83 including the Board of Directors, faculty, students, personal friends, and a number of Christian publications within fundamental circles. One of the Dean's staunchest"-= si.ipp-orter:-s was Rev. Gerald Winrod, editor . of The Defender. From the outset, he made it clear that he and his magazine were in the Dean's camp, and he labeled the critics as "fault finders, heresy hunters, hair-spliting fundamentalists." He published an article in his magazine written by Rev. William Nicholson, an· Evangelist and staff member of Biola, in which it was charged that the Dean's critics, "are obsessed with hatred. They refuse to look at the facts and see what is true before starting their criticism." Winrod defended the language of the author, which was the basis of much of the criticism. However, he did this in a rather apologetic vein, reminding the critics that the author was a philosopher and that the book was written from the philosophical view point. He excused him on the grounds that his education had been achieved in philosophical schools rather than in those which stress the importance of Biblical studies. Consequently, he was not conversant with the language and terminology famil- iar in fundamental circles. However, Macinnis was graduated from Moody Bible Institute, which could hardly be classified as a "philosophical" sch- ool; also he was graduated from the Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, which should have familiarized him with biblical terminology. Winrod even admitted that the language of the book left much to be desired. Another defender of the book was the editor of The Biblical Record, who was convinced that its critics had imagined a modernistic teaching in the book which was not there. He said, "In reality, they are guilty of trying to make a mountain out of a molehill which does not exist. There is not a grain of modernism in Dr. Macinnis' book unless you make modernism a term of abuse of anything you do not like." In an attempt to arouse support for Dr. Macinnis, some of the Biola _faculty jumped into the fray and emphatically declared their faith in him.
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter