Old Princeton and European Scholarship

This chapter discusses Old Princeton in its broad intellectual and historical contexts, especially the engagement of Princeton faculty with European religious scholars. The Princeton professors used German and European scholarship extensively in their work, including in their defences of Calvinism. The chapter addresses some of the challenges that the Princeton professors faced in the context of modernity, and provides details regarding their reliance on a transatlantic community of evangelical scholars who were familiar with the Enlightenment Bible and issues tied to the rise of modern universities. A transatlantic reading supports an examination of scientific theological efforts on the part of Princeton-based scholars, and underscores their links with evangelical European scholars. The chapter shows how current research on the academic work and defence of traditional Calvinist ideas that emerged from Princeton Theological Seminary in the nineteenth century benefits from a broader historical context that includes the influx of European ideas.

Reforming Church and Nation

This chapter explores Protestant theological schools that educated pastors as reformers of church and the nation after religious disestablishment. This education built upon the liberal arts of the colleges, which taught the basic textual interpretation, rhetoric, and oratory. Rev. Timothy Dwight led the way in fashioning a new liberal arts in the college, which served as the foundation for advanced theological education. At Yale, he integrated the belles-lettres of European literature and rhetoric into the predominant American framework of Scottish Common Sense Realism. He also coupled these pedagogies with the voluntarist theology of Jonathan Edwards and the New Divinity, which bolstered Christian volunteerism and mission. With Dwight’s help, New England Congregationalists developed a graduate theological at Andover with a faculty in Scripture, theology, and homiletics (practical theology) who taught in the interdisciplinary, rhetorical framework of the liberal arts. Dr. Ebenezer Porter raised a generation of princes of the pulpit and college professors of rhetoric and oratory, and he wrote the first widely used manuals in elocution. Moses Stuart in Bible advanced German critical studies of Scripture for future pastoral work and for scholars in the field. The greatest alternative to Andover was the historic Calvinism of Princeton Theological Seminary, as interpreted through the empiricism of Scottish Common Sense. President Archibald Alexander, historian Samuel Miller, theologian Charles Hodge, and later homiletics professor James Wadell Alexander emphasized the text-critical and narrative interpretation of Scripture, and the emphasis on classic rhetoric and oratory in homiletics culminated the curriculum.

A Teologia Protestante de Rubem Alves

Precisamente neste ano de 2019, que nós celebramos o jubileu da publicação da obra A Theology of Human Hope de Rubem Alves (1933-2014), fruto de uma tese de doutoramento defendida no ano anterior por ele no Princeton Theological Seminary. Seu título original era Towards a Theology of Liberation, que foi mudado por questões editoriais. Pouco conhecido, entretanto, foi seu primeiro trabalho acadêmico – dissertação de mestrado defendida em 1964 no Union Theological Seminary (New York) – A Theological Interpretation of the Meaning of the Revolution in Brazil. Rubem Alves, muito influenciado por Richard Shaull, e indiretamente por teólogos como: Barth, Rauschenbush, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Cox, pelo testemunho missionário de Albert Schweitzer e pelas reflexões de Paulo Freire e da ISAL, como também pelos resultados da Conferência do Nordeste (1962) conseguiu amalgamar esta nova teologia protestante, sendo o pioneiro protestante a utilizar as expressões “revolução” (1963) e “libertação” (1968) em trabalhos acadêmicos de cunho religioso, alterando permanentemente a vocação da teologia no Brasil. Para além dessa celebração, a pesquisa de mestrado de Rubem Alves indicava a emergência de um novo movimento na Teologia latino-americana, muito embora ele não possa ser nomeado como um teólogo da libertação stricto sensu, suas ideias teológicas sobre a revolução foram um tipo de preâmbulo ao que viria na sequência.

Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism

Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism make available in printed form his 1898 Stone Lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary, locating ‘Calvinism’ amongst other major philosophies and religions. Given the erroneous manner in which each of these other world-views—Paganism, Islamism, Romanism and Modernism—depict the fundamental relationship between God and the world, they cannot help but fall far short in their understandings of the other two basic relationships: between human and human, and between humankind and the rest of created reality. Calvinism alone, then, with its conception of human life as lived directly (in an unmediated manner) in the presence of God, can preserve the all-important conviction that all of human life, including the relationships of human beings to the non-human creation, be carried out in obedience to the Creator who desires the flourishing of the whole creation.

Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Review

Using hitherto unexplored letters and documents from the Markus Barth Papers, held at Princeton Theological Seminary, this article traces the development, and eventual end, of the friendship between Markus Barth and Emil Fackenheim. In doing so, it demonstrates Barth’s very real commitment to Jewish-Christian dialogue, but also shows how difficult this commitment was to maintain in his interpersonal relationships, in the context of differing political responses to Israeli foreign policy.

How Do Academic Institutions Evaluate Their History?

These remarks, shared at the “Legacy and Mission: Theological Education and the History of Slavery” conference at Princeton Theological Seminary, provide an overview of how William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is addressing its history with slavery and Jim Crow.

How Do Academic Institutions Evaluate Their History?

These remarks, shared at the “Legacy and Mission: Theological Education and the History of Slavery” conference at Princeton Theological Seminary, provide an overview of how Georgetown University is addressing its history with slavery and its afterlives.

“Do this in remembrance of me”

Slavery was an assault on black humanity, including the black body. Theological education paired with and shaped by slavery embodied the same type of violence through its mission and curriculum, that is, the sanctified erasure of black personhood, Christianity, and scholarship. In light of the relationship of Princeton Theological Seminary and slavery, this article focuses on the implications of this history for the mission and curriculum of theological schools, especially as it pertains to wounded black bodies. The key exploratory question will be, “What would theological education look like if it was reimagined through the lens of these black human wounds?”

Presbyterianism in the United States and Canada in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

This chapter traces the history of Presbyterians in the United States and Canada from the turn of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. It considers the predecessor denominations to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as well as the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, ECO (Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians), Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada, among others. It investigates theological, liturgical, missional, and educational developments in these denominations and analyzes conflicts over biblical authority and interpretation, confessionalism, communism, civil rights, sexuality, marriage, ordination, race, and the role of women in the church. The theological movements examined include confessional conservatism, evangelicalism, feminist theology, fundamentalism, liberalism, and neo-orthodoxy. Significant institutions noted include Erskine Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, Knox College, Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary in New York, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and Westminster Theological Seminary.

Changing Seminaries, Changing Libraries, Changing Selves

Religious identities and practices are changing. Religious studies and theological educators are adapting curricula and services to support increasingly diverse student populations. On an institutional level, some religious studies departments and seminaries' priorities are changing, too. For example, Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) remains one of ten seminaries of the Presbyterian Church (USA), but currently, only 28% of students identify as PCUSA personally and over fifty Christian traditions are represented, reflecting a trend toward ecumenism. ATS-accredited institutions have faculty and students whose faiths are outside of Judeo-Christian traditions, principal traditions that comprise the ATLA membership. Additionally, there is increased representation from secular institutions (e.g., University of Colorado Boulder) and organizations not affiliated with specific denominations within ATLA membership. It's time for librarians to share with each other their perceptions of their institutions’ relationships with students, administrations, and denominations, and where they fit within ATLA personally.