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Coming of Age Among the Edwardsians: Taylor's Religious Horizons

Douglas A. Sweeney

in Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards

Sweeney reconstructs the New England religious culture that shaped the life of Taylor, and that derived much of its theological substance from the two distinctive foci of Edwardsian New Divinity: its ... More

Sweeney reconstructs the New England religious culture that shaped the life of Taylor, and that derived much of its theological substance from the two distinctive foci of Edwardsian New Divinity: its distinction between natural and moral ability, and its insistence on immediate repentance. With the establishment of the New Divinity “schools of the prophets,” men such as Joseph Bellamy, Charles Backus, and Nathanael Emmons influenced the next generation of Edwardsian preachers and leaders. The direct result of widespread Edwardsian preaching in New England was what could only be called an Edwardsian enculturation of Calvinist New England by the first third of the nineteenth century.Less

The Divine Providence of Slavery and Freedom

John Saillant

in Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833

Lemuel Haynes was schooled in the New Divinity, the Calvinist theology of the students of Jonathan Edwards. Haynes declared himself a follower of Samuel Hopkins, the leading interpreter of Edwardsean ... More

Lemuel Haynes was schooled in the New Divinity, the Calvinist theology of the students of Jonathan Edwards. Haynes declared himself a follower of Samuel Hopkins, the leading interpreter of Edwardsean theology in the last third of the eighteenth century. Hopkins favored colonization, the expatriation of African Americans, but he also developed at length a claim that whites should exhibit disinterested benevolence in their relations with blacks. Edwardsean ethics cast disinterested benevolence as the highest moral state. Haynes argued that disinterested benevolence could unite black and white and, in fact, according to the scriptural covenant between God and Abraham, mandated the manumission of slaves and their acceptance into free society.Less

Theological Dispute, 1750–1858

Bruce Kuklick

in A History of Philosophy in America: 1720-2000

From 1750–1850, a philosophical theology rooted in the work of Jonathan Edwards dominated speculative thought in America. A group of Edwards's students, followers of ‘New Divinity,’ were led by ... More

From 1750–1850, a philosophical theology rooted in the work of Jonathan Edwards dominated speculative thought in America. A group of Edwards's students, followers of ‘New Divinity,’ were led by Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, and Nathaniel Emmons, who defended both God's sovereignty and human free will. They eventually professionalized in schools of theology led by Charles Hodge at Princeton, and, at Yale by Nathaniel William Taylor, a brilliant innovator and expositor of ideas that injected Scottish realism into theological debate.Less

Colonial Theologies in the Era of the Revolution

Mark A. Noll

in America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

Before 1790, and despite the massive ideological changes sparked by the American Revolution, theology in America remained mostly in continuity with traditions from the Old World. The innovations ... More

Before 1790, and despite the massive ideological changes sparked by the American Revolution, theology in America remained mostly in continuity with traditions from the Old World. The innovations present in American theology up to 1790 resulted more from importing British and continental advances rather than from indigenous development in the American context.Less

Selective Readings: Edwards and the New Divinity

Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott

in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Although there are numerous difficulties in identifying Edwards's theological legacy, the first distinct group of followers to emerge was referred to as the New Divinity. From the outset, there was ... More

Although there are numerous difficulties in identifying Edwards's theological legacy, the first distinct group of followers to emerge was referred to as the New Divinity. From the outset, there was significant opposition to Edwardsean theology from Arminians and from liberalizing Congregationalists (or Old Lights). Appropriating and adapting Edwards's theology proved to be problematic not only because of the complexity of ideas, but also because of a lack of access to his materials. Ultimately the New Divinity authors moved beyond Edwards by heightening human responsibility, rejecting imputation, and removing the distinction between moral inability and natural ability. Despite these changes, these Edwardseans venerated Edwards and believed that his legacy should endure. Edwardsean teaching underlay much of nineteenth-century evangelical expansion in missions, antislavery (abolitionism), education, and social reform.Less

The Early Slavery Debates

Molly Oshatz

in Slavery and Sin: The Fight against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism

This chapter explains why the slavery debates that occurred in America before the antebellum era did not alter American theology. Operating in a different historical and rhetorical context, earlier ... More

This chapter explains why the slavery debates that occurred in America before the antebellum era did not alter American theology. Operating in a different historical and rhetorical context, earlier antislavery figures, including Quakers and American Revolutionary-era New Divinity theologians, were able to focus their attention on the particular evils of Southern slavery and thereby to avoid conflicts between their antislavery and biblical commitments.Less

The Americanization of Calvinism: The Congregationalist Era, 1793–1827

Mark A. Noll

in America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

Between 1790 and 1840, Reformed theology reached the summit of its broad influence in American culture. With New England's Congregationalists in the lead, and then joined by mid‐state and southern ... More

Between 1790 and 1840, Reformed theology reached the summit of its broad influence in American culture. With New England's Congregationalists in the lead, and then joined by mid‐state and southern Presbyterians, the Reformed theologians engaged in the most serious religious and public debates of the years. These debates led to the production of a great surge of theological literature, most of which was significantly influenced by the new conditions of American public life. The rise of Unitarianism during this period presented a special challenge to more traditional Calvinist theologians.Less

Introduction

Oliver D. Crisp and Douglas A. Sweeney

in After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology

The Introduction to the volume sets out the background to the New England Theology, its development, and its importance. It also includes an outline of each chapter of the book.

