June 28, 1931

Following continued criticism and controversy in the Presbyterian General Assembly in Arkansas over the propriety of a supportive commission report concerning the orthodoxy of Little Rock’s Second Presbyterian Church pastor Hay Watson Smith, Smith delivered a blistering sermon in which he concluded that “the heresy of today is the orthodoxy of tomorrow.” Hays’s views, expressed before he was admitted to the Arkansas Presbytery, supported the theory of evolution, questioned biblical inerrancy, and disagreed with parts of the Presbyterian Confessions of Faith. He was consistently supported by the Arkansas Presbytery and was upheld by the Arkansas synod.