Pistol-Packing Parson: Mark Matthews and Protestant

Dale E. Soden. The Reverend Mark Matthews: An Activist in the Progressive Era. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001. xvi + 274 pp. $30.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-295-98021-8. Reviewed by Margaret Bendroth Published on H-SHGAPE (December, 2002) Pistol-Packing Parson: Mark Matthews and talists Win?" Although Soden emphasizes Protestant Culture in the Pacific Northwest Matthews's more moderate, bridge-building Once a staple of pious literature, biographies stance as the conflict wound down to its unhappy of famous clergymen are not exactly jumping off conclusion in the late 1920s, the latter has been the shelves these days. But Dale Soden's story of most frequently remembered as a confrontational Seattle pastor Mark Matthews suggests some good champion of fundamentalist orthodoxy. reasons for giving the genre a second look. Of course, like many fundamentalist leaders, Though the public career of this alternately Matthews's identification with the movement was cranky, idealistic, conniving, and fearless Presby‐ as much a matter of personal style as it was par‐ terian might not necessarily edify the faithful, it ticular belief. Though never a central fgure in the does illuminate some important aspects of Ameri‐ national cause, the Seattle pastor was clearly an can society during a complex period of spiritual adept and enthusiastic polarizer on his home turf. transition. With his long, fowing hair and six-and-a-half-foot Matthews is probably best known for his key frame, he certainly cut a dramatic fgure. An ear‐ role in the fundamentalist-modernist conflict ly, admiring biography in fact defended Matthews within the northern Presbyterian church. As mod‐ from charges that he was "effeminate," an impres‐ erator of the General Assembly in 1913, he headed sion created by his "meticulous formal dress," an investigation of Union Seminary's orthodoxy "long, curly locks," and "small, refined features." and came back with a critical report urging the Noting that Matthews kept a pair of pearl-handed denomination "Back to Fundamentals." In the pistols in his office desk, the authors of the early mid-1920s Matthews was deeply embroiled in the biography commented brusquely that this "pistol- effort to silence Harry Emerson Fosdick, the liber‐ packing parson" was an authentic western "He- al Baptist leader who riled the General Assembly Man".[1] Soden does not gloss over Matthews's with a provocative address, "Shall the Fundamen‐ less attractive qualities, allowing that he was of‐ H-Net Reviews ten egotistical, irascible, and disturbingly eager southern background translated into a more mod‐ for public attention. He relates how, from time to erate role in the midst of institutional controver‐ time, Matthews would manipulate his congrega‐ sy. Massee, a northern Baptist, operated much as tion, informing them of job offers from the pulpit Matthews did among northern Presbyterians, re‐ and all but forcing them to come up with a com‐ fusing to accept the separatist logic of his more petitive salary on the spot. At best paternalistic to‐ militant colleagues, and earning a healthy share ward African-Americans, Matthews was openly of criticism as a result. All of this invites question‐ opposed to woman suffrage and contemptuous of ing of the standard conclusion that fundamental‐ the movement to ordain women as elders in the ism was basically a Yankee phenomenon, only re‐ Presbyterian church. By the end of the book, his cently accepted by the conservative wing of the personal piety is in fact fairly open to question: Southern Baptist Convention. there is little evidence that Matthews ever prayed It is also true, however, that most of these or, if he did, believed he had received a heavenly men came into their own in the hardball political answer. climate of the urban north. Norris, who simulta‐ Yet Soden's portrait of Matthews amounts to neously pastored churches in Fort Worth and De‐ far more than just an eccentric portrait of a local‐ troit, kept a pistol in his desk and used it to kill an ly famous pastor. To begin with, it adds to a rela‐ opponent in 1926. Riley established his Minneapo‐ tively small but noteworthy literature of funda‐ lis pulpit as a power base from which he dominat‐ mentalist biography, beginning with C. Allyn Rus‐ ed Baptist institutions across the upper midwest. sell's engaging set of portraits, Voices of American Straton regularly conducted high-profile tours of Fundamentalism: Seven Biographical Studies New York's red light districts. Matthews probably (Westminster Press, 1976). Since then, William outdid them all. In a pitched battle against Seattle Vance Trollinger's biography of Minnesota Baptist politician Hiram Gill and police chief Charles William Bell Riley, Barry Hankin's study of Texas Wappenstein, the Presbyterian divine employed Baptist J. Frank Norris, and D. G. Hart's work on J. every possible means at his disposal, including Gresham Machen have provided compelling, some that were devious and others that were, at though sometimes idiosyncratic, perspectives on least, borderline illegal. In 1910, Matthews secret‐ American fundamentalism.