The theological issues with Woodrow’s views were never resolved and he continued as a minister in good standing in the PCUS despite having been removed from Columbia Seminary for teaching evolution.

The evolution controversy at Columbia Theological Seminary extended for at least a decade and nearly caused the seminary to close. The source of the controversy was James Woodrow who was the inaugural Perkins Professor of Natural Science in Connection with Revelation. The Perkins chair was created in 1860 with a generous gift from Hon. John Perkins, Sr., who was a member of James A. Lyon’s congregation in Columbus, Mississippi. A turning point in the controversy was when the seminary board asked Woodrow to deliver an address explaining his views. On May 7, 1884 he lectured in First Church, Columbia, to a packed house that included seminary alumni, current students, faculty, and interested residents of the city. The lecture increased the polarization of the community over the issue of evolution with some individuals ready to brawl. Further fueling the fire was The Southern Presbyterian Review making the discourse available to the broader Presbyterian Church in the United States in the July 1884 issue. Leaders of those opposing Woodrow were faculty member John L. Girardeau and former faculty member B. M. Palmer (pastor, New Orleans), as well as former Union Seminary, Virginia, faculty member Robert L. Dabney (founder, Austin Seminary), while those supporting Woodrow included former faculty John B. Adger and Joseph R. Wilson. The synods overseeing Columbia voted against Woodrow’s view of evolution at their meetings in October which was followed by the seminary board asking for Woodrow’s resignation December 10, 1884. He refused, so the board removed him from the faculty, but the board’s action was not sustained by the synods in 1885, so he was returned to his chair. Then in 1886 he was removed from the faculty permanently. The theological issues with Woodrow’s views were never resolved and he continued as a minister in good standing in the PCUS despite having been removed from Columbia Seminary for teaching evolution. He would finish his teaching years at the University of South Carolina and for a time would be its president. He was moderator of the Synod of South Carolina in 1901 and delivered his retiring moderator’s sermon titled “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.” Issues related to the Woodrow case nearly ended the seminary as seen in the drop in graduates from twenty one in 1880, to six in 1881, and four for each of the years, 1882, 1883, and 1884.

In the midst of the evolution controversy and its publications, intense arguments, and ecclesiastical decisions, the Anderson Intelligencer reported May 21, 1885 that there were to be changes in the faculty at Columbia Seminary,

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