Guide to the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions Collection

Descriptive Summary

Title

Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions Collection

Inclusive Dates

1933-1936

Call Number

RG 20

Creator(s)

Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

Quantity

1.00 cubic foot

Restrictions on Access

Open for research. Medical, educational, and psychological records of living people are closed.

Repository

Presbyterian Historical Society, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 USA

Biographical Note / Administrative History

Administrative History

The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions was formed by seven ministers and members of the PCUSA in 1933 "to carry on truly Biblical and truly Presbyterian Foreign Missionary work." Formation of this board continued a divisive movement in the PCUSA which five years earlier had resulted in establishment of the independent Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. The 146th General Assembly (1934) ordered those members of the PCUSA who had joined the Independent Board to resign from that board and directed their respective presbyteries to take disciplinary action against them if they refused to do so.

Those ministers who did not resign from the Independent Board were tried by their presbyteries. On their appeal of the decisions of their presbyteries, hearings by their synods followed, and appeals of those decisions were heard before the Judicial Commission of the General Assembly. In every case the decisions of the lower courts were confirmed unanimously by the Supreme Judicatory of the Church. Each of the courts--Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly-- declared the issue "in no case and in no sense doctrinal." The General Council of the PCUSA stated that the matter was never a controversy between "fundamentalists" and "modernists" as those connected with the Independent Board had contended, and that the decision was "no victory for either but a triumph of constitutional government."

Collection Overview

Record Group 20 consists primarily of correspondence of the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the Reverend Lewis Seymour Mudge, Executive Head of the Office of the General Assembly. Addresses, some on radio, by various individuals, most of them connected with the Independent Board, constitute a rather large body of materials within the record group. The group also includes a transcript of "Complaints and Appeals to the 148th General Assembly" in 1936, and a few miscellaneous items.

Organization and Arrangement

The collection is arranged as follows:

SERIES 1: CORRESPONDENCE, 1933-1935

SERIES 2: TRANSCRIPTS OF ADDRESSES/MISCELLANEOUS, 1935-1936

Administrative Information

Processing Information

Collection processed: July 1968 Milton Kenin, Records Researcher

Collection processed and finding aid prepared: 1983
Jane M. Ramsay

Finding aid revised: June 1991
Stephanie Muntone, Processing Archivist

Catalog Headings

The following headings have been used to index the description of this collection in the society’s electronic catalog.

Corporate Subject

Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

Topical Subject

Church controversies.

Modernist-fundamentalist controversy.

Corporate Added Name

Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. General Assembly. Stated Clerk (1921-1938 : Mudge)

Collection Inventory

Box	Folder	Description

1	1	Finding Aid to Record Group 20

		SERIES 1: CORRESPONDENCE OF THE STATED CLERK, 1933-35

1	2	October 1933-May 1934
	3	June-July 1934
	4	July-December 1934
	5	January-April 1935
	6	May-December 1935

		SERIES 2: TRANSCRIPTS OF ADDRESSES/MISCELLANEOUS, 1935-36

1	7	Transcripts of Addresses, February--May 1935
	8	Transcripts of Addresses, May 1935--February 1936
	9	Transcripts of Complaints and Appeals to the 148th General Assembly, May 1936
	10	Miscellaneous Items

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Guide to the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions Collection

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