[2] ly borrowed money from some of his insurance The composite picture is worth exploring. All policies and hired the William Burns Agency to in‐ four men, for example, were southerners by birth vestigate Wappenstein and a number of his politi‐ or upbringing--a list that could also include a cal cronies. In 1916 the Seattle pastor fnanced a number of other influential fundamentalists, such phony gambling ring to uncover police corrup‐ as John Roach Straton and J. C. Massee. This is not tion. Given these examples, and many more that "new news" to scholars of fundamentalism, might easily be added, it is a wonder that funda‐ though a more regionally-sensitive analysis of the mentalism has been stereotyped so often as a movement might open up some interesting lines prim rejection of American urban society: of inquiry. In the case of many fundamentalist Matthews and many of his colleagues were happi‐ leaders, for instance, "Southern" did not necessar‐ ly up to their elbows in it. They not only "coped" ily equal "conservative." Matthews and Norris with urbanization, they triumphantly mastered both seemed to absorb a great deal of radical so‐ some of its roughest features. cial language from the influence of southern Pop‐ What is most instructive about Soden's biog‐ ulism in their early years. For others, such as J. C. raphy is the decision to frame Matthews's incipi‐ Massee and, to a degree, Matthews himself, a ent fundamentalism within his more significant 2 H-Net Reviews career as an urban political reformer and contro‐ tion that a personal conversion experience was versialist. Soden, I think rightly, depicts Matthews the absolute requirement for salvation. There are as a political activist who was, for a time, attract‐ few categories that do his career any kind of jus‐ ed to the fundamentalist movement--not a funda‐ tice. Indeed, from what Soden tells us, if Matthews mentalist who opportunistically dabbled in poli‐ were alive today, likely he would fnd some of the tics. Like many late-Victorian evangelicals, more liberal Protestant denominations more to Matthews espoused an ideal of the city as a "right‐ his liking than the conservative evangelical cul‐ eous kingdom," free of vice, poverty, and exploita‐ ture he helped form. tion, and he regularly employed his church as a All of this suggests a story more complex than "bully pulpit" for a wide range of social causes. Matthews's life alone can possibly reveal. I found What perhaps set him apart from the rest was his myself wondering a great deal about the makeup endless, almost profligate supply of ideas for new of Seattle's First Presbyterian Church, at one time projects. There could not have been a board of di‐ the largest congregation in the country. Though rectors or planning committee in turn-of-the-cen‐ Matthews was without doubt an autocratic pastor, tury Seattle without Matthews's name on it. To the dynamics of First Presbyterian's congregation‐ name just a few examples, Matthews was presi‐ al life must have shaped his vision somehow. I dent of the King County Red Cross and the local suspect that the church's membership records Humane Society, served on the Seattle Day Care contain a wealth of social data that would reveal a Nursery Board and the Seattle Milk Commission, great deal about the kinds of people who were at‐ spearheaded a drive for Italian earthquake relief tracted to Matthews's message. Were they, for ex‐ in 1909, and helped form the Municipal Owner‐ ample, as "middle-class" as Soden assumes they ship League, an organization devoted to public were? Did they vote? And how many of them ownership of the city's streetcars. After World were newcomers to Seattle, drawn from an ambi‐ War I Matthews's social optimism markedly di‐ tious, young, boardinghouse population? Was minished, but clearly for most of his career, his First Presbyterian a "neighborhood" church, or passions were far more political than theological. did most of its members commute in from the Soden's biography of Matthews therefore in‐ suburbs? What were its neighborhood like? In vites deeper questions of social and religious con‐ short, Matthews's career raises a host of questions text. Right away, the Seattle pastor's career sug‐ regarding social history, that are not necessarily gests that easy dualistic categories do not begin to difficult to research, about the role and identity of describe the religious culture of turn-of-the-centu‐ conservative Protestantism in turn-of-the-century ry cities. No one seemed to mind that Matthews Seattle, and other similar cities. Not every high- took up a wide variety of stereotypically "liberal" profile leader has such a clearly defined con‐ and "conservative" causes.

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