Militant Pastor Yields His Church
McIntire, Presbyterian Rebel, Preaches Farewell Sermon in Thronged Edifice
Closes Service on Lawn
Ousted Fundamentalist Ends Two-Year Battle – Tent to Be His Tabernacle
From the Philadelphia Bulletin of Monday, March 28, 1938

HE’LL PREACH NO MORE IN THIS COLLINGSWOOD CHURCH
The Rev. Carl McIntire delivers benediction on the steps of Collingswood Presbyterian Church after congregation of 1,200 heard his final sermon. A court decree declares the building belongs to the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and prohibits him from holding services in it.

Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

COLLINGSWOOD, N. J., March 27. – Ordered by Chancery Court to give up his pulpit in the Collingswood Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Carl McIntire, young Fundamentalist pastor, preached his farewell sermon to a large congregation tonight. As he finished, the congregation marched out, singing “Faith of Our Fathers Living Still,” and on the lawn of the $250,000 church property the minister pronounced benediction.

Before they dispersed, many members of the congregation showered bills in denominations of $1 $5 and $10 upon the minister. He was told to use the money in any way he saw fit.

Soon afterward the doors of the building were locked and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, after a long court fight, prepared to use the property in its own interests. Since June 15, 1936, the congregation has regarded itself as an independent body, having on that date voted’ overwhelmingly to renounce the jurisdiction of the parent denomination, which the Rev. Mr. McIntire and other “rebel” ministers have criticized as controlled by Modernists.

Tomorrow attorneys for a small group in the congregation will present to Vice Chancellor Francis B. Davis a decree for his signature, formally ousting Mr.McIntire, who was deposed as a minister by the Parent denomination in 1935 for refusing to resign from the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. The minister said tonight that the locked church contained everything that had been there en the congregation voted to secede.

A Chautauqua tent seating more than 1,000 persons will be put up in Collingswood this week, ready for a preparatory service, on Friday night, Mr. McIntire said. Some fifty, prospective now members signified Their intention last Sunday and today to join with the of the congregation loyal to McIntire. This is said to embrace a majority of the 1,260 members Paper communion cups will be used in a communion service in the tent next Sunday.

After preaching this morning to a congregation estimated at 1,100 which filled the auditorium an balcony and overflowed into- the, aisles, Mr. McIntire, in his farewell sermon tonight, denounced the Auburn affirmation and appeared for adherence to the great “verities of the faith.”

“The historic Christian faith” he said, “is fighting a desperate battle for its very existence. We are among those who still believe in the old verities of the faith. We believe that the infallibility of the Bible, virgin birth of Christ, the blood of Christ, the deity of Christ and the resurrection on of Christ are essentials of the Christian faith and cannot be denied, belittled or declared non-essentials, as has been done in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America ,which organization we renounced.

“Our property is valuable, but we count it lost for the sake of these saving truths. We had rather worship ship God in tent free from any yoke with iniquity, than to bow down In a cathedral.”

Mr. McIntire moved his family out of the manse on Friday.