When we consider the theological pronouncements on the causes and course of the War divergence between the Presbyterian denominations is evident. The perception of the War as a result of divine wrath both against Germany for its fostering of theological liberalism and against Britain for its reception of such teaching was seen consistently in the public comments made by Free Church spokesmen in the formative years of the War. We have already noted the reference to Higher Criticism as a factor deemed to have incurred God’s judgement in war, as early as 26th August 1914, a mere three weeks after the outbreak of war. This averring of a theologically liberal criticism of the biblical text as a prime cause of war was evident in the Church’s September 1914 edition of The Monthly Record when its editor, Archibald Macneilage, published his pronouncement on the outbreak of the War. In his editorial, Macneilage briefly highlighted Higher Criticism as a causative factor for God’s divine judgement in war. He devoted one short paragraph emphasising the justness of war against the Kaiser when he considered the rise of German militarism to be a “godless cult of the sword” and as a “fit counterpart” to the “pernicious Higher Criticism which has so plentifully exhaled from German universities during the last forty years.”44 In his next editorial contributions, both in October 1914, Macneilage gave a much extended discussion directly connecting Higher Criticism with German militarism as a reason for God’s intervention in war and as a warning against such theological liberalism being favoured by
44 The Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland, September 1914, p.159.
many in “the Presbyterian Church and Nonconformist England.”45 Macneilage argued that the decline in religious observance in Germany, coupled with the progress of Higher Criticism, explained the cruelties of war conducted by Germany and “lies” spoken by Germany as to its justification for going to war and its war aims (although Macneilage gave no explanation of what these “lies” are in detail). He suggested that Germany had cleverly hidden its true intentions for the outbreak of the War: those of world domination. In Macneilage’s assessment of the link between Higher Criticism and the nature of German militarism, he made the emphatic statement that “Krupp’s cannon factory is a related phenomenon to Pfleiderer’s46 infidel lecture room.”47 Thus, in summary, Macneilage argued that the consequences of a theology that denies biblical truth, had a direct bearing on the conduct of Germany’s self-justification for war, on the spirit and practice of German militarism, and her duplicity in her avowed aims.
This same emphasis on the link between the development of theological liberalism in Germany and its favourable reception in Great Britain as incurring the wrath of God through war is evident in Rev. John Macdonald’s moderatorial address at the 1915 Free Church General Assembly. Included within his assessment of the causes of God’s wrath, Macdonald argued that the “idol of German Higher Criticism” had had a pernicious effect in Britain, with churches being influenced by liberal theology and the word of God no longer deemed necessary to be taught in British schools due to the importation of German ideas that excluded the necessity of “religious teaching” from the “higher grade schools.” Thus,
45 ibid., October 1914, p.182.
46 Otto Pfleiderer, Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Berlin, 1875-1894.
47 The Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland, op cit., p.182.
Macdonald asserted that such an omission of “the one Book” had had a detrimental effect on the character of youth absent from their forefathers.48
The above posited links between Higher Criticism and German militarism, and between Higher Criticism and its favourable reception in British churches as incurring God's wrath in war were a minority position within the Scottish Presbyterian. Only in the Free Presbyterian Church do we see a similar connection between German theological liberalism and divine judgement expressed through war. This connection between theological liberalism, militarism and divine judgement was, in effect, stated far more emphatically in the Free Presbyterian Church than in the Free Church. This is evident in successive monthly comment in that denomination’s Magazine when, between September 1914 and January 1915, the editor, Rev. James Sinclair, repeatedly stressed such a link, summarised in the statement in the October 1914 edition that,
we are bound to conclude from all that we know of it that the modern theology of Germany has presented no bar to the cold, proud, cruel Prussian militarism which dominates that country to-day, but must have provided the vacuum in which that despotic murderous system lives and moves Germany.49
In both the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church, however, there is nothing from their official pronouncements on the War to indicate any perceived link between theological liberalism and divine judgement. Indeed the notion of German initiated Higher Criticism as a factor in the causes of the War was dismissed in the May 1915 edition of Life and Work. The editor commented that
even the Higher Criticism, in which Germany led the way, has been thought by some people to be a moving cause of the calamity of the War. We ought to be warned off such ground. We have not wisdom enough to walk on it. Those who
48 ibid., June 1915, p.80.
49 The Free Presbyterian Magazine, October 1914, pp. 206-207.
imagine that they can read the inner meaning of every Providence and trace God’s intentions through every event, would be sadly at a loss if they were asked to explain the methods of the War Office or the strategy of the Grand Fleet. Professing to be acquainted with the management of God’s universe, they are ignorant of the reasons for human actions that are happening under their eyes.50
It is not difficult to understand the reluctance from those within the two major Scottish Presbyterian denominations to ascribe Higher Criticism as a cause of divine judgement in war. Scottish divinity students had studied at German theological seminaries during the late 19th century and imbibed the teaching of German higher critical scholars. Moreover, the reception and promulgation of the teaching of Higher Critical approaches to the Bible had been evident in the works of Free Church and Church of Scotland ministers and academics in the late 19th century. Free Church scholars such as Professor George Adam Smith, who would enter the Union of 1900, had written biblical critical works as early as 1888 in the first of his two-volume series on Isaiah; he would continue to promote his biblico-critical scholarship both in his teaching at the Free Church (Trinity) College, Glasgow and in further commentaries on Old Testament prophets.51 Notwithstanding the severing of links between Scottish and German theologians, as Stewart Brown points out,52 once war was declared nevertheless, the biblico-critical understanding of Scripture remained in Scottish divinity colleges and pulpits: to ascribe such theology as inciting God's wrath sufficient to allow war in judgement appeared incongruous to those who advocated its discipline. Conversely, the Free Church of 1914, which upheld “Disruption Calvinism…based on uncritical interpretations of the Bible”53 and contained men who had remained outwith the Union on the grounds of
50 Life and Work, May 1915, p.132.
51 I. Campbell, “Fact not Dogma”: George Adam Smith, Evangelicalism and Biblical Criticism in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 18.1 (Spring 2000) pp.3-20.
52 S. Brown, op cit., p.84.
53 A. Drummond and J. Bulloch, The Church in Late Victorian Scotland, 1874-1900, Edinburgh, The Saint Andrew Press, p.220.
adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith could, at the very least, tolerate a hypothesis that argued for the judgement of God against what was deemed a pernicious biblical hermeneutic.