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76 the SBJT Forum: Overlooked Shapers of Evangelicalism The SBJT Forum: Overlooked Shapers of Evangelicalism Editor’s Note: Readers should be aware of the Forum’s format. Timothy George, D. A. Carson, C. Ben Mitchell, Scott Hafemann, Carl F. H. Henry, and Greg Wills have been asked specific questions to which they have provided written responses. These writ- ers are not responding to one another. The journal’s goal for the Forum is to provide significant thinkers’ views on topics of interest without requiring lengthy articles from these heavily-committed individuals. Their answers are presented in an order that hopefully makes the Forum read as much like a unified presentation as possible. SBJT: Whom would you name as some- age twenty-eight Manly was called as one whose impact has been underesti- pastor of the oldest and most prestigious mated? Baptist church in the South, the First Timothy George: Basil Manly, Sr. (1798- Baptist Church of Charleston, succeeding 1868) was one of the most significant the venerable Richard Furman. shapers of the Southern Baptist tradition, Manly had a great influence on an en- although his legacy has been somewhat tire generation of younger ministers, in- eclipsed by his illustrious son, Basil cluding his own son and James Petigru Manly, Jr., one of the four faculty founders Boyce. Manly was Boyce’s mentor and of Southern Seminary and sometime father in the ministry. A strong advocate president of Georgetown College. For of theological education, Manly called for many years in the SBC, figures such as the creation of an Education Convention, Manly, Sr., if noticed at all, were mere which played an important role in the objects of affectionate obscurity. Now that eventual formation of Southern Seminary, it is once again acceptable to evaluate the over which Manly also presided as chair theology and historic importance of such of the first board of trustees. figures, Manly, Sr. deserves to be brought Manly is doubly significant in Baptist down from the shelf of historical curios- history in that he served as a bridge ity and refurbished as a model of pastoral between the more settled conditions of integrity, theological fidelity, and denomi- Baptist life on the eastern seaboard and Timothy George is the founding Dean national statesmanship. the expansion of Baptist life into what was of Beeson Divinity School of Samford Manly was born at Chatham County, then the western frontier, that is, the Ala- University, Birmingham, Alabama. He is North Carolina, on January 29, 1798. His bama wilderness. Manly served as the the author of John Robinson and the father was a Catholic but, like his mother, second president of the University of English Separatist Tradition, Theology of Basil became a Baptist. Converted to Alabama and also as pastor of the First the Reformers, and Faithful Witness: The Christ through the witness of a slave, he Baptist Churches of Tuscaloosa and Mont- Life of William Carey, as well as several was baptized in 1816 in the Haw River. gomery. After an interlude of four years scholarly articles. George also serves as Soon thereafter he was licensed to preach back in Charleston, he returned to Ala- a senior adviser for Christianity Today. in the Sandy Creek Baptist Association. At bama in 1859 as a church planter and 76 evangelist for the Alabama Baptist Con- to create. His chief vocation as a theolo- vention, in which capacity he dubbed gian was to pass the torch of Baptist himself the “Baptist Bishop of Alabama.” orthodoxy and evangelical Calvinism It is no surprise that Manly shows up from the giants of a bygone era, the Fur- on Brooks Holifield’s list of “gentlemen mans, Fullers, and Mercers, to a new theologians” who had a decisive effect on rising generation of powerful thinkers and Southern culture in the nineteenth cen- doers, the Boyces, Mells, and Brantley, Jrs. tury. Boyce described his itinerant preach- Manly opposed both Arminianism, which ing ministry thus: “His journeys were seemed to him to undermine the gratuity accompanied by melting hearts and of God’s free grace, and Landmarkism, streaming eyes.” He himself said that his which placed undue and unbiblical preaching was “always close and practi- restrictions on the fellowship of God’s cal, more like an earnest conversation people. Throughout his career, Manly’s directed immediately to an individual.” approach to the ministry was character- Many of his sermons survive in manu- ized by what might be called an “evan- script form. They deserve to be studied gelical ecumenicity.” Intensely loyal to closely as a model of fervent piety and Baptist principles, Manly did not hesitate sound learning. to hold fellowship with other Christians Manly’s