Hidden Bridges: Progressive Tendencies among Non-Progressive Nineteenth-Century Northern Baptists

Introduction

Obscurity surrounds much of the early northern Baptist theological tradition. ¹ Despite many recognizing its important place in the development of Baptist ideas and institutions in America, little scholarly attention has been invested into the character of this tradition in its early days in the nineteenth century. These were the days when the denomination exploded in numbers in America and went from cultural outsiders to insiders. They were also the days when theological schools were being formed and professional theologians (i.e., seminary professors) within this theological tradition began to publish their theologies for the first time. The prevailing understanding is that the earliest northern Baptist theology was overwhelmingly conservative in outlook (with some moderately progressive thinkers) until the progressive New Theology gained traction in the last decades of the century. ² Historians have spent some time exploring how this change came to be. ³ This study seeks to add depth to the historical understanding of the early northern Baptist theological tradition by offering further explanation of how progressive theology gained traction among northern Baptist theologians.

There is some difference of opinion on what the New Theology did that made it distinct, but most can agree on the general guideposts. ⁴ Clearly it included a tendency to modify and/or reject key conceptions of traditional conservative Protestantism along with a tendency to reject formalized foundations (i.e., creeds and confessions). ⁵ Practically speaking, this works out in at least three loci: (1) theological methodology, ⁶ (2) attitude toward sources, ⁷ and (3) a variety of theological positions that are clearly modifications of or new paths away from the prevailing theology. ⁸ The theological differences between conservatives and progressives became so pronounced by the 1920s that a massive rift was created, with liberals in control of most of the denominational machinery. ⁹ How did liberals gain such a foothold? Historians have observed that the early (i.e., nineteenth century) conservatives and moderates were quite tolerant of the progressives. ¹⁰ But a more precise question can be asked: what exactly was this tolerance and how deep did it go? To help answer this we must have a better awareness of the substance of the preceding conservative and moderate theology and their views toward theological progressivism. My suggestion is that further explanation for how progressive theology began to overtake the older conservative and moderate theology is found within the conservative and moderate theology itself.

To explore this new avenue, this study will focus one of the main arenas of theological discussion: the theological seminaries. ¹¹ First, some context will situate the main figures of this paper historically and theologically. Next, two prominent progressive theologians will be presented, highlighting key components of their thought, followed by the most prominent conservative northern Baptist theologian. These thinkers, through their own careers, and through the careers of their proteges, represent early professional northern Baptist theology. ¹² These men produced the first published theologies of the northern Baptist seminary tradition. In sum, they represent a significant part of the substance of the fledgling northern Baptist theological tradition. This paper will argue that even among theologians who were essentially conservative or moderate there were significant progressive tendencies. Indeed, a key piece of the northern Baptist theological tradition was the shifting theological ground on which further theology was built.

Denominational and Generational Context

The first American Baptist seminary was a short-lived theological school connected to the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States (named the Triennial Convention in 1817). ¹³ Along with cooperation for mission work, Baptists recognized a need for a more educated leadership, and they recognized the need for organized denominational support for such schools. This first attempt was through William Staughton and the Columbian College in 1820. ¹⁴ However, due to the scale of the attempt, the mounting debts, and inadequate support, the theological school—and, indeed, the connection of the college to Baptists—was short-lived. ¹⁵ While the seminary at Columbian did not last, it did get the ball rolling toward Baptist graduate-level theological education.

In contrast to the short life of the Columbian College, several other northern seminaries found lasting success. The first was Newton Theological Institute in Newton Centre, Massachusetts in 1825, followed by Hamilton Theological Seminary, Hamilton, New York, in the early 1830s. Newton and Hamilton represent the first generation of American Baptist seminary education, and it was Newton that had a more prestigious academic reputation in the early decades. What makes Newton important in this story is its founder, Irah Chase, and one of its early theology professors, Barnas Sears. Chase provided a foundation and direction to the school, and Sears was the first-generation theologian who taught the theologians of the next generation. Beyond Newton and Hamilton, Rochester Theological Seminary, in Rochester, New York, was added in 1850, as part of an acrimonious separation from Hamilton, and it quickly rose in prominence. Two other seminaries were added in 1867: Crozer Theological Seminary, in Upland, Pennsylvania, and Morgan Park Theological Seminary, in Morgan Park, Illinois, though these two had less influence initially. ¹⁶

The generational developments are key. The first generation of seminary leadership was passing off the scene by mid-century, and a new generation of leadership took their place. While the first generation left no formal theology texts, they did give important direction to the schools they led.

Irah Chase (1793–1864) was educated at Andover Theological Seminary. Chase was part of the initial theological faculty at the Columbian College, and when it failed, he took leadership in establishing Newton Theological Institute. Chase’s vision of theological education was decidedly different than William Staughton’s had been. Chase’s biographer, William Hague, described Staughton’s model as “after the old medieval fashion of theological schools, and assigned no place to Biblical Theology, nor scarcely any sign of an approach of the idea that it enfolds.” ¹⁷ In other words, the new system was centered around a particular conception of biblical theology. The older model had a professor of Divinity who would teach a standard text of theology, and then, according to Hague, use that to understand the Scriptures. ¹⁸

Chase’s model was built after his alma mater and his favorite professor, Moses Stuart. This model put a premium on coming to the text without preconceived notions. In direct contradiction to the model of Staughton, Chase’s model was described this way:

Instead of allowing the student to have his mind subjected to the power of a logically-compacted system anticipatory of what he would find in the Scriptures, and thus prejudging what he ought to find, to constrain him to become thoroughly grounded in the original Scriptures themselves, and to make him, like Apollos, “mighty” in those Scriptures by a conscious mastery of their meaning, their scope, and of their applications, according to those, fixed principles of interpretation that would stand the test of the severest scrutiny like pure gold tried by the fiery crucible. ¹⁹