The Americanization of Calvinism: Contexts and Questions

Mark A. Noll

in America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these ... More

The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these theologians condemned the revolutions in France and were suspicious of the “infidel” Thomas Jefferson and his friend James Madison. American Calvinists were, however, not unified; their disputes grew from the different approaches they took to the problems of religious organization and national civilization posed by the new American nation.Less

Jonathan Edwards, the New Divinity, and Cosmopolitan Calvinism

Mark Valeri

in After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology

This chapter describes the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and his earliest followers, New Divinity men such as Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins. Surveying recent studies of Edwards, it ... More

This chapter describes the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and his earliest followers, New Divinity men such as Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins. Surveying recent studies of Edwards, it contends that he forged what can be called the evangelical Calvinist tradition by shaping Calvinist doctrine to Enlightenment moral discourses fixed on reason, right sentiment, and the social conventions of politeness. New Divinity preachers developed Edwards’s thought in a contest with rational critics of Calvinism on one hand and radical evangelical groups on the other. The result was a distinction between a type of evangelicalism that maintained cosmopolitan standards of social propriety and moral benevolence over and against a separatist and enthusiastic strain in the evangelical movement. The New Divinity accordingly allied itself with established religious conventions, albeit with an evangelical agenda, while other evangelicals developed a theological mind-set that challenged widespread notions of reason, responsibility, and politeness.Less

A Further Liberty in 1776

John Saillant

in Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833

Lemuel Haynes was separated at birth from his parents, described in his lifetime as an African man and a white New England woman. Haynes matured as an indentured servant in Granville, Massachusetts, ... More

Lemuel Haynes was separated at birth from his parents, described in his lifetime as an African man and a white New England woman. Haynes matured as an indentured servant in Granville, Massachusetts, and served as a militiaman, a minuteman, and a soldier in the War of Independence. His essay, ”Liberty Further Extended” (1770s), attacked the slave trade and slavery. Like his contemporary Olaudah Equiano, Haynes was loyal to Calvinism. He studied with ministers of the New Divinity persuasion as he prepared for his ordination, which occurred in 1785.Less

Jonathan Edwards on Education and His Educational Legacy

Kenneth P. Minkema

in After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology

Jonathan Edwards was deeply involved in education, as a tutor at Yale College, with catechists in his congregation at Northampton, with Indian children at Stockbridge, and as president of the College ... More

Jonathan Edwards was deeply involved in education, as a tutor at Yale College, with catechists in his congregation at Northampton, with Indian children at Stockbridge, and as president of the College of New Jersey. He also took aspiring ministerial candidates into his home, teaching them theology. From this central pedagogical impulse, Edwards’s own students, most famously Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy, used a “mentor’s” model for rusticating ministerial students and building “schools of the prophets” of a home-grown variety. New Divinity men and women became teachers, professors, and presidents of educational institutions, training new missionaries in particular. With the mainstreaming of the New England Theology, however, divisions arose within the movement over the true meaning and inheritors of Edwards’s legacy; feuds broke out among institutions, including breakaway schools such as the East Windsor Seminary. After the movement dissolved, some educators carried the torch of Edwardsianism into the twentieth century.Less

Birth of a Theologian: The Early Life of Nathaniel Taylor

Douglas A. Sweeney

in Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards

This chapter briefly outlines the Taylor family history, including Nathaniel William Taylor's puritan roots in New England. Although Nathaniel William Taylor's grandfather and family patriarch, ... More

This chapter briefly outlines the Taylor family history, including Nathaniel William Taylor's puritan roots in New England. Although Nathaniel William Taylor's grandfather and family patriarch, Nathanael Taylor, was a prominent Old Calvinist, Nathaniel William Taylor's religious horizons were expanded under the tutelage of Azel Backus, the prominent New Divinity preacher and successor to Joseph Bellamy's pulpit in Bethlehem, Connecticut. Backus molded the young Taylor's mind – as well as his piety and his preaching style – after the Edwardsians.Less

Samuel Hopkins and Hopkinsianism

Peter Jauhiainen

in After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology

Samuel Hopkins was a chief expositor of Edwardsian theology, an innovative reformulation of Reformed doctrine that responded to the challenges of the Enlightenment. His appropriation of key ... More

Samuel Hopkins was a chief expositor of Edwardsian theology, an innovative reformulation of Reformed doctrine that responded to the challenges of the Enlightenment. His appropriation of key Enlightenment concepts and his penchant for logical disputation gave his theology distinctive features that opponents derisively called “New Divinity” or “Hopkinsianism.” Arguing that divine activity is constrained by benevolence, he concluded that sin must be an “advantage” to the universe since God acts always to promote the highest good. Hopkins defined human holiness as “disinterested benevolence,” which entailed surrendering self-interest for the sake of the whole, including willingness to be damned for God’s glory. And countering charges that Reformed doctrines of election and grace were morally irresponsible, he asserted that sinners were blameworthy for their moral inability to repent—indeed the unrepentant, “awakened” sinners were guiltier than those who were ignorant because of their rejection of the gospel.Less

