Article contents
Divided between Heart and Mind: the Critical Period for Protestant Thought in America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
In 1854, Philip Schaff, professor of church history at Mercersburg Theological Seminary and minister of the German Reformed Church, reported to his denomination on the state of Christianity in America. Although the American Church had many shortcomings, according to Schaff the United States was ‘by far the most religious and Christian country in the world’. Many Protestant leaders, however, took a dimmer view of Christianity's prospects. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, a nagging sense prevailed that traditional theology was no longer capable of integrating religion and culture, or piety and intelligence. Bela Bates Edwards, a conservative New England divine, complained of the prevalent opinion ‘that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect’. Edwards was not merely lamenting the unpopularity of Calvinism. A Unitarian writer also noted a burgeoning ‘clerical skepticism’. Intelligent and well-trained men who wished to defend and preach the Gospel, he wrote, ‘find themselves struggling within the fetters of a creed by which they have pledged themselves’. An 1853 Memorial to the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church summed up the doubts of Protestant clergymen when it asked whether the Church's traditional theology and ministry were ‘competent to the work of preaching and dispensing the Gospel to all sorts and conditions of men, and so adequate to do the work of the Lord in this land and in this age’.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987
References
1 Miller, Perry (ed.), America: a sketch of its political, social and religious character, Cambridge 1961, 11.Google Scholar
2 ‘Influence of Eminent Piety on the Intellectual Powers’, in Edwards, B. B., Writings, Boston 1853, ii. 472.Google Scholar
3 Ellis, George E., ‘The New Theology’, The Christian Examiner xxvii (1857), 339.Google Scholar
4 Quoted in Tiffany, Charles C., A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., New York 1895, vii. 486Google Scholar.
5 See Hutchison, William K., The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, Cambridge 1976, 21–30, 41-8;Google ScholarAhlstrom, Sydney E., ‘Theology in America: a historical survey’, in Smith, James Ward and Jamison, A. Leland (eds), The Shaping of American Religion, Princeton 1961, 285–8; andGoogle ScholarGura, Philip F., The Wisdom of Words, Middletown 1981, 35–74.Google Scholar German idealist philosophy actually had little direct influence on American thought until after the Civil War. In mid-nineteenth-century America, the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling were mediated through the English channels of Coleridge and Carlyle. See Miller's, Perry introduction to American Thought: Civil War to World War I, San Francisco 1954, xiGoogle Scholar.
6 Cf. Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, I, 1829-1859, London 1966, 544–58.Google Scholar
7 See Mead, Sidney E., The Lively Experiment, New York 1963, 54; andGoogle ScholarHudson, Winthrop S.American Protestantism, Chicago 1961, 131–4.Google Scholar Both criticise nineteenth-century theology for its obscurity and superficiality.
8 See Kuklick, Bruce, Churchmen and Philosophers: from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey, New Haven 1985;Google ScholarPerry, Lewis, Intellectual Life in America: a history, New York 1984, 229–35;Google ScholarDouglas, Ann, The Feminization of American Culture, , paperback edn, New York 1978, 143–96.Google Scholar Kuklick, whose treatment is the most judicious, is concerned primarily with the status of theology in relation to philosophy. Consequently, he regards the crisis at mid-century as the point at which philosophy and theology went their separate ways; see 209-14. Conversely, Douglas and Perry argue that the ideas of Park and Bushnell demonstrate the triumph of emotionalism and sentimentalism within theological circles.
9 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Sr, ‘A critical period in American Protestantism, 1875-1900’, Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings lxiv (1932), 523–48;Google ScholarCarter, Paul A., The Spiritual Crisis of the Gilded Age, Dekalb 1971;Google ScholarMcLoughlin, William G., The Meaning of Henry Ward Beecher, New York 1970,Google ScholarMeyer, Donald H., ‘American intellectuals and the Victorian crisis of Faith’, in Howe, Daniel Walker (ed.), Victorian America, Philadelphia 1976, 59–77;Google ScholarSzasz, Ferenc Morton, The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1880-1930, 1982Google Scholar.