The critique of the old model was that it somehow predisposed the interpreter to what the Bible must say and so spoiled the interpretive process before it began. Thus, biblical theology (in the sense of Moses Stuart’s method) was given a high place. The method was to teach students to draw out the simple truths of Scripture and use these as the sole building blocks of a theology. ²⁰

Not only was this the method of biblical studies, but it also was placed at the center of the curriculum. Like Andover, Newton originally had a three-year course of studies that included biblical languages, church history, biblical theology, and pastoral studies. Notably absent is systematic theology (or divinity as it was called at Columbian). In Andover’s plan, systematic theology was still present, even with the emphasis on the method of Stuart. This was so because Andover was functioning underneath a unique confession of faith. ²¹ At Newton, systematic theology was replaced by the biblical theology of Chase, at least in the original plans. ²² More than that, Newton did not utilize a confession of faith for their seminary. Margaret Lamberts Bendroth has said it this way: “Newton had no constitution, and its leaders made no attempt to set forth a faculty creed, course curricula, or any means of doctrinal oversight of the school.” ²³ The desire to have a particular place for biblical studies without recourse to divinity seems to be reflected in this decision.

This was not just a new way to do theological education, it was a new theological method, and Newton would become well-known for it for the duration of the century. Two examples demonstrate this: (1) Chase’s progressive method was one of the reasons that Southern Baptist pastors did not want to send their sons to Newton and became an impetus to creating their own seminary in 1859 (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). ²⁴ (2) Even as late as the 1890s Augustus Hopkins Strong observed among Baptists that, “Doctor Chase taught a theology so unlike that of Princeton that some of our extremely orthodox ministers refused to put their sons under what they regard as heterodox teaching.” ²⁵ Despite some pushback, Newton’s was “a model that influenced all other Baptist schools of the nineteenth century,” according to William Brackney. ²⁶

Barnas Sears (1802–1880) was the key protégé of Chase. When Chase stepped down from teaching in 1835, it was Sears who took over a year later as Professor of Christian Theology. Sears had studied with Chase and, when he went to Germany, had studied with August Tholuck and Wilhelm Gesenius at Halle. “Sears’s method of teaching was not to utilize a textbook but to encourage students to build their own theology.” ²⁷ Sears’s biographer (and former student), Alvah Hovey, summarized his theology as follows:

The theology taught by Doctor Sears was biblical in its source and evangelical in its tone. It was clear to those who sat at his feet that he was not in search of new opinions because they were new, or of old opinions because they were old, but rather of the truth, whether new or old. But, though his theology was biblical in its source, he did not shut his eyes to the lessons of nature. While he believed in Jesus Christ, as the highest and perfect revelation of God the Father, his mind was evermore hospitable to truth from any source. ²⁸

Sears’s students appreciated that he “would lead them to answers founded on reason, rather than authority.” ²⁹ The content and method of Sears’s theology was unmistakable. “Sears clearly stood in line with the ideal of high scholarship, free inquiry, and a biblicist theological reasoning” in the vein of Moses Stuart and Irah Chase. ³⁰ Augustus Hopkins Strong would later comment that “Dr. Sears taught but little positive doctrine of any kind. His method was to suggest questions rather than to answer them. Scholarship and discussion were the main features of his classroom.” ³¹

Both Chase and Sears passed on a method of free enquiry as well as a biblicist-based theology. ³² The three major theologians of the second generation not only developed what they had received, but they also taught the entirety of the third generation of theologians. ³³ After the American Civil War, the second-generation men began to publish northern Baptist academic theology for the first time. These men gave substance to the northern Baptist tradition.

The Moderates

James Garrett Jr., in his monumental work, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study, ³⁴ gives space to two mediating theologians: Ezekiel Gilman Robinson (1815–1894) and Ebenezer Dodge (1819–1890). These two serve well as subjects for this study because they both taught and wrote early on in the northern Baptist tradition and because several students that learned from them assumed similar positions of professional theological leadership and paid homage to these two men. George Washington Northrup (1826–1900) of Morgan Park Theological Seminary (later the University of Chicago), ³⁵ Elias Henry Johnson (1841–1906) of Crozer Theological Seminary, and Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836–1921) of Rochester Theological Seminary—all third-generation moderates—all learned at the feet of Robinson while he taught at Rochester from 1853–1872 before going on to Brown, Crozer, and the University of Chicago. In other words, the moderate theology of Robinson was the theological foundation out of which subsequent moderate theology grew. ³⁶ Dodge on the other hand, who taught at Madison from 1861–1890, laid a foundation of theological moderation that was developed by his student and successor, William Newton Clarke (1841–1912) into the quintessential liberal Baptist theology. ³⁷ Taken together, Robinson and Dodge form a crucial duo that could claim direct influence upon the subsequent generation of moderate and liberal theologians that oversaw the waning of the old conservatism.

Ezekiel Gilman Robinson

Robinson published one theology textbook, posthumously. What several of Robinson’s students and colleagues commented about him was that he always struggled with how to formulate his theology and so he was hesitant to put it into writing. ³⁸ His Christian Theology, like most theology textbooks of the day, was originally printed in small quantities for the use of his students only. After Robinson left Rochester to serve as President of Brown University he continued to work on the volume, but it took until after his death for it to be published.

