The Global Church Era · c. 1900-1990 · N. America, Germany, Britain
The Mainline Century — Liberal Protestantism & Neo-Orthodoxy
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About This Movement
This is the world the mainline Protestant seminaries built and the mainline denominations taught. Its reach-back runs to Schleiermacher and to the historical-critical century — the Briggs heresy trial of 1891 to 1893 in America, Harnack's What Is Christianity? in 1900 — and its institutional face arrived with the Federal Council of Churches in 1908. The public rupture came in the 1920s: Harry Emerson Fosdick preached 'Shall the Fundamentalists Win?' on 21 May 1922; J. Gresham Machen answered with Christianity and Liberalism in 1923; and the Auburn Affirmation, released on 9 January 1924 with about 150 signatures and eventually some 1,300, answered from the other side. Then the ground moved again from inside: Karl Barth's Romans commentary of 1919, rewritten in 1922, opened the neo-orthodox turn against the liberal theology that had formed the field, and Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich each reshaped the field in turn.
In Its Own Record
Formed From
- Fundamentalism — The census's second 'in tension with' edge — the Great Schism pattern run inside Protestantism, graded on both sides' own dated rupture texts: the five-point Doctrinal Deliverance (1910), Fosdick's 'Shall the Fundamentalists Win?' (21 May 1922), Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) and the Auburn Affirmation (9 Jan 1924). The Social Gospel (IX.34) belongs inside this tension and is named here rather than given a second edge. Any present-day continuation of the argument is a matter for dated statements, not for this grade. Edge written at the Era 10 Freeze (Mark, 2026-08-14).
Sources
- Harry Emerson Fosdick, 'Shall the Fundamentalists Win?' (preached 21 May 1922); the Auburn Affirmation (released 9 January 1924) (primary) — The Auburn Affirmation had about 150 initial signers and roughly 1,300 eventually. These are the rupture's texts from the liberal side.
- Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief (1919; 2nd ed. 1922) (primary) — The neo-orthodox turn's opening text — a break with liberalism made from inside it.
- Rudolf Bultmann, 'New Testament and Mythology' (1941); Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) and The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941–43); Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (1951–63) (primary) — Bultmann's date is 1941; the Niebuhr and Tillich dates come from standard reference works.
- The historical-critical reach-back: Adolf von Harnack, What Is Christianity? (1900); the Briggs heresy trial record (1891–93) (primary) — This traces the deeper background to this century's main story; dates come from standard reference works.
- Federal Council of Churches records (from 1908) and National Council of Churches records (from 1950); denominational archives (primary) — This is the institutional half of this story, kept alongside the academic half deliberately, since the seminaries were the denominations' own teaching offices.
- Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology (Westminster John Knox, 3 vols., 2001, 2003, 2006) (secondary) — The standard history of this tradition.
- Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy (Oxford, 1991) (secondary) — This studies the institutional rupture from both sides.