Theology in America E. BROOKS HOLIFIELD Theology in America CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FROM THE AGE OF THE PURITANS TO THE CIVIL WAR Yale University Press New Haven & London Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund and Emory University. Copyright ∫ 2003 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Sabon type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Holifield, E. Brooks. Theology in America: Christian thought from the age of the Puritans to the Civil War / E. Brooks Holifield. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-300-09574-0 (alk. paper) 1. Theology, Doctrinal—United States—History. I. Title. bt30.u6h65 2003 230%.0972—dc21 2003042289 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. isbn 0-300-10765-x (pbk. : alk. paper) 109876543 Contents Preface vii 1 Introduction: Theology in America 1 Part 1. Calvinist Origins 2 The New England Calvinists 25 3 Rationalism Resisted 56 4 Nature, the Supernatural, and Virtue 79 5 Jonathan Edwards 102 6 Fragmentation in New England 127 Part 2. The Baconian Style 7 The Deists 159 8 Evidential Christianity 173 9 Unitarian Virtue 197 10 Universal Salvation 218 vi Contents 11 Episcopal Theology and Tradition 234 12 Methodist Perfection 256 13 The Baptists and Calvinist Diversity 273 14 Restoration 291 15 Roots of Black Theology 306 16 The Immediacy of Revelation 319 17 Calvinism Revised 341 18 ‘‘True Calvinism’’ Defended 370 Part 3. Alternatives to Baconian Reason 19 Lutherans: Reason, Revival, and Confession 397 20 Catholics: Reason and the Church 415 21 The Transcendentalists: Intuition 434 22 Horace Bushnell: Christian Comprehensiveness 452 23 The Mercersburg Theology: Communal Reason 467 24 Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker: Transcendental Catholicism 482 25 The Dilemma of Slavery 494 26 Afterword 505 Notes 513 Index 597 Preface My intention in this book is to argue that one important feature of Christian religious life in early America was an extensive tradition of theologi- cal reflection and that this tradition engaged American writers from multiple religious backgrounds in a vast conversation that linked them to a trans- Atlantic world. I do not propose to reveal the meaning of America, to insist that theology preoccupied ordinary Americans, or to suggest that theological texts unlock the meaning of American religious experience. I try simply to show that Christian theology in America was part of a community of dis- course that stretched back to the first century and across the Atlantic to Eu- rope and that certain persisting themes and questions created a set of issues that reappeared for more than three centuries, drawing theologians from the nineteenth century into a conversation not only with each other but also with their predecessors. Among those questions, none was more important than that of the reasonableness of theology and of Christianity itself. More than forty years ago, my graduate school mentor, Sydney Ahlstrom, surveyed the history of Christian theology in America from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century in about a hundred pages of subtle interpretation. My book has a more restricted temporal range, from about 1636 to around 1865, but it expands considerably the scope, drawing mainly from 282 North American writers who represented more than twenty-five movements, tradi- vii viii Preface tions, and schools of thought. Like Ahlstrom, I underscore the trans-Atlantic context, but in my emphasis on evidential Christianity, rationality, practical- ity, ethics, denominations, persistent Calvinism, and the distinction between populist and academic theologians, I go in different directions from those Ahlstrom traveled. In his brief survey, Ahlstrom declined quite appropriately to explore what he called a ‘‘folk-theology’’ that he recognized as part of the nineteenth- century scene. In my account, ‘‘populist’’ theologians of various kinds promi- nently enter the picture. The historian must take them seriously because they created for themselves a place at the theological table and forced the academic theologians to take them seriously in order to counter their influence. While the term ‘‘populist’’ suggests for American readers a later nineteenth-century political and social movement, its appearance in this book recalls a usage current as early as the eighth century, when Alcuin, adviser of Charlemagne and abbot of Tours, cautioned against the proverb that the ‘‘vox populi’’ was the ‘‘vox Dei.’’ The appeal to the ‘‘people’’ as a source of authority became entangled with the medieval ‘‘plowman’’ tradition—praise of the religious insight of the simple uneducated plowman. The two themes helped form the theological landscape in America.