In the few works that cover him, Robinson is uniformly recognized as a moderate thinker who struggled with how much of traditional orthodoxy to retain and was essentially a harbinger of the later liberal theology. But it took time for Robinson’s theology to develop. His student and successor, Augustus Hopkins Strong, argues that Robinson never was fully at home in any one tradition, whether it be Princeton, Andover, or New Haven. He was searching for something better. At one point Robinson tried to use the covenant theology scheme of Princeton but ultimately found it too arbitrary and in need of too much modification. Strong described Robinson’s early theology lectures this way: “The lectures which he dictated at this time are cautious statements of the dominant orthodoxy, with its more mechanical features greatly softened down, and with the accompanying suggestion of new points of view which logically imply another and a better faith.” ³⁹ Strong went on to say that Robinson struggled to give a systematized theology, though he was slowly working on it the remainder of his life, with hope of publishing one. This hope was only realized after his death, with the help of editors supplying the final pieces. ⁴⁰

When looking at his posthumously published work, which was the fruit of his full development, a bent toward progressivism is apparent. The primary locus pointed to, in this regard, is his theology of Scripture and his related theological method. Evidently, Robinson accepted the validity and results of higher criticism of scripture. Further, when speaking of inspiration of Scripture, Robinson rejected that the Bible needed to be free from error. His argument against this requirement was that it was putting an a priori demand upon the Bible that is not put on God’s revelation of the natural world. To assume “that whatever proceeds from the mind of God must come to us in an absolutely perfect form” is, in Robinson’s words “an assumption contradicted by the analogy of the material creation and by the plainest of the scriptures themselves, to say nothing of the impossibility of any standard of perfection of form that shall not be relative and thus ever changing.” ⁴¹ Robinson made plain that in the same way that the finitude of the natural world does not preclude that God does not adequately reveal himself, so also must the special revelation of the Bible not be held to such a standard. To require it is to place a stricture on Scripture that we would not place on nature. Scripture is accommodated. ⁴²

Still, Scripture was the primary source of theology for Robinson. This was because “Christian theology…has to do with revealed truth, and its one direct and controlling source, to which the decisive appeal must always be made, is the Sacred Scriptures.” ⁴³ Robinson famously argued that, in his mind, doctrine changes with the times because the experiences of human beings are constantly changing. ⁴⁴ Experience often became the primary adjudicator of doctrine and of the meaning of Scripture. As both Gregory Thornbury and Carl Henry have noticed, Robinson makes his theological appeals sometimes to Scripture, sometimes to experience/feeling, and sometimes to philosophy at the expense of scriptural revelation (as in his understanding of the personality of God). ⁴⁵ Christian tradition (in the form of creeds and confessions) could help, but they were documents that were by their nature time bound. Robinson’s method was often quite progressive, though not always consistent.

As was mentioned, Robinson’s students noticed their professor’s struggle with theological and methodological consistency. On more than one occasion they attributed this vacillation to the fact that Robinson was a progressive before progressivism took hold. Thornbury noted how one former student, who later became Secretary of the Corporation at Brown [University], Thomas David Anderson, likened Robinson to the infamous Presbyterian Charles Briggs (whose views were famously censored). Yet, Anderson claimed, Robinson was several decades ahead of Briggs and had no controversy on his record. Thornbury concludes that “Unlike Briggs, Robinson was never tried for heresy. Like Briggs, Robinson advocated the use of higher critical biblical method, cast aspersions on the full inspiration of Scripture, and ensconced reason as a primary source of authority. Unlike Briggs, Robinson enjoyed, in the main, the esteem of even the most orthodox of his peers.” ⁴⁶

Clearly, Robinson not only espoused seeds of progressive thought at critical points in his theology, but it was also these points that made lasting impressions on his students. Several of these students, such as G. W. Northrup, E. H. Johnson, and, most famously, A. H. Strong, trod similar trails of doctrinal innovation, all while offering a thankful nod to their erstwhile professor for providing the necessary guidance.

Ebenezer Dodge

Dodge could not boast the same number of influential students that Robinson could, but he could claim the consummate liberal Baptist as his student and successor, that being William Newton Clarke. Dodge himself did not publish much. The only book he published for a wide audience was titled, The Evidences of Christianity. He then produced printed notes for his students at two different times, 1875 and 1883, but these were not circulated widely in his day. Similarly to Robinson, a few of Dodge’s former students left behind tributes to him that provide the basic information about his life that we know. These students point to the fact that Dodge was a progressive at heart, but simultaneously felt the need to hold on to a moderate theology so as not to upset the constituency of the school. Dodge’s students also point to his theological method as the main progressive inheritance he passed on. ⁴⁷

Inspiration of Scripture, to Dodge, was not a necessary doctrine to Christianity. What was more foundational was the inspiration of Christ, who left no writings. “Thus Christianity does not rest on the inspiration of any documents whatever.” ⁴⁸ Dodge understood inspiration to be both divine and human. By which he meant that it is something that God gives, and humans receive. Christ received more inspiration than any other, but it is true that the prophets and apostles likewise were inspired. In their inspiration they infallibly recorded the spiritual heights that they were experiencing. When someone reads Scripture, the Spirit of God works in a dynamic manner to secure intelligibility. ⁴⁹ How this works is a mystery to Dodge. Yet it is true that “there is a double authorship in each and every part of the inspired discourse or writing. It is co-extensive with it. The divine thought is awakened in the human thought. God so touches the hidden springs of the human soul that his own idea re-appears in the human conception and the human language.” ⁵⁰ Thus infallibility only applies to the spiritual teaching and matters of religion. Dodge explained: “The seeming discrepancies of Scripture and its apparent mistakes must be left to the Biblical critic. The terms infallible and infallibility used in this section, are to be taken in a relative sense. They affirm only the supreme authority of the Bible in the sphere of religion.” ⁵¹

