The Fundamentalist controversy concerning the Baptist Theological College of Scotland: on October 25, 1944, May Hossack wrote to her husband, George, who was on active service in the war, describing the events that took place in Charlotte Baptist Chapel during the assembly of the Baptist Union of Scotland

Baptist History and Heritage, Wntr-Spring, 2001 by Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh

Following a report of the Sunday School Committee, John Shearer, president of the Baptist Union in 1936, criticized the material used by teachers. He "shouted that it was full of Modernistic teaching--it denied the Miracles of Christ.... There were jeers and cat-calls, and calls of supports too, from all over the meeting ... the row and hubbub was terrific." A motion was presented to the assembly that the Baptist Theological College should be incorporated into the Union because of what Shearer called "the cancerous growth of Modernism." "The College," he said, "denies that this Book is the Word of God.... It is robbing us of our evangelical faith.... The College is an evil thing and unclean.... I have proof that ... two of the present tutors are Unitarians." Following a lively debate, Holms Coats, principal of the college, was asked to speak, and challenged Shearer "to name the two leaders of the College who are Unitarians." Shearer "stood up and yelled at Holms Coats `The Two, are yourself and Dr. Miller.'" May Hossack commented that "the meeting went quite -wild at this point." (1)

The debate was the culmination of a controversy that began in the 1930s, following the discovery that Eric James Roberts, a fellow student with Shearer in the early days of the Scottish college, and a close friend of Holms Coats, was a Unitarian. (2) Shearer was convinced that the dangers of Modernism had affected the Scottish college from the beginning of its existence, through its close ties with the University of Glasgow, and that men like Roberts and Holms Coats who had studied at Mansfield College, Oxford, and Marburg in Germany had accepted the theological perspectives of German Rationalism. (3)

John Shearer

Shearer was born in Glasgow on August 20, 1874, the great, great grandson of Flora MacDonald, the companion of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45 rebellion. Shearer was converted and baptized in 1890, eventually becoming a member of John Street Baptist Church in Glasgow, where his grandfather had been one of the pastors. (4) Shortly afterwards, Shearer and his parents moved their membership to Queens Park Baptist Church. In 1892, his father, William Shearer, became the pastor of Kelso Baptist Church in the Scottish Borders. (5) Although John Shearer accompanied his parents to Kelso, lack of employment opportunities led him to return to Glasgow to stay with an aunt in Cowcaddens and join the South Side Baptist Church (6) in the Gorbals, (7) where John McLean, a great friend of the family, was pastor. (8)

McLean was a strong influence in Shearer's life and ministry, inducting him into his pastoral charges in Galashiels and Stirling. Brought up in the Free Church in Argyllshire, McLean moved to Stifling, was converted, and became a Coast Missionary in Eyemouth in 1879. Two years later, he changed his views on baptism, returned to Stifling and was baptized through the ministry of George Yuille. (9) In 1883, he received a call to the pastorate in Dumbarton. During the next six years, he not only attended classes at Glasgow University and the Free Church College, but he also founded congregations in Alexandria and Clydebank. In 1889, he moved to South Side Baptist Church where, for the next twenty-nine years, he exercised a strong evangelistic ministry. The church grew from 150 members in 1889 to 432 in 1922. He became the convener of the evangelistic committee in 1904 and then president of the Baptist Union of Scotland in 1906. He preached

   the old evangelical truths of the Gospel with such fervour and sincerity,
   and with such an insight into, and knowledge of the human heart, that the
   pews in the new building quickly filled and Victoria Place Church became a
   centre of light and leading in the district. (10)

McLean encouraged Shearer to enter the newly formed Baptist Theological College. In 1895, he matriculated at Glasgow University, where he graduated with an M.A. in 1900. During this time, he met Holms Coats and Eric Roberts, and both Roberts and Shearer attended the moral philosophy classes of Henry Jones. Jones's teaching led Roberts to believe that "the deity of Jesus" was a "later theological accretion (due in large part to Paul) extraneous, unnecessary, undesirable and illusory." (11) Later in his life, Shearer commented that "the Arts course [at the university] displaced the Theological and we were urged [by the college] above all to secure our degree in Arts. It was a false preparation for the ministry and showed the growing baleful influence of Modernism." (12)

Shearer had three ministries in Scotland: Stirling Street, Galashiels (1900-13), Stifling (1913-21) and Rattray Street, Dundee (1921-41). He retired to Glasgow, to join Adelaide Place Baptist Church, where he remained until his death in 1961. His ministries were characterized by expository preaching and evangelistic passion, faithfully preaching "the old gospel." (13) When he received the call from Stirling, Shearer commented on the desire that he had "to preach among you the grand old verities of that old yet ever flesh Theology which are the very life of our life and which were never more needed than they are today." (14) Throughout his ministries, he conducted evangelistic missions in other congregations. Every year, he held a week of evangelistic meetings in his own congregation. During his time in Dundee, the evangelist Gypsy Smith (15) visited the city in 1924. This resulted in fifteen converts attending the Rattray Street church. It came as no surprise to his friends when he was appointed the evangelism convener of the Baptist Union of Scofiand in 1926.