New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812–1929
January 23, 2025
Description
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.
Table of Contents
1. Samuel Miller on the Life of the Mind: Re‑imagining the Princeton Paradigm, Paul Kjoss Helseth
2. Reformed Orthodoxy, Old Princeton, and Natural Theology, Kevin DeYoung
3. Archibald Alexander and the Philosophy of Common Sense, Michael Plato
4. Jonathan Edwards, Old Princeton, and American Calvinism, Robert W. Caldwell III
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
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