March 11, 2015

The Stewart Brothers & Their Book

Stephen Nichols
00:00
/
00:00
The Stewart Brothers & Their Book

Transcript

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a series of books was published that pushed back against the rising tide of theological liberalism. It was not a publishing company or seminary that conceived of and published these books, but a pair of laymen: the Stewart brothers.

Lyman and Milton Stewart grew up in an area of Pennsylvania that came to be called Oil City, so named because of the discovery of oil there. The Stewart brothers went into the oil business and eventually sold their oil company to Standard Oil. They then moved out to California and started another oil business. Lyman was probably the more entrepreneurial of the two brothers and had probably as many business ventures that failed as succeeded.

They were both Presbyterians, very committed to their churches, and very committed to their denomination. They funded all sorts of initiatives within the church and also funded missions. They were very much engaged in China and they were especially engaged in the funding of the publication of Chinese Bibles. They founded a Bible institute in California and a publishing house, among many other efforts.

But the major project that they undertook was a book series that came to be called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. These books were originally published as a twelve-volume paperback series beginning in the early 1910s and ending around 1915. When they finally had all twelve volumes published, the Stewart brothers paid to have three million copies printed and distributed for free all over the country and around the world to English-speaking people. This was a massive undertaking, not only to print that many copies and distribute them, but also to produce the series in the first place.

There's something like ninety articles in these twelve volumes. About a third of them are on biblical topics and especially engaging the attacks of higher criticism of the day. About another third are on doctrine and theological topics, specifically theological liberalism. And then about a third of the articles were on matters that we might call practical theology. In fact, a number of these articles simply had testimonies by churchmen and prominent citizens who simply wrote out their testimony.

This is a fascinating series. The very first article was written by the Scottish scholar James Orr; it was on the virgin birth of Christ. The second article was written by B.B. Warfield; it was simply titled "The Deity of Christ." The Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, who was at the time pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, also contributed. He wrote on "The Purposes of the Incarnation." And many others contributed. In fact, it was such a diverse group that you had folks like Warfield and then you also had an article by C.I. Scofield, who would come to be the author of the Scofield Reference Bible.

These books not only helped many see what the truth is, but they also helped those who are already standing for the truth. But they all one aim: to be, as the subtitle has it, A Testimony to the Truth. This was a line in the sand, this was a "Here I stand" moment, where the church would take its stand on matters of Scripture, on matters of theology, and on matters of what defines orthodox Christianity. This was a stand against the liberalism of the day, and these books not only helped many see what the truth is, but they also helped those who are already standing for the truth. And it was all made possible by Lyman and Milton Stewart.