validity of well-documented scientific explanations for the course of biological change over geological time, Goldstein expresses his utter disdain and amazement that they would "still want to be Seventh-day Adventists." He has "no respect for those" who have not compartmentalized their theological and scientific understandings, deriding those that think that they "can meld the two."

His agenda was openly expressed when he concludes by insisting that "if you honestly reject a literal six-day creation . . . turn that honesty into integrity and go somewhere where you won't have to cloak your views under the anfractuosities [devious or tortuous argumentation] of language." Interestingly his column was published at the same time the North American Division was holding its Faith and Science Conference at Glacier View. One might wonder if this was a coincidence.

In a sense Goldstein is right to be worried. His fundamentalist views are no longer instinctively seconded by the readers of the Adventist Review. If the opinions expressed in the small selection of letters that were actually published to any degree reflects accurately the range of views that were expressed in the letters received, those expressing objections to Goldstein's opinions and tone outnumbered those supporting his position and combative style by a decisive margin. However, most interesting was an unprecedented comment by the Adventist Review editor introducing the letters. He apparently felt that it important to distance himself from Goldstein, stating that "Goldstein's view and tone represented himself only, not the editors or the church."

Shall the SDA Fundamentalists win? One of the most fundamental objections to Goldstein's approach is his use of "war" language and conflict imagery. Goldstein's column was, in many respects a declaration of war. He states that "You'll have to fight us for every extra minute much less your millions of mythological years." This is what fundamentalism usually creates--warfare and conflict. In the theological wars that they foment, sides are drawn and polarization takes place. Churches are split. What Goldstein does not realize is that, under these circumstances, no one ever really "wins."

There are other ways of working through the critical theological differences that characterize the contemporary Adventist faith community in the First World. One non-fundamentalist approach is the one proposed two millennia ago by Gamaliel. Another has been recently espoused by the current President of the SDA General Conference, Dr. Jan Paulsen. His 2002 essay on "Theological Unity in A Growing World Church" noted that "the church works best when unity and diversity coexist in non-hostile tension." In a later comment, he expanded that view to suggest that we can create a church "where people can communicate, understand each other, [and] respect each other's space." The contrast between this vision and the vision of Goldstein is stark. Hopefully, the realization that Goldstein's agenda will lead only to conflict and hostility will inspire those with a broader vision to move the Adventist Church forward to a situation where it will not be necessary for any "side" to seek to "win" by annihilating the "enemy."