Theology was to be done, then, not by stringing together proof texts. That method could not get one to the infallible religious teaching. The Christian needed to experience the religious truth that Scripture contained in its stories. “Christian consciousness,” then, became a hallmark of his theology. ⁵² As the Spirit worked to illuminate the theologian, this Christian consciousness became a legitimate source of theology. Dodge found a basis for his view of Christian consciousness in his Trinitarianism, in which he saw God as absolute personality. For Dodge, the three persons of the Trinity each have a self-consciousness and together compose perfect or absolute personality. “There appears to be reason to hold that there are natural elements in God’s self-consciousness, composing a Triunity in him, on which are founded the three self-manifestations that make up the Trinity.” ⁵³

Dodge’s famous student, William Newton Clarke, was not convinced of Dodge’s progressivism when he was a student. Yet over time Clarke came to appreciate Dodge and his method. ⁵⁴ Clarke explained what Dodge bequeathed to him: “I had almost demanded, as I acknowledged to him long afterword, that his theology be dictated to him by the Bible. But by this time I had learned that instead of being dictated by the Bible, a man’s theology should be inspired in him by the Bible—or more truly, inspired in him through the Bible.” ⁵⁵ The essence of Clarke’s liberalism was, by his own admission, taught to him by Dodge.

Another of Dodge’s students, C. H. Dodd, argued that Dodge was a precursor to the New Theology:

I think there can be little doubt that all that seemed most original in the New Theology, as formulated first by the Andover School, had been present for years in the vital, human type of theology which Doctor Dodge taught at Hamilton. He was its pioneer but never its controversialist; holding as he did that conservatism is as much the duty of the theologian as the breaking into new fields of thought and the resolute use of what is found there. ⁵⁶

This nicely encapsulates Dodge’s attempt to straddle the conservative and progressive worlds. Though, one certainly can question how much of the conservative theology was retained. This gives understanding to the way he was a “moderate.” Dodge taught a progressive theology based on a progressive theological method, and there were some who carried that mantle after he was gone.

Summary

Robinson and Dodge, as fountainheads of this moderate theology, helped provide a course for later progressive thinkers. They both had progressive views of Scripture, of theological method, and of various specific theological loci. Both men hesitated to go too far since they were aware that this could upset many in their constituencies, but they certainly went beyond the bounds of typical conservatism. It may not surprise many to hear that mediating seminary theologians were pushing the progressive boundaries, but it may surprise some to see that a conservative theologian had similar tendencies.

The Conservative

The major conservative theologian to consider is the figure of Alvah Hovey (1820–1903). Hovey was the most prominent professor at the flagship northern Baptist seminary, Newton Theological Institute, from 1849–1903. He held many positions during his long tenure, including president of the school from 1868–1898. But the most relevant for this study was his position as theology professor, which post he took starting in the 1850s. Hovey taught theology to half a century of Baptist ministers and leaders, and this was only a small fraction of his influence. Hovey had a prolific pen, publishing dozens of books, articles, and reviews, along with editing the American Commentary on the New Testament (and later the same commentary set on the Old Testament). If one was seeking the conservative Baptist theological opinion of the day, Hovey’s was the voice to which one turned. ⁵⁷ The President of Colgate, George Merrill, said the following of Hovey:

He was a leader with a conscience that not only made him loyal to the new demands of truth, but kept him loyal to the old faith until the new demands could be rightly obeyed. And so hosts of men, young ministers and old ministers, and the laymen of our churches, felt that a position taken by Doctor Hovey was the position they ought to take. I have heard him called the Baptist pope of New England. It was not because he ever tried to exercise any authority. He never spoke ex cathedra. But it was because he was recognized as a safe teacher; because he would never take a position that he did not believe must be taken. ⁵⁸

Not only was Hovey, as David Dockery described him, the “foremost theologian of the day,” ⁵⁹ but he could claim another significant conservative seminary theologian, George Dana Boardman Pepper (1833–1913) of Crozer Theological Seminary, as a protégé. Indeed, Pepper explicitly admitted that his theology was largely that of Hovey’s. ⁶⁰ Outside of the seminaries, Hovey could also claim leading conservatives Adoniram Judson Gordon and Calvin Goodspeed as students, among the more than one thousand students who passed through his classroom.

Hovey is universally described as a conservative theologian, and, on the whole, that is a fair description. However, even within his largely conservative theology there are a handful of significant deviations. Historians Norman Maring and William Brackney argue that Hovey modified his views of inspiration in his later works, reflecting an acquiescence toward critical opinions. ⁶¹ In contrast to Maring and Brackney, it can be argued that Hovey did not modify his view so much as lengthen his explanation and increase his caveats as he lived further into the later nineteenth century. Hovey was not taken by the conclusions of the higher critical studies of scripture, though he believed the practice had its place. In sum: “On the whole, it is quite clear that Hovey held to a consistently conservative view of biblical inspiration and authority, even if he also remained somewhat open and welcoming to new formulations.” ⁶²

In terms of theological method, Hovey again walked a careful line. On the one hand, Hovey respected the general heritage of Christian orthodoxy and felt a responsibility toward it. On the other hand, he was self-consciously not dependent upon any theological tradition. His own school, Newton, purposefully rejected having any confessional standard, and it initially did not have a place for systematic theology in its curriculum. It was thought that such bounds would stunt the practice of honest biblical interpretation. ⁶³ Similarly, Hovey accepted the idea of free inquiry and felt all the new methods and conclusions of modern theology ought to be given a hearing. But most of the time he did not find that they were convincing. And, despite seeing the limitations of human reasoning and of the knowability of Scripture and the world, Hovey saw theology as a scientific enterprise. He saw Christianity as essentially reasonable. In sum, his theological method was, for the most part, conservative. ⁶⁴ Thus, in his view of the Bible and his view of theological method, Hovey felt the pull of progressive theology but largely resisted. He did, however, not only tolerate most progressive views (though he did oversee the expulsion of a liberal teacher from Newton, Ezra Palmer Gould), but appreciated them. ⁶⁵

