A. C. Dixon, Chicago Liberals, And The Fundamentals -- By: Gerald L. Priest

Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 01:1 (Spring 1996)
Article: A. C. Dixon, Chicago Liberals, And The Fundamentals
Author: Gerald L. Priest


A. C. Dixon, Chicago Liberals, And The Fundamentals

Gerald L. Priest*

* Dr. Priest is Professor of Historical Theology at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, MI.

Amzi Clarence Dixon (1854–1925), Baptist leader, pastor, writer, and Bible conference speaker, was an outstanding promoter of the fundamentalist movement during its early periods of conception (1875–1910) and denominational conflict (1910–1930).1 Something of a microcosm of fundamentalism,2 Dixon embodied the qualities of personal piety, evangelistic zeal (intensified by his association with Dwight L. Moody and Charles H. Spurgeon), and a fervent disdain for what he

called the “vagaries of modernism.”3 Although separated by two generations and immense cultural changes, the two fundamentalists, William R. Rice and A. C. Dixon, share many personal characteristics and the same deep-rooted conviction of contending for the historic Christian faith against all forms of apostasy.

Called to the ministry under his father’s preaching near his hometown of Shelby, North Carolina, Dixon was educated at Wake Forest College and Southern Seminary (located at the time in Greenville, South Carolina). Before assuming the senior pastorate of Moody Memorial Church in 1906, Dixon had served in several Baptist churches, North and South, and had established a national reputation for dynamic preaching and trenchant exposés of a diversity of evil men and influences. He attacked Roman Catholicism, liquor and licentiousness, gambling, Henry Ward Beecher’s liberalism, Robert Ingersoll’s agnosticism, Christian Science, Unitarianism, and higher criticism of the Bible. Later he would level his polemical gun at probably the most despised enemy of American fundamentalism in the early 1900s—Darwinian evolution. Dixon’s articles appeared in his own church publications and regional religious periodicals, such as the Baltimore Baptist and the Religious Herald. Beginning in 1908, he wrote syndicated columns appearing in a thousand newspapers across the country, including the Baltimore Sun, Boston Daily Herald, and the Chicago Daily News. Dixon’s influence extended internationally when he became pastor of the famous Metropolitan (Spurgeon’s) Tabernacle in London (1911–1919), and took over the editorship of the controversial Sword and the Trowel.4 A. C. Dixon was well-qualified to produce what became a doctrinal landmark in fundamentalist apologetics—

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