Gonzalez talks about how Protestantism in the United States had many different challenges to face outside of urban growth, but the most significant and important was intellectual in character. Europe had constantly been sending immigrants across the Atlantic, “but also ideas that questioned much that had earlier been taken for granted” (Gonzalez 341). It was Darwin’s theory of evolution that seemed to contradict the creation story in Genesis, and therefore produced an evident stir among the masses. However, amongst theologians, an even greater challenge was raised by the historical and critical studies that were happening in Europe. These studies raised doubts about the historical accuracy and authenticity of most books of the bible. From a methodological presupposition, all that seemed extraordinary or even miraculous was to be rejected. And “thanks to evolution and progress, the day was at hand when humans would be able to solve problems until then insoluble, thus bringing in a new age of joy, freedom, justice, peace, and abundance” (Gonzalez 342). Protestant Liberalism made an attempt to couch Christianity in the mold of these ideas, and eventually gained wide acceptance among the intellectual elite that resided in the United States. Many saw liberalism as a threat to the core of Christian faith, specifically in regards to the theory of evolution. But many conservative theologians knew that the question of evolution was only one aspect of the threat the new ideas posed to the fundamentals and foundations of Christianity. The term fundamentals became the characteristic of the anti-liberal reaction that began to be called fundamentalism. In 1846, the Evangelical Alliance was made, seeking to join all those who saw that liberalism as a denial of the faith. But it was in 1895, that the movement actually listed the five fundamentals that could not be rejected or denied without being put into the error of liberalism. The five fundamentals were the “inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus, the Virgin birth, Jesus’ death on the cross as a substitute for our sins, and his physical resurrection and impending return” (Gonzalez 342-43). Following this principle, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church adopted similar principles. The rise of fundamentalism gave rise to new interpretations and led to the connection it had with dispensationalists. Liberalism made its most significant contribution in what became known as the Social Gospel. The leader of a small core of liberals, Walter Rauschenbush, “insisted that the social and economic life of the nation should conform to the requirements of the gospel, and showed that economic liberalism—the theory that the law of supply and demand suffices to regulate the marketplace—results in great inequity and social injustice” (Gonzalez 343). The ultimate goal is to limit the unbridled power of runaway capital while advocating for laws that will help the poor and promote greater justice. The similarity between the Social Gospel and the rest of liberalism was the common optimism regarding human capabilities and the progression of society.

Fosdick characterizes the mentality of the fundamentalists as having an adamant intention to drive out the evangelical churches men and women who are of liberal opinions. “All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists” (Fosdick 155). The greatest conservatives give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is all around illiberal and intolerant of its ideas. The Fundamentalists see the strange new movements in Christian thought. The new knowledge is about the physical universe, its origin, human history, other religions, has come into man’s possession. There are many Christians who have been unable to keep this new knowledge in one area of their minds and the Christian faith in another. The new knowledge and the old faith must be blended together to create a new combination. The people trying to create this new combination are the modernist liberals, and the Fundamentalists are the ones who are campaigning to shut the doors of the Christian fellowship against them. Ultimately, Fosdick characterizes the modernists as the people who accept the new knowledge provided and try to use it to help explain their Christian faith. This is an attempt to find a method to incorporate the new knowledge in their belief system. However, the Fundamentalists attempt to ignore this new knowledge and begin a system that fights back against the new knowledge with five fundamentals (inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus, the Virgin birth, Jesus’ death on the cross as a substitute for our sins, and his physical resurrection and impending return) that must be observed.

Fosdick discusses how the Bible is observed in two different beliefs, with Fundamentalists taking one and the modernist taking the other. The Fundamentalists view the Bible as the literal work of God that is told to man in order to make up the proponents of the Bible. In this belief, all historical and scientific contexts remain without change and kept in the way it is told from the Bible. Fosdick is ultimately arguing that Fundamentalists take a much more literal translation of the Bible, and those who follow this thinking see the finality of the world, directly addressed within the Bible. As for the modernists, modernists view the Bible as God unfolding his will on the world from the beginning to end. This different and dynamic way to view the Bible allows for the incorporation of many new ideas and concepts. So ultimately, the Fundamentalists approach to the Bible was that they believed the Bible to be the absolute word of God, and viewed everything in it (including miracles, crucifixion, resurrections, etc.) as scientifically and historically true and accurate. Modernists viewed the Bible less so, less statically, believing that Christ was a representation of how God wanted us to live life. This would mean that the modernists were able to reconcile their religion with the new knowledge of the modern world. Fosdick identified himself as a modernist and strongly believed that trusting in science was the correct path to take while also believing strongly that this was the only way for Christianity to survive in the new modern world. Fosdick says the first part of the solution that is “necessary is a spirit of tolerance and Christian liberty” (Fosdick 157). Fosdick says that this is something that both the Fundamentalist and modernist need to learn. The second part of the solution is to realize and address the main issues of modern Christianity, while ignoring the little matters that Fundamentalist and modernists quarrel over.

Modernist Christianity integrating the scriptures with new knowledge would ultimately diminish the authority of the Bible in some way or another. For instance, miracles in the Bible are not meant to be explained or understood by man, rather, simply seen as an amazing work of God beyond reason or explanation. These are supernatural events that happen in the Bible. The new knowledge would not be able to explain these miracles, which would ultimately lead new knowledge to deny the miracles in the Bible. Although things like the crucifixion could be proven and understood with new knowledge, it would not even be able to explain or prove Jesus’ resurrection, which would mean that it would deny and reject that any resurrection ever took place. Miracles and Jesus’ resurrection are some of the key foundations and truth of the Bible; to have that incorporated with new knowledge would ultimately lead to the denial of these miraculous events from ever occurring, ultimately diminishing the authority of the Bible. The good moral teachings that are in the Bible would be one of few things, if not the only thing that would be relevant to the new knowledge because it can be explained and reasoned with. But because many of the things in the Bible would be denied and rejected because of no explanation or reason, I would imagine that it would diminish the authority of the Bible to some extent.