Other areas of his theology leaned more prominently away from traditional conservatism. In his view of the imputation of sin and the nature of the atonement, Hovey espoused views dependent on the Edwardsianism that became prominent in New England in the late eighteenth century and continued through much of the nineteenth. ⁶⁶ Hovey resisted saying that humans bear responsibility for the guilt of Adam’s sin. Rather, Hovey argued that “it would be in many respects better to say, that he is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil, and for the disobedience of Adam.” ⁶⁷ This carried over into his atonement theology, where he held to “a species of the governmental theory.” ⁶⁸ He discussed the penal consequences of sin, but the penalty given to humanity was not the actual penalty for Adam’s sin. Instead it was a suffering of the natural and spiritual consequences of Adam’s sin. Again, Adam’s guilt was not imputed. Since God’s overarching moral law was violated in Adam’s sin, and since, in Hovey’s theological logic, a suitable equivalent could function as a substitute, then the sufferings of a perfect posterity (Christ) could be that substitute. Hovey’s denial of the imputation of Adamic guilt and his governmental-like theory of the atonement was dependent on the New School Edwardsianism of the nineteenth century. This fact was not lost on Hovey’s fellow (and younger) northern Baptist theological colleague, Augustus Hopkins Strong, who saw Hovey’s theology here as a “decided verging toward the New School view.” ⁶⁹

While Hovey’s view of imputation and his atonement theory might be considered an understandable aberration in the direction of a contemporaneous theological tradition (though that is surely debatable), this was only one instance of Hovey’s lack of sympathy with classic theological discussions. When reading Hovey’s theology, one is struck by the near absence of Trinitarianism, save for in a few disparate sections and a separate article wherein little more than the basic facts of Trinitarianism were asserted. ⁷⁰ Another example would be that Hovey held to Monothelitism, or the view that Christ had only one will, which was excluded at the Third Council of Constantinople (ad 680–681). Another example could be Hovey’s discussions of the eternal generation of the Son. In his initial theology textbook, the 1870 Outlines of Christian Theology, Hovey did not see any need or biblical defense of the doctrine. In his next edition, the 1877 Manual of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, Hovey shortened his comment on the issue and relegated it to a footnote. And by his final edition, the 1900 Manual of Christian Theology, the footnote, and any reference to eternal generation, was left out. To summarize: “There seems to have been a freedom to depart from and/or a tendency to neglect classical discussions.” ⁷¹ The tradition that Chase had created at Newton was carried forward in many ways by Hovey. Though the majority of his theology was undeniably conservative, he made several concessions toward modern thought, and even followed that path in a few areas.

Summary

It is surprising that a staunch conservative such as Hovey made some of the theological moves that he did. Especially relevant were his denial of the imputation of Adamic guilt, his atonement theology, and his general willingness to abandon or toss out highly significant theological discussions. No doubt, he was not as far to the theological left as Robinson and Dodge, or their various proteges, but Hovey had his breaks with conservatism as well. When one considers Hovey’s place and significance, these were moves not without historical significance. What is being argued is not that Hovey was a closet liberal or even a closet progressive/moderate. He was thoroughly conservative. However, his theological positions were not all conservative, and his attitude toward traditional categories was ambivalent, both of which tendencies highlight a particular theological method.

Conclusion

This paper has briefly considered two significant moderate theologians and the most important conservative theologian of the northern Baptist tradition at the moment in time when this tradition first had professional theologians publishing their theology. These three men represent the second generation of northern Baptist seminary theology. They took what the first generation had given and developed it. The next (third) generation would develop it even further. The choice by these three theologians—in which they were merely following their predecessors Sears and Chase—to decline any confessional standard, to work from a biblicist foundation, to utilize free inquiry, and to build a positive theology from that foundation was significant. Chase and Sears had passed on a methodology, but not a constructive/positive theology. Hovey, Robinson, and Dodge took up that task. When constructing their theologies, they often shied away from traditional concepts and terms in favor of terms that had explicit biblical warrant or those that were more fashionable at the time. ⁷²

What seems clear is that men like Robinson and Dodge took from Chase and Sears the necessity to think freely and construct new models of theology altogether. Hovey used the method but largely retained a conservative theological construction, though even he felt the need to modify in those points where the new method declared the old construction to be too speculative or arbitrary rather than firmly exegetical. ⁷³ Robinson used the method also, and tried the old option along the way, but eventually settled on a progressive construction. Dodge somewhat followed the new method, and felt he had to give a customary nod to the old constructions while substantially creating something new. Though Dodge began to go beyond the method also in the sense that he began to reject the exegetical base (biblicism) in favor of Christian consciousness providing the building blocks of theology. A key issue in this discussion, it appears, is one’s view of the Bible. Hovey retained a conservative view of Scripture—its authority, inspiration, and inerrancy—while Dodge and Robinson left behind such notions. Chase’s method, when still attached to biblical authority, inspiration, and inerrancy, could produce a theological conservatism like Hovey’s. Chase’s method, when detached from the same moorings, led to theological progressivism (and, perhaps, as Dodge’s example suggests, a modification of the method as well).

With these things in mind, a few observations can be made. Not discounting previous arguments other historians have made concerning the theological change toward progressive theology, this paper has shown (in brief) that another aspect needs to be considered, namely, that even among theologians who were essentially conservative or moderate there were significant progressive tendencies. In their theological methodology, in their attitude toward sources, and in certain theological positions they shared some common ground with New Theologians. The primary assertion is that if the New Theology, in part, was a rejection of formalized foundations and a tendency to significantly modify or even reject key classical conceptions, then so-called conservatives and moderates share much in common with their progressive counterparts. A significant reason that conservatives and moderates tolerated the modifications of the progressive New Theology was because their own theology made similar modifications. Of the second-generation theologians, Hovey carried the older positional conservatism forward, along with its occasional theological improvisation. Robinson and Dodge went beyond mere improvisation and developed theologies that challenged the so-called conservative consensus.