∞ Even more prominent in this account, however, are the trained theologians who prevailed in the schools and in the early American denominations. I have written this book during an era in which most students of American religion have turned their attention away from literate elites, the history of ideas, the abstractions of intellectuals, and the activities of leaders. This turn has pro- duced a rich bounty of knowledge about lived religion, women in American religious communities, African-American Christianity, and ethnic diversity. It has virtually redefined American religious history. Yet knowledge of the theo- logical heritage can still inform readers interested in American history, early American religion, American literature, intellectual history, the theological disciplines, and religious studies. Rare was the discourse in early America in which theology had no role. Theological ideas have always had multivalent meanings and functions. They have expressed social impulses and group tensions, they have manifested the psychological dynamics of their authors, and they have provided slogans for maintaining group identity. The same language can change in force and meaning from one context to another, and no synoptic overview can excavate the multiple levels operative even in a local religious community. But theolo- gians have also brought to expression ancient yearnings to know the truth about mysteries that have puzzled the greatest intellects. They have tried to interpret the text of the Christian and Jewish scriptures accurately, to repre- Preface ix sent traditions consistently, and to rethink the language of a past era in chang- ing historical times. Even when I have noted how theological ideas embodied tensions with social and economic dimensions, I have read them as the ideas of people who were attempting to clarify the rationality of what they usually took to be a unique revelation. During the years in which I have labored over this manuscript, I have ac- cumulated more debts than I can ever hope to repay. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for research fellowships that en- abled me to spend two sabbatical years working on the book. The Pew En- dowment and the Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion pro- vided funding for a third year of research and writing. Emory University gave me leave time to complete the manuscript. The staff of the Pitts Theology Library at Emory was consistently helpful. Eerdmans Publishing Company granted me permission to use portions of my chapter on Charles Hodge in Charles Hodge Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of His Life and Work, edited by John W. Stewart and James Moorhead. I am grateful, as well, to readers who have generously given their time to the reading and criticism of earlier drafts. David D. Hall offered both encourage- ment and incisive criticism at a crucial stage. I am indebted to the criticisms and insights of Robert Bruce Mullin, Conrad Cherry, Mark Noll, Jonathan Strom, Glenn Hinson, Kim Boykin, Ted Smith, Paula Shakelton, Michael Turner, Hendrikus Boers, Stephen Gunter, Gregory Wills, Philip Thompson, Stacia Brown, Paul Thompson, Liberty Stewart, Remalian Cocar, Tom Burke, and my colleagues in the Historical Studies program of the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. 1 Introduction: Theology in America For more than a century in early colonial America, theologians ruled the realm of ideas. America’s first learned class consisted largely of Protestant clergy, and the relatively small number of pastors who published books of theology, or ‘‘divinity,’’ attained the status of the most learned of the learned. Until almost the dawning of the American Revolution, theologians exercised a singular authority in American print culture. Until late in the eighteenth cen- tury, they were, in each decade, the most-published authors in America. Their position of eminence faded after the Revolution, but even throughout the early nineteenth century, theology continued to command respect in American in- tellectual circles at the same time that it provided a vocabulary that informed the lived religion of ordinary Americans. When the Presbyterian minister Robert Baird interpreted American religion for European readers in 1843, he could boast of ‘‘a vast number of publications in every department of Chris- tian theology,’’ and he might have added that American theological journals were the most scholarly publications in the culture.∞ Theologians were the keepers of a language that flowed over into other fields of discourse. Confident that philosophy, rightly construed, supported theologi- cal truth, they crafted most of the early American philosophical texts. They were the primary expositors of the new discipline of ‘‘mental science,’’ the chief proponents of ‘‘moral science,’’ and avid participants in the formation of ‘‘natu- 1 2Introduction ral philosophy,’’ which would eventually transform itself into natural science.