10 ‘Dogma and Spirit’, in Smith, H. Shelton (ed.), Horace Bushnell, New York 1965, 54.Google Scholar
11 This is suggested by Cheynqy, Mary Bushnell in Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, New York 1880, 32.Google Scholar On Bushnell's struggles at Yale, see Cross, Barbara, Horace Bushnell; minister to a changing America, Chicago 1958, 4–11; andGoogle ScholarMunger, Theodore T., Horace Bushnell: preacher and theologian, Boston 1889, 19–29Google Scholar.
12 , Munger, op. cit. 25.Google Scholar
13 For a brief summary of Taylor's theology, see , Ahlstrom, ‘Theology in America’, 254–60Google Scholar.
14 , Munger, Horace Bushnell, 53.Google Scholar
15 Bushnell, Horace, Twentieth Anniversary: A Commemorative Discourse, Delivered in the North Church, of Hartford, May 22, 1853, Hartford 1853, 8–9.Google Scholar
16 , Cheyney, Life and Letters, 191–2;Google Scholar, Smith, Horace Bushnell, 25–6; andGoogle Scholar, Munger, op. cit. 113–15Google Scholar.
17 , Gura, Wisdom of Words, 51–5;Google Scholar, Smith, op. cit. 25–9; andGoogle Scholar, Cross, Horace Bushnell, 21–30Google Scholar.
18 For Gibb's influence on Bushnell, see , Smith, op. cit. 36–7, 80-1Google Scholar.
19 On Bushnell's theory of language, see , Cross, op. cit. 93–115;Google Scholar, Gura, op. cit. 58–71; andGoogle ScholarFiedelson, Charles, Symbolism in American Literature, Chicago 1972, 151–7Google Scholar.
20 , Bushnell, ‘Dogma and Spirit’, 63.Google Scholar
21 , Smith, Horace Bushnell, 29–34.Google Scholar On importance of sound doctrine in the conversion experience, see Edwards, Jonathan, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, II: Religious Affections, ed. Smith, John, New Haven 1959.Google Scholar H. Shelton Smith supports his argument by citing Bushnell's 1872 sermon, ‘The Immediate Knowledge of God’, where Bushnell says that rational knowledge is presupposed in all , faith, Sermons on Living Subjects, New York 1910, 114–28.Google Scholar Bushnell's position in this sermon seems to contradict his earlier ideas on religious knowledge and language and may explain why Cross asserts that Bushnell abandoned his semantic theory in his later writings, Horace Bushnell, 113.
22 , Bushnell, ‘Dogma and Spirit’, 66–7.Google Scholar
23 Ibid.
24 Bushnell, H., ‘Christian Comprehensiveness’, Mew Englander vi (1848), 84.Google Scholar
25 , Bushnell, ‘Dogma and Spirit’, 63.Google Scholar
26 Ibid. 62-3.
27 Mrs Smith, Henry Boynton (ed.), Henry Boynton Smith: His Life and Work, New York 1881, 15.Google Scholar
28 Ibid. 32.
29 Stoever, William K. B., ‘Henry Boynton Smith and the German theology of history’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review xxiv (1968), 70–1.Google Scholar
30 ‘The Relations of Faith and Philosophy’, in Smith, H. B., Faith and Philosophy, New York 1877, 3.Google Scholar
31 Ibid. 4.
32 Ibid. 11.
33 Ibid.19.
34 Ibid. 18. See also , Smith, ‘The Idea of Christian Theology as a System’, in Faith and Philosophy, 125–66Google Scholar.
35 ‘Relations of Faith and Philosophy’, 33.
36 Ibid. 35-7. For Smith's orthodox concerns, see Karr, William S. (ed.), Introduction to Christian Theology, New York 1883Google Scholar.
