The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards in the Theology of Andrew Fuller

Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-90-04-22784-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 162, 244 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

Reihe: Studies in the History of Christian Traditions

This book focuses on the legacy of Jonathan Edwards on the Particular Baptists by way of apprehending theories held by their congregations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In particular, special attention is directed to the Edwardsean legacy as manifested in the theology of Andrew Fuller. The monograph positions itself between Edwards and Fuller in the transatlantic, early modern period and attempts by the two theologians to express a coherent understanding of traditional dogma within the context of the Enlightenment. The scope of the research traces Fuller’s theological indebtedness by way of historical reconstruction, textual expositions, and theological and philosophical implications of the following works: Freedom of the Will, Religious Affections, Humble Attempt, and Justification by Faith Alone et al.

Zielgruppe

Due to the groundbreaking nature of this mongraph, the primary audience would be historians, research students, and theological educators. However, scholarly ministers and those who are interested in transatlantic Edwardsean legacy as well as Baptist history could profit from this book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chun, Chris

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie Christliche Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen Baptisten
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie Geschichte der Theologie, Einzelne Theologen

Leseproben

Excerpts from the Foreword by Stephen R. Holmes:

“It will not be news to students of Baptist history that Andrew Fuller found the ideas that enabled him to develop his new theology through reading the American Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards. Fuller is open concerning his debt, and honest about the extent of it. That said, the details of the story - when Fuller read this or that work of Edwards’s; the extent of Edwards’s influence on Fuller; the question of whether Fuller slavishly followed, or brought something original to the development - have never been properly examined. It is to Chris Chun’s great credit that, in this monograph, he has taken on this work. The reasons for the previous failure are not difficult to determine: Edwards’s corpus is voluminous and theologically taxing; tracing Fuller’s reading in it is not easy; adequately discounting alternative sources demands a wide knowledge of eighteenth-century Baptist life. If the question was an obvious one to ask, it was equally obvious that to answer it well would require a rare combination of theological acumen and detailed historical knowledge. Chun, however, brings both admirable theological ability and historical knowledge in abundance to the task, and succeeds admirably in it. He knows Edwards’s thought as well as he knows Fuller’s, and knows where both differ from their surrounding context. The reader of this volume will not find simplistic assumptions that a coincidence of views must demonstrate influence, but subtle, measured, and convincing arguments based on a thorough evaluation of the details of the data available.
This book will not just interest, but excite, scholars of Fuller’s thought, and indeed scholars of wider Baptist traditions. Historical theology, as a discipline, is out of fashion: church historians have, with only a few exceptions, turned their attentions to social, cultural, and even economic history - all are valuable, but that is not to say that the history of ideas is not - and theologians seem generally impatient of the careful scholarly work needed to do history well. We should be grateful to Chun, not just for the excellence of his work in this book, but for the timely reminder that patient and detailed historical work, coupled with a perceptive theological insight, can produce results that are not just worthy in scholarly terms, but important for wider narratives, and fascinating in themselves.”

Stephen R. Holmes
Senior Lecturer in Theology
St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews
Scotland, U.K.

Foreword by Stephen R. Holmes

Andrew Fuller has a high place in the history of the Baptist movement. As he came to faith, the Particular Baptist denomination in Britain was in danger of disappearing into an ultra-orthodox irrelevance, many parts of it so fascinated with charting every twist of the labyrinth of Calvinist practical theology that the Evangelical Revival was in danger of passing it by. Fuller is credited with writing the text - The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation - that enabled Baptists to become Evangelicals, confident in the gospel and active in its service, instead of just endlessly analytic and paralyzed. The greatest fruit of the Evangelical Calvinist movement - a movement that quickly became known as ‘Fullerism’ - was the foundation, in 1792, of the Baptist Missionary Society, and with it the modern missionary movement. If William Carey is rightly to be credited with the initial vision, and honoured as the first missionary, Fuller was the necessary home support, tirelessly raising funds to enable the work to continue and grow.

‘Fullerism’ was not a short-lived movement, however. Its greatest exponent was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whose translation of Fuller’s evangelical Calvinism into the vernacular of working class London was so powerful that his sermons were published across the world, and he became recognised as one of the dozen or so leading figures of Victorian Britain. It is not an exaggeration to say that all mainstream Baptists in Britain today are descendants, theologically, of Andrew Fuller: whilst a few churches that deny (in the manner of the more populous American Primitive Baptist tradition) the teaching of ‘duty-faith’ can be found, and whilst the present Baptist Union of Great Britain found space in its ranks for evangelical Arminians from the New Connexion and not just Fullerite Calvinists, the core of the tradition is the churches that came to believe as Fuller taught.

It will not be news to students of Baptist history that Fuller found the ideas that enabled him to develop his new theology - notably the distinction between ‘moral’ and ‘natural’ inability - through reading the American Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards. Fuller is open concerning his debt, and honest about the extent of it. That said, the details of the story - when Fuller read this or that work of Edwards’s; the extent of Edwards’s influence on Fuller; the question of whether Fuller slavishly followed, or brought something original to the development - have never been properly examined however. It is to Dr Chun’s great credit that, in this monograph, he has taken on this work.

The reasons for the previous failure are not difficult to determine: Edwards’s corpus is voluminous and theologically taxing; tracing Fuller’s reading in it is not easy; adequately discounting alternative sources demands a wide knowledge of eighteenth-century Baptist life. If the question was an obvious one to ask, it was equally obvious that to answer it well would require a rare combination of theological acumen and detailed historical knowledge. There are many ways to get published, even within academic theology, that are simply easier, if also less worthwhile. Dr Chun, however, brings both admirable theological ability and historical knowledge in abundance to the task, and succeeds admirably in it. He knows Edwards’s thought as well as he knows Fuller’s, and knows where both differ from their surrounding context. The reader of this volume will not find simplistic assumptions that a coincidence of views must demonstrate influence, but subtle, measured, and convincing arguments based on a thorough evaluation of the details of the data available.

To offer only one example of the point, consider the exegetical material found in both Edwards and Fuller on ‘the slaying of the witnesses’ in Rev. 11. An earlier generation of scholarship would have hurried past the point in both writers, seeing the attempt to read predictive prophecy out o

Über Autor(innen)

Chun, Chris
Chris Chun, Ph.D. (2008), University of St. Andrews, is Associate Professor of Church History
at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary near San Francisco, CA. He contributed chapters to Jonathan Edwards in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2011) and Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to America’s Theologian (Oxford, 2009).

Chris Chun, Ph.D. (2008), University of St. Andrews, is Associate Professor of Church History
at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary near San Francisco, CA. He contributed chapters to Jonathan Edwards in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2011) and Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to America’s Theologian (Oxford, 2009).