The Scottish Fundamentalist

Rev. Professor James Orr (1844-1913)

What is a fundamentalist? The usual image that comes to mind is that of a wild, Bible-pounding American preacher. But the name is derived from the series of books edited by R.A. Torrey and others, entitled The Fudamentals. Contributors to the series included B.B. Warfield, R. A. Torrey and Thomas Spurgeon (son of C.H.).
Prominent among the contributors is the name of James Orr. He was reponsible for articles on 'The Holy Scripture and Modern Negations', 'The Early Narratives of Genesis', 'Science and Christian Faith', and 'The Virgin Birth of Christ'.
Orr was educated at Glasgow university and the United Presbyterian College. Following a pastorate of fifteen years at Hawick in the Borders, Orr was appointed professor of Church history in the United Presbyterian College. It was while in this post that he produced his book The Progress of Dogma (1901), which is a history of Christian doctrines.
Following the union of the Free and United Presbyterian bodies in 1901, James Orr was appointed professor of apologetics at the United Free Church College, Glasgow, teaching alongside James Denney, the author of a number of important books about the atonement.
In a period when many leading Scottish theologians were compromising the Faith, Orr stood firm. He was associated with B.B. Warfield, and wrote uncompromisingly on the authority and integrity of the Bible. Since liberal theologians had produced a number of Bible dictionaries and encyclopaedias promoting their views, Orr edited the Internatioan Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, with contributors including B. B. Warfield. Orr died in 1913, an uncompromising champion of Evangelicalism.
Before Lloyd-Jones and the Banner of Truth Trust, James Orr's scholarly defence of Evangelical Truth was a source of great comfort to evangelical students and preachers who were vexed by the liberals. R.L. Morgan, the first missionary to be sent out by the Cardiff Evangelical Union [an evangelical student body], nourished himself on Orr's writings in the period 1927-30 when he was studying theology at the predominantly liberal Presbyterian College in Aberystwyth. There is a James Orr shelf in the Free St. George's Library, and I often read James Orr's books, and find them a rich well of godly, evangelical theology.

A list of James Orr's books is to be found here.