37 Marsden, George M., The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience, New Haven 1970, 162–3.Google Scholar
38 Cecil, Anthony C. Jr, The Theological Development of Edwards Amasa Park: last of the ‘Consistent Calvinists’, Missoula 1974, 3.Google Scholar Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), who studied with Jonathan Edwards, and Nathaniel Emmons (1745-1827), who studied with Hopkins, were both New England pastors and trained many other ministers in the ‘Edwardsian’ tradition. Both claimed to be the direct theological heirs of Edwards, but both made Arminian concessions regarding the extent of human ability. For different perspectives on Edwards's followers, see Haroutunian, Joseph, Piety versus Moralism: the passing of the New England theology, New York 1932; andGoogle ScholarFoster, Frank Hugh, A Genetic History of the New England Theology, Chicago 1907Google Scholar.
39 Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons, with Sketches of His Friends and Pupils, Boston 1861Google Scholar ; ‘Memoir of the Life and Character of Samuel Hopkins’, in The Works of Samuel Hopkins, D. D., Boston 1852.Google Scholar Park also contributed countless entries to the Schqff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. For a complete list of his historical works, see , Cecil, Theological Development, 297–303Google Scholar.
40 ‘New England Theology’, Bibliotheca Sacra (hereinafter cited as BS) ix (1852), 173–80.Google Scholar
41 Although Hopkins and Emmons modified Edwards's views of the nature of the will, their position was still far more Calvinist than that of Taylor's, Nathaniel W. New Divinity, , Haroutunian, Piety versus Moralism, 254Google Scholar.
42 , Cecil, op. cit. 75–7.Google Scholar
43 Park, E. A., ‘The Theology of the Intellect and That of the Feelings’, BS vii (1850), 534–40.Google Scholar
44 Park took exception to the Calvinist doctrine s of original sin, the immediate imputation of Adam's sin and the substitutionary atonement and called them expressions of the feelings, while New Divinity distinctions - such as all sin consists in sinning; the power to the contrary is essential to free agency; and ability limits responsibility - he attributed to the intellect, ibid. 535-8. For the evolution of these doctrines in New England, see Smith, H. Shelton, Changing Conception of Original Sin: a study in American theology since 1750, New York 1953Google Scholar.
45 , Park, ‘Theology of the Intellect’, 540–8.Google Scholar
46 Bushnell, H., ‘Our Gospel a Gift to the Imagination’, Hours at Home x (1869), 164.Google Scholar
47 Quotation from Archibal d Alexander , Hodge, Life of Charles Hodge, New York 1880, 521. Hodge's views on Transcendentalism, ‘The Latest Form of Infidelity’, are included inGoogle ScholarMiller's, PerryThe Transcendenlalists: an anthology, Cambridge 1950, 233–4.Google Scholar For the complete text see Hodge's, C.Essays and Reviews, New York 1856, 87–128.Google ScholarHis What is Darwinism? New York 1874, has been regarded as a proto-fundamentalist reaction to evolution byGoogle ScholarBozeman, Theodore Dwight, Protestants in an Age of Science: the Baconian ideal and antebellum American religious thought, Chapel Hill 1977, 174ff.Google Scholar For a different assessment, see Moore, James R., The Post-Darwinian Controversies: a study of the Protestant struggle to come to terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1800-1900, Cambridge 1979, 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 , Ahlstrom, ‘Theology in America’, 266.Google Scholar
49 The controversy ran as follows: (I) Park, ‘The Theology of the Intellect and That of the Feelings’, BS vii (1850), 533–69;Google Scholar (2) , Hodge, ‘The Theology of the Intellect and That of the Feelings’, Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review (hereinafter cited as BRPR) xxii (1850), 642–74;Google Scholar (3) , Park, ‘Remarks on the Princeton Review’, BS viii (1851), 135–80;Google Scholar (4) , Hodge, ‘Prof. Park's Remarks on the Princeton Review’, BRPR xxiii (1851), 306–47;Google Scholar (5) , Park, ‘Unity and Diversities of Belief even on Imputed and Involuntary Sin; with Comments on a Second Article in the Princeton Review’, BS viii (1851), 594–67;Google Scholar (6) , Hodge, ‘Prof. Park and the Princeton Review’, BRPR xxiii (1851), 674–95;Google Scholar (7) , Park. ‘New England Theology’, BS ix (1852), 170–220.Google Scholar
This long-winded debate merged into one that had never been resolved in the 1830s on the nature of original sin, the imputation of Adam's sin and free will. For a brief summary of that controversy, see Scovel, Raleigh Don, Orthodoxy in Princeton: a social and intellectual history of Princeton Theological Seminary, 1812-1860, Ann Arbor 1971, 182–215.Google Scholar
50 Hodge, C., ‘The Theolog y of the Intellect and That of the Feelings, Article I’, Essays and Reviews, 540–3.Google Scholar
51 See Merrell R.Davis, ‘Emerson's “Reason” and the Scottish philosophers’, New England Quarterly xvii (1944), 209–28; andGoogle ScholarTodd, Edgelley Woodman, ‘Philosophical ideas at Harvard College, 1817-37’, New England Quarterly xvi (1943), 63–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 See ‘The Latest Form of Infidelity’; ‘What is Christianity?’ Brpr xxxii (1860), 118–61; andGoogle Scholar‘The Princeton Review and Cousin's Philosophy’, BRPR xxviii (1856), 331–87Google Scholar.