In sum, hidden bridges to progressive theology were present not only in their tolerance of progressive thought, but also in their own method, their own attitude toward sources, and in their own theology. Theological improvisation and novelty were part of the tradition itself. By the time that American Baptists had professional theologians publishing theology, they were already operating on shifted ground. It should not come as a significant surprise that a further shift happened under the direction of their students. Theologizing on shifting ground was their inheritance.

1. Dr. Shrader is Associate Professor of Church History at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth, MN.[↩]
2. The New Theology was common nomenclature of the day for the progressive or liberal theology developing in the United States. This paper will utilize these three designations interchangeably. These will be distinguished both from the conservatives and the moderates. While not all agree on who fits into each of these latter two categories, it is generally recognized that there were conservatives as well as some who were somewhere between conservative and liberal.[↩]
3. The most important explorations are Daniel Day Williams, The Andover Liberals: A Study in American Theology (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1941); Lloyd J. Averill, American Theology in the Liberal Tradition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967); William R. Hutchison, ed., American Protestant Thought in the Liberal Era (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1968); Kenneth Cauthen, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1983); William R. Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992); and Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, 1805–1900 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001).[↩]
4. The guideposts that are normally agreed upon are not precisely equal to what I am using in this paper. This is because the purpose of this paper is not to argue that conservatives or moderates should be categorized as liberals, it is that they share some of the same tendencies. Gary Dorrien notes that liberalism was essentially a mediating movement between the rationalism of Deism and the authoritarianism of traditional orthodoxy (Gary Dorrien, Making of American Liberal Theology, 10–11).[↩]
5. Dorrien, Cauthen, Averill, Williams, and Hutchison all agree that liberalism rejected traditional notions of authority in favor of an experience-based or reason-based theological methodology (Williams, The Andover Liberals, 170–76; Averill, American Theology in the Liberal Tradition, 100; Hutchison, American Protestant Thought in the Liberal Era, 3–4; Cauthen, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism, 5ff; and Dorrien, Making of American Liberal Theology, 10–11).[↩]
6. Claude Welch observed that theological method was perhaps the major issue of nineteenth-century theology (“Nineteenth Century: An Overview,” in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, ed. Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 481–86). Welch also pointed to “the question of the possibility of Christology, and … the question of Christianity and culture.” Welch saw all three of these as interweaving thematically and historically, yet he also them as predominating three successive time periods: the period dominated by the repercussions of revolution (1799–1835), the period of transition surrounding the collapse of idealism (1835–1870), and the period of industrialization (1870–1914). See Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972, 1985), 1:4. While American Baptists do not fit precisely within Welch’s periodization, they certainly struggled with these same issues.[↩]
7. James Turner argued that a lack of a confessional foundation was the major turning point (James Turner, Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985]).[↩]
8. For classic presentations of some of the specific places where liberalism changed theology, see Averill, American Theology in the Liberal Tradition, 69–84; and Cauthen, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism, 6–25. One could also consult J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923).[↩]
9. This story is told in depth in Jeffrey Paul Straub, The Making of a Battle Royal: The Rise of Liberalism in Northern Baptist Life, 1870–1920, Monographs in Baptist History (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2018).[↩]
10. William Hutchison argues that this was because, after the Civil War, liberalism was on the ascendency within the denominations (American Protestant Thought in the Liberal Era, 3–4). Kevin Bauder and Robert Delnay argue that among northern Baptists there were at least a handful of “keys to liberal success,” including a changing intellectual climate, charismatic leaders, public support, ignorance and imprecision on the part of conservatives, political ability of the liberals, and social support (One in Hope and Doctrine: Origins of Baptist Fundamentalism 1870–1950 [Schaumburg, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 2014], 39–43. This article is taking the “ignorance and imprecision” charge and expanding. I am arguing that northern Baptist conservatives and moderates were ignorant of the danger largely because they had succumbed to it in certain respects in their own thought.[↩]
11. Straub, Making of a Battle Royal, likewise focused on the seminaries as the place where the liberal hegemony most significantly manifested itself. Straub’s focus was on the explicitly liberal theologians, and mostly those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (what I will call the third generation). This paper focuses on the conservatives and moderates of an earlier time frame (what I will call the second generation) and where they demonstrate progressive tendencies.[↩]
12. The five major seminaries in the North were Newton Theological Institute (Newton Centre, MA, founded 1825), Colgate Theological Seminary (Madison, NY, founded 1832/1834), Rochester Theological Seminary (Rochester, NY, founded 1850), Morgan Park Theological Seminary (Morgan Park, IL, founded 1867), and Crozer Theological Seminary (Upland, PA, founded 1867). The other major theological school in the Unites States was the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (founded 1859) of Furman University in Greenville, SC. This school disconnected from Furman and moved to Louisville, KY in 1877.[↩]
13. As the longer name describes, this national group was formed in 1814 for the purpose of mission work, but the issue of education was formally brought before the group by Richard Furman at their second meeting in 1817. See also William H. Brackney, “Triumph of the National Spirit: The Baptist Triennial Conventions, 1814–1844,” American Baptist Quarterly 4 (1985): 168.[↩]
