The Problem of a History of Nineteenth-Century Theology

Abstract

The student of Protestant theology in the nineteenth century is confronted by a curious puzzle. It has long been agreed that between the publication of Friedrich Schleiermacher's Speeches on Religion, to the Cultured among Its Despisers (1799) and the outbreak of the First World War there occurred dramatic and far-reaching changes in the patterns and styles of Protestant theology. These may be saluted as creative breakthroughs; they may be put down as dangerous though finally temporary detours from the true line of development; or they may even be combated as the expressions of infidelity and apostasy. But that there occurred theological events of decisive importance, few will deny. Further, it is at least a defensible thesis that the theological situation of the twentieth century is peculiarly dependent on the developments of the nineteenth century. That is, not only do the same problems continue to bedevil and to fascinate, but the shapes in which those questions emerge for us are essentially derivative from the forms they were given in the nineteenth century. This is one of the reasons that in the present generation we see an impressive renewal of study of nineteenth-century theology-not only of the few giants whose names have always been familiar, though whose work may actually have been as much hidden as disclosed by well-worn cliches, but also of many other thinkers whose significance has been less well attended to. Yet in spite of all this, there has never appeared a general history of nineteenth-century Protestant theology.