53 For a good summary of this tension in Princeton Theology, see Hoffecker, W. Andrew, Piety and the Princeton Theologians, Philipsburg 1981Google Scholar.
54 , Hodge, ‘Bushnell's Discourses’, BRPR xxi (1849), 295–6;Google Scholar, Smith, ‘The Relations of Faith and Philosophy’, 42–3Google Scholar.
55 See Lord, David N., ‘Review of Prof. Park's Theologies of the Intellect and of the Feelings’, Theological and Literary Journal iii (1850), 177–234;Google ScholarWallace, David A., The Theology of New England (intro. Daniel Dana), Boston 1856;Google ScholarPond, Enoch, Review of Dr. Bushnell's ‘God in Christ’, Bangor 1849; andGoogle ScholarGoodrich, Chauncey A., What Does Dr. Bushnell Mean?, Hartford 1849Google Scholar.
56 , Wallace, Theology of New England, 56.Google Scholar
57 ‘Orthodoxy in New England’, Southern Presbyterian Review vii (1853), 58.Google Scholar
58 ‘New England Theology’, Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register ix (1852), 357.Google Scholar
59 , Ellis, ‘The New Theology’, 336–7.Google Scholar
60 Noll, Mark A. (ed.), The Princeton Theology, Scripture, Science, and Theological Method from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Warfield, 1812-1921, Grand Rapids 1983, 19.Google Scholar
61 See , Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse, 43, 77–80;Google Scholar, Kuklick, Churchmen and Philosophers, 216–21; andGoogle ScholarWilliams, Daniel Day, The Andover Liberals: a study in American theology, New York 1941Google Scholar.
62 , Bushnell, ‘Dogma and Spirit’, 76–7.Google Scholar
63 , Hutchison, op. cit. 101–5.Google Scholar
64 , Munger, Horace Bushnell, 372.Google Scholar
65 Clark, W. C., An Outline of Christian Theology, New York 1898, 4.Google Scholar
66 , Hodge, ‘What is Christianity?’ 161.Google Scholar
67 Warfield, B. B., The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Philipsburg 1948;Google ScholarGreen, W. H., The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch, New York 1902Google Scholar.
68 Machen, J. Gresham, Christianity and Liberalism, New York 1924.Google Scholar
69 , Cecil, Edwards Amasa Park, 155–205.Google Scholar
70 ‘The Achilles in Our Camp: An Acute and Inspiring Characterization of the Late Dr. Edwards A. Park’, The Congregationalist lxxxviii (1903), 840.Google Scholar
71 , Williams, The Andover Liberals, New York 1941, 19–21.Google Scholar
72 , Stoever, ‘Henry Boynton Smith’, 86.Google Scholar
73 Ibid.
74 Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church: a study of the theological issues in the Presbyterian Church since 1869, Philadelphia 1957, 97.Google Scholar
75 Stearns, Lewis F., Henry Boynton Smith, Boston 1892, 198–9.Google Scholar
76 See Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse; and Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American Culture; the shaping of twentieth-century Evangelicalism: 1870-1925, New York 1980Google Scholar.
- 1
- Cited by