THEOLOGY on the front pages of the metropolitan press in 1923 and 1924 was both a novel and an unexpected American phenomenon. The United States has before been the scene of controversies within its churches, but it is doubtful if even the ecclesiastical dispute over slavery which broke in two some of the larger denominations drew the attention of the people as has the Fundamentalist Movement of the twentieth century. The popular reaction toward this struggle has badly shaken the theory of American indifference toward things of religion. Christianity, battered by recent world events, is displaying what to some is an unexpected vitality. There are many folk who think that Christianity has outlived its usefulness. They feel that the great achievements of modern learning have antiquated the doctrines of the humble teacher of ancient Palestine and that frank agnosticism is the only sound foundation for an individual's philosophy of life. Their conviction is strengthened when they review the many instances in the past when the Church has openly opposed the advance of knowledge. There is also a group who hold that, in 1914, Christianity met its supreme test and failed. In that fateful year, with appalling suddenness, the forces of destruction which civilization had both begotten and chained were loosed, and the culture of Europe faced a danger greater than any since the barbarian invasions. The crisis found the Christian world sadly unprepared, split into different camps, the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches. The last, in |