 In 1919, Macartney engaged in his first printed exchange with Harry Emerson Fosdick.In a piece entitled "The Trenches and the Church at Home", Fosdick argued that soldiers returning home from World War I would not be able to accept the traditional doctrines and mores and that the church needed to adjust its doctrines to the spirit of the age.In a response in "The Presbyterian", Macartney argued that Christian truth was unchanging and could meet any crisis without needing to be changed.