Review of Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy
Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy.
By Paul C. Gutjahr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Reviewed by Jeff Straub
Professor of Historical Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary
One of the best ways to understand important historical movements is through the lives of those most directly involved. Charles Hodge (1797-1878) lived through the turbulent years of the mid 19th century and became, arguably, evangelical Christianity’s most important theological voice and defender. An “Old School” Presbyterian committed unflinchingly to the Westminster Confession, Hodge became the single most influential defender of conservative Presbyterianism in the years before Presbyterian orthodoxy felt the dissipating effects of theological liberalism at the end of the century. A great tragedy of historiography is that no significant biography of Hodge’s life and thought had been available since his son’s reminiscences, written within a few years of the great theologian’s death. This dearth has long puzzled historians of American Christianity. Happily this want has now been supplied with Paul C. Gutjahr very helpful and highly readable treatment of the grand theologian.
Gutjahr takes the reader through fifty-seven concise but insightful chapters to chronicle major events and accomplishments in Hodge’s long and prodigious career. Few seminary professors of any day have exerted the far-reaching and long-lasting influence that Charles Hodge had, as he trained more than three thousand students over his fifty-six year tenure at Princeton Seminary. Beyond his classroom influence on such theological successors as his own son Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, both of whom succeeded the grand old man in the chair of systematic theology at Princeton; and James Petigru Boyce, Baptist theologian and one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Hodge also engaged the theological conflicts of his day through his writings. As the editor of the Repository, Hodge articulated and defined a narrow Princetonian, “Old School” orthodoxy. He wielded his pen against such widely controversial figures as Charles Finney, Horace Bushnell, Nathaniel W. Taylor and even his conservative Presbyterian colleague James Henley Thornwell, with whom Hodge debated the contentious issue of slavery. It is in Gutjahr’s treatment of the slavery issue and the subsequent turmoil within a divided American Presbyterianism that Gutjahr renders some of his most valuable service. While Hodge himself never really rejected slavery, he also never went as far in defending the institution as had the Southern Presbyterians like Thornwell; however, Hodge does stand as a vigorous Christian supporter of a most unfortunate human institution. But Gutjahr, in an unvarnished way, allows the reader to feel Hodge’s own conflicts and inconsistencies with slavery, including the angst caused by disruptions in the Union and within his beloved Presbyterianism. For Hodge, slavery was treated in the same forthright way as other pernicious questions—What does the Bible say? Herein was his conflict: because the Bible appears to sanction slavery, if not commending it outright, Hodge thought it ill-advised to reject it out of hand. It is this kind of theological tension that makes for an interesting read. Charles Hodge is an important historical figure to considered. Gutjahr is to be thanked for his attention to these details.
Gutjahr’s selection and arrangement of historical materials is helpful. He incorporates a substantial amount of collateral details on significant persons and events that intersect with Hodge’s life, fleshing out the larger storyline in which Hodge found himself. This telling of the larger story makes this book a significant contribution to the study of 19th century American religious history in general and Presbyterianism in particular. In bringing Charles Hodge to life in vivid detail, Gutjahr unavoidably also chronicles the major theological controversies of 19th century Presbyterianism. Hodge contented for a strict Westminster view of Presbyterianism that conflicted with revivalism, the New School, New Haven theology, and theological liberalism. As the “guardian of American orthodoxy,” Hodge boasted that no new theological ideas were conceived at Princeton during his watch. It became the bastion of historic Augustinian Calvinism. Whether or not one agrees with Hodge’s unflinching Calvinism, there can be no doubt that he remains an important, if under-appreciated theological powerhouse of the 19th century. Gutjahr’s work also demonstrates why Charles Hodge is important beyond Presbyterianism as his theological influence reached into other denominations, especially among the Southern Baptists and later into transdenominational fundamentalism through another theological successor, J. Gresham Machen. This is a book that deserves a careful reading by evangelicals across the theological landscape as the shadow of Charles Hodge continues to hang over the movement through a new generation of younger Calvinists who stand as the heirs of Hodge’s orthodoxy. Finally, Gutjahr shows through Hodge’s life both the necessity and manner of defending Christian orthodoxy. Theological debate is not something the Hodge sought out but it was a duty thrust upon him by both the times in which he lived and the circumstances which he faced. He was no mere Don Quixote tilting at specious theological windmills. He faced real doctrinal adversaries who views undermined the essentials of both Presbyterianism and Christian orthodoxy. The issues were too important to leave Hodge sitting on the sidelines as a spectator. He entered the conflict and drew his sword, unafraid of the consequences. In this effort, he serves as a grand example of a “defender” of orthodoxy.
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