Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture. By James H. Moorhead. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012. xxii + 554 pp. $60.00 cloth.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture . By James H. Moorhead . Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans , 2012. xxii + 554 pp. $60.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesCrafting the institutional history of a college or seminary presents manifold challenges. Often one succumbs to the temptation to emphasize a bricks and mortar story, noting how the physical presence of a school expanded over time. Or one chronicles an uncritical, triumphalist tale, glossing over issues that might tarnish an idealized image, diminishing the value of the book as a fundraising tool. Another common pitfall is to focus on the grand achievements of distinguished graduates, presuming that they owe their success only to the school.Moorhead rejects these approaches, opting instead to locate this bicentennial account of Princeton Theological Seminary, his alma mater and professional home for three decades, in the broader, but rich intellectual and cultural context of American religious history. He succeeds remarkably well, especially in his presentation of the old Princeton, the seminary that flourished from 1812 until it was drawn into the fundamentalist-modernist upheaval of the 1920s. His account provides a prism through which to refract many major currents of American Protestant life, particularly that wing shaped by the Reformed tradition. Princeton Seminary's story thus becomes the story of Reformed America, from contention over revivals and challenges to Calvinist orthodoxy in the quarter century after the seminary's founding to the debates over Darwinian theory, biblical inerrancy, and the use of historical-critical method of biblical interpretation in the quarter century leading to the seminary's 1912 centennial.In Moorhead's telling, one central theme propels the seminary's leaders such as Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge and dominates its ethos from its founding until the internal contention of the 1920s. That theme is a passion for good order integral to Calvin's theological system. Hence when Old School and New School divisions ruptured American Presbyterianism in the 1837, the seminary sought to avoid identifying with either so as to maintain order and the stability it represented. However, when faced with the inevitable, Princeton identified with the Old School as being more resonant with the Reformed heritage.Once Princeton aligned with the Old School, its identity became entwined with assuring that it, too, remained committed to good order. In time, as Moorhead demonstrates, that became an unyielding insistence on doctrinal purity embodied in the Old School understanding of the Westminster Confession. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the so-called Princeton Theology of Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield held sway, the seminary stood as a bastion of orthodoxy to resist new theological currents, from those associated with Horace Bushnell to liberal approaches emanating from German thinkers like Adolf von Harnack and Albrecht Ritschl. Yet Princeton professors were well versed in the thought they opposed. Moorhead repeatedly reminds readers that Princeton Seminary faculty were second to none in their breadth of knowledge and familiarity with every theological impulse.In time, other forces within the larger religious culture meant that internal contention threatened Princeton Seminary. By the 1920s, contention undermined the good order that had sustained old Princeton, with a minority of faculty voices offering fresh ways to be faithful to Calvinist orthodoxy while embracing new theoretical and methodological ways of understanding. …