“The Greatest Bible News in 341 Years” was a popular promotional slogan or theme adopted for the unveiling of the Revised Standard Version of 1952. Below is an example of a full-page advertisement taken out in many U.S. newspapers.
The (Louisville, Ky) Courier-Journal, Sunday, September 28, 1952, page 31
Three endorsements by religious leaders who preferred the RSV can be seen on the right side of the advertisement. These three men are Norman Vincent Peale, Henry Knox Sherrill, and Harry Emerson Fosdick. All these men had distinctly liberal reputations. Peale (1898–1993) was notorious for denying the simple gospel, and was a chief promoter of “the power of positive thinking.” Sherrill (1890–1980) was an Episcopal ecumenicalist promoting a social gospel, the first president of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, and (in 1954) was elected one of six presidents of the World Council of Churches. Fosdick (1878–1969) was one of the most infamous liberal preachers in the 20th century, a major force for modernism in the American Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy.
One need not look for a conspiracy here. It is a great yet simple illustration of the principle “birds of a feather flock together.” Many of the purveyors of the new Bible were so detached from the common Christian folks in the pew, it probably would not have occurred to them how radically and negatively the endorsement of the RSV by these three men would impact the English-speaking churches of North America. An unleashed storm of criticism would soon teach them.
No comments:
Post a Comment