Summary: In 1926, William Buell Riley and the Baptist Bible Union led the charge in opposing Harry Emerson Fosdick’s spread of “open membership” in the Northern Baptist Convention. Their failure resulted in the departure of many conservative churches from the Convention and cemented the Convention’s trajectory toward theological liberalism.
In the 1920s conservative evangelicals were desperate to curb the spread of liberalism within their denominations. Baptist churches were no exception.
In the Northern Baptist Convention, battlelines were drawn and fought over three issues: the spread of higher criticism in seminaries, the growing hierarchy and bureaucracy of the Convention, and the relaxing of Baptist polity—particularly through the growing practice of “open membership.” Open membership means that churches do not require (believer’s) baptism as a prerequisite for membership and the Lord’s Supper.
This last issue of open membership became a lightning rod in 1925 when Harry Emerson Fosdick assumed the pastorate of Park Avenue Church in New York City. Though ordained as a Baptist, Fosdick had demonstrated his disdain for ecclesiastical exclusivism by taking the pastorate of a Presbyterian church. As pastor, he openly advocated and practiced open membership, even saying,
If I had my way baptism would be altogether an
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