Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (review)

Abstract

Theology in America: Christian Thought from Age of Puritans to Civil War. By E. Brooks Holifield. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. ix, 617. Cloth, $37.50.)This is a book of breathtaking ambition. E. Brooks Holifield analyzes sermons, polemical treatises, academic journal essays, and tomes of systematic theology-in all their sometimes hair-splitting detail-produced by 282 writers across almost two and a half centuries, from first-generation Puritan divines through Civil War era. These writers were typically ordained clergymen and local pastors, although by nineteenth century there had emerged a new class of professional theologians, epitomized by Princeton Seminary's Charles Hodge, who spent his entire career as an educator and editor. Holifield also gives attention to the theological populists (16) who scorned academic learning and insisted on their own authority to interpret Bible. In Holifield's account, early republic emerges as a great era in history of American theology; majority of his pages deal with time period covered by this journal.It is impossible to do justice to a work of such encyclopedic scope within confines of a brief review. Nevertheless, Holifield identified a number of key themes that impose order on his vast subject. book's central claim is that American always emphasized the reasonableness of (4), which meant, in early republic, that they employed a Baconian model of theological argument. No other single philosophical movement, Holifield observes, has ever exerted as much influence on theology in America as Scottish Realism exerted on antebellum theologians (175). As such, his findings comport with those of Mark A. Noll, who argued similarly for importance of commonsense theology in America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002).Holifield divides his narrative into three parts. Part 1, Origins, begins in New England, where earliest tradition of theological writing flourished from 1630s. Puritans laid foundations of theology in America during seventeenth century along Reformed lines. They began tradition of trying to find proper balance between and reason, which would be a dominant theme for next two centuries. Of course, Puritans also quickly fell out among themselves as they sought to establish orthodoxy in controversies over conversion, baptism, and other matters. Calvinist theology reached its apogee with Jonathan Edwards, one of only two individuals to merit a chapter-length treatment, other being Horace Bushnell. Edwards carried New England theology into mainstream of seventeenth-century philosophy and eighteenth-century aesthetic and ethical theory (105) while he defended such Calvinist tenets as original sin, divine sovereignty, free will, and election. After Edwards, however, Holifield describes New England tradition as irreparably fractured into Arminian, New Divinity, and Old Calvinist wings.Part 2, The Baconian Style, begins with deists of revolutionary era. Although few in number, deists' spirited attacks on those elements of Christianity that defied reason, such as biblical miracles or Trinity, scared into action. In response, enlisted Scottish philosophy to show rationality of faith while preserving necessity for revelation (178). Whatever their differing views of Christology, soteriology, or other controversial doctrines, everyone from Universalists to Old School Presbyterians claimed that their theology was built on a foundation of common sense. Holifield makes interesting observation that even groups seemingly on far fringes of denominational landscape, such as Shakers and Mormons, also based their appeal on the evidential style (340). …