14. Roger Hayden, “William Staughton: Baptist Educator and Missionary Advocate,” Foundations 10 (January–March 1967): 26–27; Samuel W. Lynd, Memoir of the Rev. William Staughton, D.D. (Boston: Lincoln, Edmands, and Company, 1834), 160; and Thomas J. Nettles, “William Staughton,” in A Noble Company: Biographical Essays on Notable Particular-Regular Baptists in America, vol. 7, ed. Terry Wolever (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 2016), 123.[↩]
15. William Brackney, Congregation and Campus: Baptists in Higher Education (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008), 104–8; and Elmer Louis Kayser, Bricks Without Straw: The Evolution of George Washington University (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970), 32. Columbian subsequently lost its connection to the Triennial Convention, was financially bailed out by the United States Congress in 1928, moved from its Baptist identity, and was eventually renamed George Washington University in 1904.[↩]
16. For more of this history, see William H. Brackney, “Nurseries of Piety or the School of Christ? Means and Models of Baptist Ministerial Education in Early America,” in Faith, Life and Witness: The Papers of the Study and Research Division of the Baptist World Alliance 1986–1990, ed. William H. Brackney and Ruby J. Burke (Birmingham, AL: Samford University Press, 1990), 117. See also William Hague, Christian Greatness on the Scholar. A Discourse on the Life and Character of Rev. Irah Chase, D.D. Professor of Biblical Theology in the Theological Institution at Newton, Mass. Delivered before the Society of Inquiry, at Newton, June 27, 1865 (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1866), 19; and Matthew C. Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity: Alvah Hovey and the Problem of Authority within the Context of Nineteenth-Century Northern Baptists, Monographs in Baptist History (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2021), 51–59.[↩]
17. Christian Greatness in the Scholar, 21.[↩]
18. “The office of ‘the system’ was to anticipate the Scriptures, as Calvin expressed it in the preface to the Strasbourg edition of his Institutes, where he says that the design of his work was, ‘So to prepare theological students for the reading of God’s Word, that they might easily commence their labors;’ and that, therefore, he had so arranged and explained the subjects, ‘that the reader might comprehend without difficulty what he was to find in the Holy Scriptures, and to what end he was to use all that to which they taught him’” (ibid., 21).[↩]
19. Ibid., 23.[↩]
20. More on the method and the significance of it can be found in Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought, 279–82; and Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 29–31. Chase struggled to find a suitable textbook that demonstrated this new method. In the end he utilized the book of Gottlob Christian Storr and Karl Christian Flatt, professors at Tübingen, which had additions by Samuel Schmucker, professor at the Lutheran seminary in Gettysburg. See also Hague, Christian Greatness in the Scholar, 25–29.[↩]
21. This dual confession was a unique circumstance which reflects the unique situation of its founding. For more, see Williams, The Andover Liberals, 1–7.[↩]
22. It took some time, but Newton did eventually teach a Christian Theology course, though this course was still very much in the vein of Chase’s method.[↩]
23. A School of the Church: Andover Newton across Two Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 31; see also “Newton Theological Institution,” American Baptist Magazine 6 (1826): 128–29; “Newton Theological Institution,” Baptist Missionary Magazine (October 1826): 308; and Newton Theological Institution: Sketches of Its History, and an Account of the Services at the Dedication of the New Building, September 10, 1866 (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1866).[↩]
24. Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859–2009 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 6–7.[↩]
25. Miscellanies (Philadelphia: Griffith and Rowland, 1912), 2:60.[↩]
26. Congregation and Campus, 281.[↩]
27. Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 32.[↩]
28. Barnas Sears, 64.[↩]
29. Alvah Hovey, Historical Address Delivered at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Newton Theological Institution, June 8, 1875 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1875), 36.[↩]
30. Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 33.[↩]
31. “As a Theologian,” in Ezekiel Gilman Robinson: An Autobiography; with a Supplement by H. L. Wayland and Critical Estimates, ed. E. H. Johnson (Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1896), 164.[↩]
32. See Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 29–34; and Norming H. Maring, “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible, 1865–1918, Part I,” Foundations 1 (1958): 56.[↩]
33. To gain perspective on how Sears was the fulcrum who taught the three second-generation men who then taught all the third-generation men, see the charts in David Thomas Dettmer Priestley, “From Theological Polemic to Nonpolemical Theology: The Absence of Denominational Apology in Systematic Theologies by Nineteenth-Century American Baptists” (Th.D. diss., Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1986), 96, 102.[↩]
34. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009. William H. Brackney recognizes similar categories in his Genetic History of Baptist Thought: With Special Reference to Baptists in Britain and North America (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 383.[↩]
35. Before going to Chicago to teach theology, Northrup taught church history for ten years at Rochester, counting a young Augustus Hopkins Strong as one of his students.[↩]
36. Lest one believes these classroom connections were not more than a little significant, these students paid explicit homage to their respective theology professors. The best source for this is the collection of essays in the “Critical Estimate” section in Robinson’s Autobiography: ; see also the examples in Gregory A. Thornbury, “The Legacy of Natural Theology in the Northern Baptist Theological Tradition, 1827–1918” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2001), 115–18.[↩]
37. See Straub, Making of a Battle Royal, 100–102.[↩]
38. Brackney and Thornbury discuss this, as does the preface to the published edition (Brackney, Genetic History of Baptist Thought, 321–22; Thornbury, “The Legacy of Natural Theology in the Northern Baptist Theological Tradition, 1827­–1918,” 115; Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, Christian Theology [Rochester: Press of E. R. Andrews, 1894], iii–v). This preface to Robinson’s Christian Theology was evidently published shortly after his death by a Mr. B. O. True.[↩]
