Chapter Five: Spiritual Awakenings

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In October of 1841, a British lawyer and geologist, Charles Lyall, visited Niagara Falls in Canada to study rock erosion, and determined that the Niagara Gorge was about 35,000 years old, much older than the Young Earth Creationists had estimated, or at least had made fit Biblical history.

This study was only one of many done by Lyall, in his determination that the earth had been shaped by ‘slow and gradual’ processes over countless millions of years.

Lyall's studies were also brought to the attention of another scientist, by the name of Charles Darwin, and he carried with him a text by the geologist, which he read on his famous voyage of the HMS Beagle.

In 1859, Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published, complementing Lyell’s arguments, but further alarming others who still supported the infallibility of the Old Testament. Not only was the chronology of the ancient script now being questioned, but the story of Adam and Eve, and the lineages that had been created from the first coupling.

Meanwhile, a liberal Christian movement had emerged, that attempted to accommodate the new scientific discoveries. They did not question that God existed, but instead of simply memorizing text, they sought to understand the message that the text was trying to convey, and how they could relate that to a modern world. As such, students of liberal Christianity were encouraged to challenge the scriptures, and seek meaning. (1)

Naturally this upset many Protestant evangelicals, who were not prepared to challenge a single word of what was written centuries ago. So instead they challenged the scientists.

And the fact that Lyall would later alter his findings at the Niagara Gorge, was all the proof they needed that everything he wrote was a fraud, and by association, Charles Darwin as well.

Of course, these evangelicals had the advantage, because they didn't have to prove their assertions. The fact that they were written was all the proof they needed.

So in 1876, a well-known Bible teacher and Christian author, James H. Brookes, organized the "Believers' Meeting for Bible Study", where they discussed the best way to deal with the new threats imposed by science and the "liberal morality", which was even being adopted by many forward thinking evangelicals.

In 1878, they produced a document that came to be known as the "Niagara Creed" and from that, Christian fundamentalism was born.

The main points of the creed were:

1. We believe "that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," by which we understand the whole of the book called the Bible ...

2. We believe that the Godhead eternally exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ...

3. We believe that man, originally created in the image and after the likeness of God, fell from his high and holy estate by eating the forbidden fruit ...

4. We believe that his spiritual death, or total corruption of human nature, has been transmitted to the entire race of man, the man Christ Jesus alone excepted; and hence that every child of Adam is born into the world with a nature which not only possesses no spark of Divine life, but is essentially and unchangeably bad ...

5. We believe that owing to this universal depravity and death in sin, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless born again ...

6. We believe that our redemption has been accomplished solely by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin, and made a curse, for us, dying in our room and stead ...

7. We believe that Christ, in the fullness of the blessings He has secured by His obedience unto death, is received by faith alone, and that the moment we trust in Him as our Savior we pass out of death into everlasting life ...

8. We believe that it is the privilege, not only of some, but of all who are born again by the Spirit through faith in Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, to be assured of their salvation ...

9. We believe that all the Scriptures from first to last center about our Lord Jesus Christ, in His person and work, in His first and second coming; and hence that no chapter even of the Old Testament is properly read or understood until it leads to Him ...

10. We believe that the Church is composed of all who are united by the Holy Spirit to the risen and ascended Son of God ...

11. We believe that the Holy Spirit, not as an influence, but as a Divine Person, the
source and power of all acceptable worship and service ...

12. We believe that we are called with a holy calling to walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and so to live in the Spirit that we should not fulfill the lusts of the flesh ...

13. We believe that the souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do at death immediately pass into His presence, and there remain in conscious bless until the resurrection of the body at His coming ...

14. We believe that the world will not be converted during the present dispensation, but is fast ripening for judgment ... (2)

These 14 points were absolute and there would be no debate, though there would be a little tweaking.

From 1883, their meetings were held at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, in the Queen's Royal Hotel, and would continue being held there, with the exception of 1884, until the conferences were discontinued in 1897.

Chapter Five Continued: Irvingites and Dispensationalism

Sources:

1. The Christocentric Liberal Tradition, The Roots of the Christocentric Liberal Tradition, By: Terry Matthews, Lesson 7

2. In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850, by David O. Beale ISBN 0-89084-351-1