1st Edition
New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929
This book focuses on Princeton Theological Seminary and the theologians who taught there from the time of its founding in 1812 to the time of its reorganisation in 1929. It confronts the standard assessment of Old Princeton in the historiography of North American evangelicalism and sets out why a new paradigm is needed. The volume critically engages with the ‘Ahlstrom thesis’ and other more recent scholarship concerning Old Princeton’s relationship to the Scottish intellectual tradition. The contributions seek to move beyond Old Princeton’s alleged indebtedness to Enlightenment thought and advance a more constructive reading of the Old Princetonians, their theology, and their place in the American evangelical experience. The book offers a fresh and more accurate assessment of the theological and philosophical assumptions that held sway at Old Princeton and through the seminary to the American continent and beyond. It will appeal to scholars interested in theology, religious history and intellectual history.
Introduction: A Constructive Reassessment
Kevin DeYoung, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and David P. Smith
1 Samuel Miller on the Life of the Mind: Re-Imagining the Princeton Paradigm
Paul Kjoss Helseth
2 Reformed Orthodoxy, Old Princeton, and Natural Law
Kevin DeYoung
3 The Princeton Theology and the Philosophy of Common Sense
Michael Plato
4 Jonathan Edwards, Old Princeton, and American Calvinism
Robert Caldwell
5 Politics, John Witherspoon, and Old Princeton
Gary L. Steward
6 Old Princeton and the Westminster Standards
J. V. Fesko
7 Charles Hodge and Rationalism in Germany and America, 1820–1870
Annette G. Aubert
8 The Spirituality of the Church and Her ‘Painful Responsibilities’
Alan D. Strange
9 The Task of Theology, Progressive Orthodoxy, and the Function of Scripture
Jeffrey A. Stivason
10 The ‘Circle of the Sciences’ and the Theological Nature of All Knowledge
David P. Smith
11 Engaging the Evolution Question at Old Princeton
Bradley J. Gundlach
12 Old Princeton and Effacing ‘This Blot Upon Our Holy Religion’
S. Donald Fortson, III
Afterword
Mark A. Noll
Bibliography
Biography
Kevin DeYoung is Senior Pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, NC and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC.
Paul Kjoss Helseth is Professor of Christian Thought at University of Northwestern-St. Paul (St. Paul, MN).
David P. Smith is Pastor of Covenant Fellowship in Greensboro, NC and adjunct professor of Historical Theology at Erskine Seminary in Due West, SC.