39. Strong, “As a Theologian,” 165.[↩]
40. Ibid., 167.[↩]
41. Robinson, Christian Theology, 34.[↩]
42. Thornbury, “Legacy of Natural Theology,” 110.[↩]
43. Robinson, Christian Theology, 2.[↩]
44. Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, The Relation of the Church and the Bible: An Address Delivered before the Rhetorical Society of Rochester Theological Seminary on the Evening of May 15, 1866 (Rochester: Adams & Ellis, 1866).[↩]
45. Carl F. H. Henry, Personal Idealism and Strong’s Theology (Wheaton, IL: Van Kampen Press, 1951), 24ff; Thornbury, “The Legacy of Natural Theology in the Northern Baptist Theological Tradition, 1827–1918,” 114–15.[↩]
46. Thornbury, “Legacy of Natural Theology,” 117–18.[↩]
47. For a summary of these opinions on Dodge, see Charles H. Dodd, “Ebenezer Dodge: Pioneer in Experimental Theology,” Crozer Quarterly 2 (1925): 277–99; also see the brief discussion in Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought, 302; and Straub, Making of a Battle Royal, 100–102.[↩]
48. Ebenezer Dodge, Lectures on Christian Theology (Hamilton, NY: University Press, 1883), 93.[↩]
49. Ibid., 97.[↩]
50. Ibid., 97–98.[↩]
51. Ibid., 108.[↩]
52. On “Christian consciousness” in Dodge, see Dodd, “Ebenezer Dodge,” 283, 288.[↩]
53. Clarke, Outline of Christian Theology, 177 (italics added).[↩]
54. For more on Clarke’s dependence on Dodge, see Straub, Making of a Battle Royal, 100–102.[↩]
55. William Newton Clarke, Sixty Years with the Bible: A Record of Experience (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), 202–3.[↩]
56. Dodd, “Ebenezer Dodge,” 288.[↩]
57. Hovey was universally recognized in his day and subsequently as the leading figure of the day. See descriptions of Hovey in Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 12–14. The best source for biographical information on Hovey is still the biography by his son George Hovey, ed., Alvah Hovey: His Life and Letters (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1928).[↩]
58. Quoted in Hovey, Alvah Hovey, 244.[↩]
59. “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” in Theologians of the Baptist Tradition, ed. Timothy George and David S. Dockery (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 342.[↩]
60. Pepper did say this, but he may have been flattering Hovey somewhat. There are key differences as well. Garrett lists divine decrees, imputation theory, the threefold office of Christ, and ecclesiology as areas of difference (Garrett, Baptist Theology, 284).[↩]
61. Hovey produced a class manual of theology beginning in 1861 (though it is the 1870 version of this that has survived), titled Outlines of Christian Theology. He then published for wider consumption a Manual of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics in 1877 and then a Manual of Christian Theology in 1900. On the subject of inspiration, Hovey also produced a series of essays published in 1892 as part of a collection of essays titled, Studies in Ethics and Religion. For Maring and Brackney’s interpretation, see Maring, “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible, 1865–1918, Part I,” 58; Norman H. Maring, “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible, 1865–1918, Part II,” Foundations 1 (October 1958): 38; Brackney, Genetic History of Baptist Thought, 285–88; Brackney, Congregation and Campus, 261, 293.[↩]
62. Shrader, Thoughtful Christianity, 169.[↩]
63. Ibid., 29–31.[↩]
64. And, thus, not guilty of the charge of orthodox rationalism or democratization (ibid., 200–209).[↩]
65. Ibid., 148–54.[↩]
66. For a longer presentation of the effects of Edwardsianism on Hovey, see Matthew C. Shrader, “New England Baptist Alvah Hovey: A Later Chapter in Baptist Edwardsianism,” Jonathan Edwards Studies 10 (2020): 48–64.[↩]
67. Alvah Hovey, Manual of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1877), 151.[↩]
68. Shrader, “New England Baptist Alvah Hovey,” 62.[↩]
69. Augustus Hopkins Strong to Alvah Hovey, 15 October 1900, Alvah Hovey Papers, The Divinity Library, Yale Divinity School.[↩]
70. Alvah Hovey, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” in Baptist Doctrines: Being an Exposition, in a Series of Essays by Representative Baptist Ministers, of the Distinctive Points of Baptist Faith and Practice, ed. Charles A. Jenkins (St. Louis: Chancy R. Barns, 1880), 361–84.[↩]
71. Shrader, “New England Baptist Alvah Hovey,” 64, n. 59. Hovey’s lack of sensitivity to classic theological discussions is also noticed by Tom J. Nettles, By His Grace and for His Glory: A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 232.[↩]
72. R. Lucas Stamps has argued that the nineteenth- and twentieth-century tendency not to use the terms and categories of councils and creeds normally meant that “Baptist confessions became more ambiguous and open to heterodox interpretations” (“Baptists, Classic Christology, and the Christian Tradition,” in Baptists and the Christian Tradition: Towards an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity, ed. Matthew Y. Emerson, Christopher W. Morgan, and R. Lucas Stamps [Nashville: B&H, 2020], 103). This builds on Steven Harmon’s suggestion that the move away from conciliar terminology and toward biblical language only was meant to provide more room for individual conscience. “Confessions that expressed doctrine simply by means of biblical texts and biblical terminology allowed individuals to interpret those texts according to the dictates of their consciences” (Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision, Studies in Baptist History and Thought [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006], 81).[↩]
73. Previous historians have suggested that the Edwardsian and New School Calvinism that grew in the nineteenth century among Congregationalists and Presbyterians was an initial bridge toward liberalism. George Marsden suggested that part of the New School theological heritage was to promote a general tolerance for new conceptions of theology and a willingness to move beyond confessional theology. This was certainly present in Hovey’s conservative theology. Douglas Sweeney (following other scholars of the New England Theology in general, and of the New Haven Theology of Nathaniel Taylor in specific) has suggested that even though many of these were essentially conservative in substance, their sources and methods helped pave the way for liberal thinking. See George M. Marsden, “The New School Heritage and Presbyterian Fundamentalism,” Westminster Theological Journal 32 (May 1970): 129–47; Douglas A. Sweeney, Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 151–53. Sweeney also points to Frank Hugh Foster, A Genetic History of the New England Theology (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963) and Williams, The Andover Liberals.[↩]