How to Subvert a Religious Denomination
Gary North has a book up on the web titled, CROSSED FINGERS How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church:
Presbyterian modernists had to deal with sanctions. This required a theory of sanctions. This theory was applied ad hoc, and it seems to have been developed ad hoc. It was a three-stage position after the McCune trial (1878): (1) evade negative institutional sanctions (1878-1900); (2) seek positive institutional sanctions (1901-1933); (3) deploy negative institutional sanctions (1934-1936).
The first stage required a public theology that invoked democratic pluralism: the illegitimacy of negative institutional sanctions against those holding the five points of modernism. The second stage involved the steady infiltration and capture of the highest offices of the denomination, especially academic positions in the seminaries. This required a public theology based on excellence in personal performance: above all, institutional teamwork. ? Any theology that did not foster teamwork was said to be suspect. The final stage required a public theology that invoked bureaucratic authority: negative sanctions against those who would disrupt the team. ?Disrupting the team? was defined operationally (though never publicly) as any attempt to impose negative sanctions against modernists. (p.190)