The Revolutionary Lens: Edwards’s Mentoring Legacy

Rhys S. Bezzant

in Edwards the Mentor

Part of the intriguing power of Edwards’s mentoring is the legacy he creates during and after the American Revolution. He trains his mentees to be not mere mimics but rather leaders who can reason ... More

Part of the intriguing power of Edwards’s mentoring is the legacy he creates during and after the American Revolution. He trains his mentees to be not mere mimics but rather leaders who can reason from first principles and adapt their proclamation to the particular social context of their ministry. Edwards spawns a school of ministry known subsequently as the New Divinity, which institutionalizes Edwards’s revivalist impulses in founding Andover Seminary in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1808. Their successes in New England in local church settings and their influence on debates of the early republic are dramatic, evidenced in federalist political philosophy as well as the cause of abolition. Edwards takes traditional mentoring practices and retools them to operate in a modern and democratic world.Less

New England’s Theological Landscape

Paul C. Gutjahr

in Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy

Chapter Fourteen surveys the diverse theological landscape of the New England in the period after the American Revolution. Special attention is paid to the developing theologies of Harvard, Yale and ... More

Chapter Fourteen surveys the diverse theological landscape of the New England in the period after the American Revolution. Special attention is paid to the developing theologies of Harvard, Yale and Andover. Calvinism was fracturing during this time, and Hodge while traveling to Boston with his friend Benjamin Wisner met many of the important theologians involved in debates surrounding these breaks. He was particularly impressed by Moses Stuart of Andover.Less

Reforming Church and Nation: The Vision and Cultural Practices of Protestant Seminaries

Larry Abbott Golemon

in Clergy Education in America: Religious Leadership and American Public Life

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 ... More

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.Less

“Salvation” vs. “Damnation”: Doctrinal Controversies in the Early Republic

Kathryn Gin Lum

in Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction

This chapter asks why hell survived the controversy over universal salvation in the early republic. It begins with the awakenings of the mid-eighteenth century and the theological innovations of ... More

This chapter asks why hell survived the controversy over universal salvation in the early republic. It begins with the awakenings of the mid-eighteenth century and the theological innovations of Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Hopkins. The chapter then focuses on three Murrays—John (“Salvation”), John (“Damnation”), and Judith—who found themselves on opposite sides of the Revolutionary-era debate over the justness of eternal hell. Despite the optimism of early republican political leaders, hell survived the challenges of Universalism because its defenders, including the New Divinity heirs of Edwards, argued that it was necessary to ensure virtue in the new republic.Less

The Necessity of Evil

Samuel Hopkins

in Early Evangelicalism: A Reader

This chapter presents excerpts from Samuel Hopkins's The System of Doctrines, Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended (1793). Hopkins is arguably the most creative thinker among ... More

This chapter presents excerpts from Samuel Hopkins's The System of Doctrines, Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended (1793). Hopkins is arguably the most creative thinker among Jonathan Edwards's followers. His innovative modifications to Edwards's thought became known as “Hopkinsianism,” in which he posited true virtue in ethical terms as opposed to Edwards's definition of virtue aesthetically as benevolence to “Being in general.” Hopkins insists that true self-love meant being willing to sacrifice personal interests for the greater good of the whole. He promoted the notion of disinterested benevolence whereby a person completely and willingly submitted to the divine will no matter what the cost. His two-volume System of Doctrines produced a systematic theology of the New Divinity movement that identified God as a moral legislator who would not tolerate selfishness. While advocating the complete sovereignty of God, Hopkins tried to justify the existence of evil in the System of Doctrines.Less

Godly Government during a Time of Crisis

Lemuel Haynes

in Early Evangelicalism: A Reader

This chapter presents excerpts from Lemuel Haynes's The Influence of Civil Government on Religion, a sermon delivered at Rutland, West Parish, in Vermont on September 4, 1798. Haynes was an American ... More

This chapter presents excerpts from Lemuel Haynes's The Influence of Civil Government on Religion, a sermon delivered at Rutland, West Parish, in Vermont on September 4, 1798. Haynes was an American abolitionist, revivalist, and theologian who grew up an indentured servant on the Massachusetts frontier. He joined the minutemen in 1774 and served as a soldier in the War of Independence. After the War, Haynes was tutored by the New Divinity minister Daniel Farrand of Canaan, Connecticut, becoming a stalwart of evangelical Calvinism. In 1788 he took a post at a Congregational church in Rutland, Vermont. Like other New Divinity men, Haynes interpreted the slave trade and slavery as part of God's providential design. He was an orthodox preacher, a revivalist, and an adherent of Revolutionary-era republicanism. In The Influence of Civil Government on Religion, Haynes contrasted a godly American government guided by George Washington and John Adams to the chaotic and sinful French Reign of Terror.Less