The overarching difficulty was that of a widening conservative/ liberal rift whose roots extending back to the founding of the Volunteer Movement. The early focus of debate had been the Movement's watchword, "the evangelization of the world in this generation." Arthur T. Pierson, who had first used the watchword at Northfield, was a renowned conservative premillenarianist. The impression became widespread that the watchword implied a rapid, simplistic, verbal presentation of Christ to the world which would fulfill the Biblical command and bring about the Second Coming. Though Pierson himself denied this meaning and other SVM leaders, such as Mott and Speer, repeatedly urged a broader interpretation which involved church planting and educational work, the watchword remained a center of controversy. For the missionary enterprise, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy was framed in terms of the relative merits of an emphasis on individual evangelism and salvation or a broader, social impact on foreign culture based on the tenets of Christianity. Sherwood Eddy wrote in July 1922 to the Executive Committee:"I believe that the demand of the progressive students at Des Moines voiced the new sentiment in the colleges for a more socialized and broader presentation and conduct of our whole movement ... . The next Convention might well spend several days in making indelibly clear the Pagan racial practice both at home and abroad, the Pagan industrial situation here and in other lands, Pagan nationalism at home and abroad, and against such a background make clear the vital need for Christ's teachings and for Christ's power if the world is to be Christianized.