A Preaching Ministry: Twenty-One Sermons Preached by Harry Emerson Fosdick at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1918-1925 [Paperback]

J. Barrie Shepherd (Author), David Pultz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2000

A collection of twenty-one sermons preached by Harry Emerson Fosdick at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1918-1925. Two essays are also included.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: First Presbyterian Chruch in the; 1st edition (February 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0960681817
• ISBN-13: 978-0960681815
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Winning Collection, December 19, 2005

By 

JAD (The Sunshine State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Preaching Ministry: Twenty-One Sermons Preached by Harry Emerson Fosdick at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1918-1925 (Paperback)

David Pultz, who is in fact the creator and editor of this book, and who should be listed in the author line, has assembled a fine collection of the sermons of one of the foremost preachers America has produced. In the 1920s Fosdick held forth at the most illustrious Presbyterian congregation in Manhattan and was such a draw that Sunday mornings became Standing Room Only.

Dr. Fosdick also was, to say the least, ahead of his time, and his eloquent sermons produced salvos from brother pastors of renown. Most famous of these is a sermon he preached in the mid Twenties called "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" It was a question and a challenge.

There were great divisions in American Christianity and particularly the national leadership of the Presbyterian Church about how to rightly understand the Bible as well as aspects of who Jesus is. The arguments were pushing and pulling everyone from seminary professors to the people in the pews. Fosdick presented the sermon to help people understand some of the risks of blind acceptance of the Fundamentalist agenda. In so doing, he galvanized the debate. His sermon is perhaps the third or fourth most influential in the twentieth century. It produced an immediate echoing attack sermon from another lion of the pulpit, Dr. Clarence E. Macartney then serving in the Presbyterian Church across the river in Newark. Dr. Macartney's sermon was titled: "Shall Unbelief Win?" You get the idea. This was a gloves off homiletic duel. Both preachers would continue to be wildly popular throughout their lives, albeit in very different locales.

All this is well known and documented in other books, but if you have not read the original Fosdick sermon, it is here. So you can form your own opinion.

But it is just the centerpiece of a number of sermons that are equally gripping and still able to move the reader - some with a fire that seems too intense and others that take a position that may still be too progressive for many Christians. Or, you may read and think, "This is just what I have felt about Christian faith, too!" Either way, you will not be unchallenged in reading them, and you may find your faith maturing as you do.

Editor David Pultz is a scholar, writer and runner, and he is an active member of the church where Fosdick served, till the Riverside Church uptown was built as his next venue, by his friend, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.. Pultz has selected a very fine sampling of Fosdick's sermons for the reader. Dr. J. Barrie Shepherd, who wrote the introduction, is a much-beloved Presbyterian minister and poet.

You may not agree with some (or much) of what Fosdick says, but anyone who wants to know more about the development of religious thinking in America in the 20th century will want to have this book and read it.

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[...]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into Christianity's place in a post-war world, January 4, 2012

By 

John Hodges (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Preaching Ministry: Twenty-One Sermons Preached by Harry Emerson Fosdick at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1918-1925 (Kindle Edition)

"God is active today, all-seeing, all-helpful, but never to one man, one generation, one nation. Never. We keep striving after new aspects of Him..."

This book was my first exposure to H.E. Fosdick's work, and not my last. The sermons contained within are extremely insightful, filled with thoughts on the relevance of Christianity in an ever changing world. His declaration of the truths of God are unwavering, but his ability to interpret God's truth in the context of his present world was incredible. Looking at a world recovering from the Great War, experiencing new breakthroughs in science and technology, embraicing the ever changing outlook of New Yorkers on a weekly basis - Fosdick's gift was the ability to adapt God's truth to its most relevant points.

His ability to expound on a single verse is incredible. One sermon in particular left a lasting impression on me: "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" : "Numerator - one. Denominator, all who have ever lived, live, shall live upon the earth and in the sky. What indescribable insignificance, what mediocrity. There never was a greater day in the world's history than when Christ came and in the name of the love of God cried out to us so that we could not but hear - Come down from that numerator. You are no mere fraction. The Son of God, though there be such multitudes of you, He loves you every one, as though there were but one of you to love. What indescribable election in a man's life upon the earth. That is Eternal Love, as manifested in Jesus Christ. Though utterly insignificant, yet the Divine thought we worth dying for. 'Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.' "

I am typically a religious conservative - and Fosdick was recognized as holding fairly radical / progressive views during his time. But again and again he brought controversies of his time back to the fundamental elements of the gospel. "Don't try to keep religious institutions from changing. They will change. Stay in them and help them to change right, but keep your soul steady, for life in Christ, like love, changes its outward circumstances as trees change leaves, but life and love, the same yesterday, today and forever - a kingdom that cannot be shaken."

"Christianity is this: that Christianity is not a finished article, a static system; it is a growing movement. It is like a tree whose roots are deep in the spirit of Jesus. Sometimes it puts forth misshapen branches that must be pruned. Sometimes old branches die and must be lopped away. Because it is a growing, living, vital thing, it never has been quite the same thing in any two generations. We don not see it as our fathers did; our children will not see it as we do: but so long as its roots are in the spirit of Jesus let it grow, for its leaves shall be for the healing of the nations.

As someone who is fascinated looking into America during this era (including other authors like Steinbeck's work) - it also proved insightful to see first hand experience. Much of the lessons taught in light of the War still hold true for us today: "Steel? Wonderful. Yes, but it could make bayonets to kill men by the thousands and long range guns to fire on cities seventy miles away. Electricity? Marvelous - yes, but it can charge the stockade walls around a fearfully maltreated Belgium and keep the refugees within their perdition. Applied science? Wonderful. Yes, but it makes poison gas, to slay men with their own breath. And aeroplanes, and submarines, and tanks to do things hideous beyond the wildest imagination of old believers in cruelty. Modern Transportation? Splendid. Yes, but it can take youths from Vladivostok and Tasmania to die together in the same pool of blood on a French battlefield. Modern Finance? Wonderful - but it enables a nation to pledge the children's credit, and the children's children, and their children after them, in a mighty endeavor to wage, to the point of exhaustion and extermination, a bloody war. [...] There is just one hope. Have we enough moral ideals, have we enough spiritual power, have we enough faith in God, have we enough of those things which Jesus Christ stands for, so that we can handle this power for good and not for evil?"

His core message, and the most inspirational part of this book for me was represented by this quote: " 'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.' Faith in God meant that to [Jesus] - that what OUGHT to be done CAN be done."

Fosdick truly lived to inspire what CAN be done!