most famous sermon was with whom he shared a commitment to delivered on a day of public prayer and the doctrines of historic Christian ortho- fasting following the inauguration of doxy. Eventually, most Southern Baptists Jefferson Davis as president of the Con- were able to shed the harshest husks of federacy. Taking his text from Judges 6:13, Landmarkism, but the rustic Arminianism “If the Lord be with us, why then is all of the frontier worked as a slow dissolvent this befallen us?,” Manly declared in the on Southern Baptist theology and piety. tradition of sound Reformed theology that On both fronts, Manly still has much to the people of God were not exempt from teach his spiritual descendants today. calamities of history. As chaplain to the Manly was, of course, a child of his times Confederate Congress, Manly was clearly as well as a shaper of his times. Like many a partisan on the Southern side, but in this Southern theologians of his day, he was sermon he transcended the politics of the blind to the horrible evils of slavery. His day to place the tragedy of the Civil War life was filled with both joy and struggle. in the context of divine transhistorical He was driven to do the will of God, as purposes. In its poignancy and insight, best he understood it, as faithfully as he this sermon is comparable to Abraham could, for as long as he could. When he Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. died in 1868, the Civil War was past, but Later, when his own son, Fuller, was miss- the scars of racism and poverty still ing in action at the Battle of Petersburg, plagued his beloved Southland. Both the he was forced to live out personally the glory and the suffering of Manly’s life re- message he had proclaimed. mind us that all of us stand desperately in As one of the leading pastor-theolo- need of God’s grace and tender mercies. gians of his generation, Manly had a great theological impact on the churches he served and the denomination he helped 77 SBJT: Whom would you name as some- served as the minister of St. Peter’s, one whose contributions have been over- Dundee, since 1836. Though he was the looked? minister of this one “kirk” (church), his D. A. Carson: I confess I find the assigned reputation extended all over Scotland and topic this quarter unusually difficult. It is beyond. Throughout Scotland he was not that I cannot think of anyone who referred to as “the saintly M’Cheyne.” might qualify. The problem is that there Where M’Cheyne excelled was in his are so many who might qualify, and I mix of serious study and eminent piety. cannot find adequate criteria for adjudi- While still a theological student in cating among them. A friend of mine who Edinburgh, he met regularly with Andrew named his son Calvin told me (his tongue Bonar, Horatius Bonar, and a handful of only slightly in his cheek) that he would other earnest ministers-in-training. The have preferred Oecolampadius, but that purpose of these informal meetings was too few people knew who this hero of the to pray, to study, and to work through magisterial reformation was. Many have Greek and Hebrew exercises—disciplines wondered how influential Balthasar M’Cheyne preserved throughout his short Hubmaier would have become in the life. This group of students took the Bible Anabaptist wing if he had not been killed so seriously in their living and preaching so young. To make the matter of criteria that when the eminent Thomas Chalmers, still more difficult, I have to admit that vari- then Professor of Divinity, heard of the ous writers were a help to me when I was way they approached the Bible, he said, at some stage or other of my pilgrimage, “I like these literalities.” even though later reflection has led me to M’Cheyne was constantly attempting think less of their views. When I was four- to foster serious Bible reading. He pre- teen years of age, I read Watchman Nee’s pared a chart for the people of his own The Normal Christian Life, and found it a parish to encourage them to read through, wonderful incentive to personal holiness. in one year, the New Testament and I remain grateful for that spur to Psalms twice, and the rest of the Old Tes- holiness, even though a little more study tament once. (That chart is still very much has convinced me that in his major empha- in use. John Stott has followed the ses Nee is exegetically dubious, theologi- M’Cheyne Bible reading scheme for cally mistaken, and sometimes pastorally decades.) To one young man he wrote, dangerous. So where do I rank him? Moreover, a choice like this should be You read your Bible regularly, of course; but do try and understand made with respect to the readership. If all it, and still more to feel it.
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