Theology in America
The United States has provided a unique historical and cultural context for the development of Christian theology from the colonial era to the present day. Numerous historians have explored various aspects of this context and development, but few have attempted anything on the scale of E. Brooks Holifield’s Theology in America. This work is a magisterial and comprehensive survey of two hundred years of American theology. In the course of his study, Holifield draws on the work of almost three hundred American theologians from more than twenty-five different traditions. The result is a book that is sure to become a standard text in its field.
E. Brooks Holifield is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of American Church History at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, and the former president of the American Society for Church History. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Era of Persuasion: American Thought and Culture, 1521–1680; The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570–1720; and Gentlemen Theologians: American Theology in Southern Culture, 1795–1860.
Theology in America is structured around a central theme, namely, that due to various historical and theological considerations, the majority of early American theologians were focused on demonstrating the reasonableness of Christianity. Although this theme is central to the book’s structure and content, other prominent themes come into play as well including the practicality of theology, the importance of Calvinism, the interaction with European theology, denominationalism, and the relationship between academic and populist theology.
After an introductory chapter explaining the themes mentioned above, the book is divided into three main sections. Part One, Calvinist Origins, examines the early Reformed traditions of colonial America. Part Two, The Baconian Style, explores those traditions that were most influenced by Baconian philosophy. Part Three, Alternatives to Baconian Reason, examines those traditions that offered alternatives to Baconian influenced theology.
The five chapters in Part One cover a vast amount of material. Chapter two is devoted to the six dominant Puritan theologians of early New England: John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, John Norton, Peter Bulkeley, and Richard Mather. In his examination of their doctrine, Holifield discusses, among other things, the influence of scholasticism, Ramist logic, and covenant theology upon their teaching. He notes that disagreements about the doctrine of the covenant led to continual dispute (p. 42). He also comments on the importance of the fact that around 1633, the churches in New England began to require that those who desired church membership be able to give a credible conversion testimony. Little did advocates of this requirement realize the results their decision would have in the subsequent history of the church in America (e.g. primarily sacramental controversies such as that involving the idea of the “Half-way covenant”). Chapter three is devoted to a discussion of the second generation of American theologians. It focuses on the theology of four New England Calvinists: Samuel Willard, Solomon Stoddard, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather. The focus of chapter four is on those groups who attempted to shift the focus of theology in a different direction. In this chapter, Holifield examines the “Catholick” Calvinists, Arminians, Anglicans, and Revivalists such as Gilbert Tennent and George Whitefield. An entire chapter (chap. 5) is devoted to Jonathan Edwards. According to Holifield, “no other theologian in America would equal him in intellectual depth or enduring influence on generations of successors” (p. 102). The final chapter of Part One examines the differences between Arminians, the New Divinity of Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy, and Old Calvinism.
Part Two is generally structured along the lines of various traditions and denominations. Chapter seven, for example, explains the teaching of the Deists in England and America, and explores how their teaching influenced subsequent theology among both their defenders and critics. The philosophy of Francis Bacon and its influence is examined in chapter eight as is the influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism. According to Holifield, “No other single philosophical movement has ever exerted as much influence on theology in America as Scottish Realism exerted on the ante-bellum theologians” (p. 175). Following chapters explore the theology of the Unitarians, Universalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Restorationists, Black Theologians, Quakers, Shakers, and Mormons. The dramatic influence of the American Revolution is also rightly noted. Holifield, in agreement with historians such as Nathan O. Hatch (The Democratization of American Christianity), observes that the American Revolution was pivotal in the rise of a populist sentiment in American theology. The egalitarian philosophy of the new republic forever shaped the thinking of many American theologians. Chapter seventeen examines the theology of three schools of thought that attempted to make Edwardian Calvinism more “reasonable”: the New England theology of Leonard Woods and Edwards Amasa Park, the New Haven Theology of Timothy Dwight and Nathanial William Taylor, and the Oberlin Theology of Charles Grandison Finney. Finally, chapter eighteen examines the theology of the “Old School Calvinists.” The teaching of Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge is explored in a study of the Princeton Theology. These three were not, however, the sole proponents of old school Calvinism during the nineteenth century. As Holifield notes, the “Ultras,” represented by men such as Ashbel Green, believed that Princeton was too moderate. Other nineteenth century Old School Calvinists were found in the southern states. The Southern Old School, represented by men such as Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, John Bailey Adger, James Henley Thornwell, and Robert Lewis Dabney, was united in its stand for Calvinism, but as Holifield demonstrates, it was divided on many other issues such as slavery, the sacraments, and eschatology.
Part Three is devoted to a discussion of those theologians and traditions that offered an alternative to Baconian influenced theology. Chapter nineteen examines American Lutheranism and its theologians, men such as Samuel Simon Schmucker, Henry Muhlenberg, Julius Mann, and Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther. American Roman Catholic theology is discussed in chapter twenty. Chapter twenty-one examines the teaching of the Transcendentalists, while chapter twenty-two is devoted entirely to the teaching of Horace Bushnell, one of the founders of American theological liberalism. Chapter twenty-three discusses the Mercersburg Theology of John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff, and chapter twenty-four covers the Transcendental Catholic theology of Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker. Chapter twenty-five, “The Dilemma of Slavery” concludes the book and examines how theological and hermeneutical presuppositions shaped the debate that led to the American Civil War.
Holifield’s work is the historical equivalent of a national road map. He provides the big picture, a wide-angle overview with just enough detail to be very useful, but not so much that it becomes overly cluttered. For those seeking an exhaustive study of one particular American theologian, tradition, or denomination (a detailed street map of a particular city as it were), this is not the right resource. It is, however, a good place to start. Holifield provides a broad context that allows more specific and detailed studies to be understood more clearly.
Holifield’s thesis, namely that the majority of early American theologians were focused on demonstrating the reasonableness of Christianity, provides an interesting focal point around which the book is structured. Readers, however, should not infer that this particular issue is distinctively American or even distinctively modern. The debate over the relationship between faith and reason dates back to the earliest centuries of the church and continues to this day wherever Christian theology is discussed. Of course, the shape of the debate in the first two centuries of American theology was influenced by contemporary cultural and philosophical factors, just as the debate has always been shaped by such factors.
Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War is an outstanding resource. Reading it leaves one with the hope that the author will continue the work with a study of theology in America from the Civil War to the present. |
