THE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY: FROM JONATHAN EDWARDS TO EDWARDS AMASA PARK

Written by DOUGLAS A. SWEENEY AND ALLEN C. GUELZO, EDS. Reviewed By Oliver D. Crisp

New England Theology is arguably the most significant indigenous theological movement yet to have appeared in the United States. It started with the close disciples of Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), particularly Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, who took various aspects of Edwards’ thinking and began to synthesize them into a whole. This process was continued by Edwards’ son, Jonathan Edwards Jr., and then through a line of mainly Congregational theologian-pastors whose sphere of influence centred on several prominent theological schools on the eastern seaboard of the US, particularly Yale Divinity School and, latterly, Andover Theological Seminary. In the process of development, the movement changed. In the process of change, the central ideas of Edwards Senior, though still formative for those who took their cue from the New Englanders, were altered, so that what began as an idiosyncratic form of Calvinism was eventually to become a beast of quite a different stripe. Yet, for all that, the central concerns of the movement were still distinctively Edwardsian: the freedom of the will, original sin, soteriology, mission, the morphology of conversion, and true virtue.

There were several textbooks written on the New England Theology as its influence began to wane at the end of the nineteenth century. But since that time, there has been almost no serious account of this important movement apart from several notable scholarly monographs. Moreover, access to the primary texts has been restricted to those able to get hold of Victorian copies of texts like Edwards Amasa Park’s The Atonement. This seems incredible since this theological movement was a force to be reckoned with in US theology from the latter part of the eighteenth century through to the late nineteenth century. For these reasons Sweeney and Guelzo are to be congratulated for putting into the hands of the public a first class collection of writings by representatives of this group.

The selections made by the editors are judicious, careful, and characteristic of the themes that marked the movement as a whole. Drawing upon Edwards Senior in the first place, as the fountainhead of the movement, the excerpts take in the phases of its development chronologically, to include theologians like Bellamy, Hopkins, Edwards Jr., and Nathaniel Emmons: the first and second generation of ‘Edwardeans’ as they were often styled.

Then follows several sections on key theological issues for the New Englanders, on the moral government of God (including the New England version of the so-called governmental theory of the atonement), and ethical issues, with particular reference to the question of slavery. The latter portions of the collection highlight the later phases of the movement. So there are selections from the ‘New Haven’ theology of theologians like Nathaniel Taylor, the appropriation of some of the New England themes by Charles Finney, and selections from the last of the group, Edwards Amasa Park. There is a final retrospective section including selections from Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame, herself a critic of the theology of New England and its puritan heritage. The Introduction to the whole project is clear, well-written, and helpful, particularly in charting the rise, fall, and eclipse of the movement in subsequent religious historiography. This is sure to be a very valuable work for anyone interested in the development of theology in the nineteenth century. But it also has much to teach theologians working today (e.g. the material on the atonement). Here is theological meat indeed. Taste it and see.


Oliver D. Crisp

University of Notre Dame

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