{"id":73816,"date":"2021-07-27T01:36:06","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T05:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=73816"},"modified":"2021-07-26T21:14:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T01:14:31","slug":"alvah-hovey-northern-baptists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2021\/07\/alvah-hovey-northern-baptists\/","title":{"rendered":"Alvah Hovey and the Northern Baptists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Today I\u2019m happy to welcome to the\u00a0<\/em>Bench\u00a0Clay Sidenbender, a freelance journalist based in Edwardsburg, MI.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month Anxious Bench\u00a0<\/em>contributor\u00a0Daniel K. Williams imagined<\/a> an evangelicalism where Northern evangelicalism was at the center instead of its Southern counterpart. This phenomenon actually happened in the mid to late-19th century, when Northern Baptists were the leaders in the denomination.<\/p>\n

\"Shrader,<\/a>In Thoughtful Christianity: Alvah Hovey and the Problem of Authority within the Context of Nineteenth-Century Northern Baptists<\/em><\/a> (Pickwick, 2021),\u00a0Matthew Shrader<\/a> of Central Baptist Seminary<\/a> (MN) recounts the story of Northern Baptists in the 19th\u00a0century. He does so by telling the story of Alvah Hovey, a reigning theological leader in Northern Baptist life as president of Newton Theological Institution<\/p>\n

In an interview with me, Shrader said that very little research had previously been done on the 19th century Northern Baptists. If people could identify a Northern Baptist from that time period they might know the names Francis Wayland, former president of Brown University, or Walter Rauschenbusch. Shrader wanted to find someone who represented the time period, and he found that Hovey embodied that person. \u201cHe was raised up in that very early Baptist theological milieu and then he started teaching in 1849 and taught all the way until 1903, his death,\u201d Shrader said. \u201cSo, half a century where we don\u2019t know very much, he was primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, Hovey\u2019s parents raised him with a Calvinistic Christianity. As he entered adulthood, he felt called to ministry. He attended Dartmouth College and then Newton Theological Institution. After school, he pastored a church for one year, then taught at Newton for the remainder of his life.<\/p>\n

Hovey served as a chief defender of Christian orthodoxy during his day. In response to biblical criticism, he published numerous articles and books that defended basic Christian beliefs. One such book, The Miracles of Christ As Attested by the Evangelists<\/em><\/a> (1864), defended the miracles of Jesus Christ. \u201cI think Hovey represents more of the person in the pew than what some of these more progressive thinkers would be,\u201d Shrader said. \u201cNot everyone in the pew could think as deeply as Hovey could. That\u2019s true, but I think he represented more of the theological consciousness of Northern Baptists than what some others could represent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also responded to the theological liberalism of his day. One of the most significant cases of theological liberalism that Hovey was involved in was William Newton Clarke. Clarke and Hovey were close friends and the former served as the latter\u2019s pastor for a little more than a decade. \u201cClarke becomes the quintessential liberal and person who would accept higher criticism,\u201d Shrader said. \u201c[Hovey] was always reserved and he would say that there\u2019s a place for critical studies and we should see what the conclusions are going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hovey allowed biblical criticism to be discussed and analyzed, he was not convinced of its conclusions. Another leading reformed Baptist theologian Augustus Strong pushed back on him for not being more vocal about his disagreements with Clarke.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Hovey was a staunch proponent of theological education. During this time, some people questioned whether ministers needed education because the need to get the preaching out in the public was great. \u201cHovey was of the opinion that theological education was important because there were bigger questions than just that pressing need to get out there,\u201d Shrader said. \u201cMinistry was complex because issues are complex, and people are complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Hovey did understand that just because someone had the education, didn\u2019t mean they were a pastor. The church had to bring along those young men who seemed to have the gifts from God to be a pastor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Colby Chapel at Newton Theological Institution, which later merged with Andover Theological Seminary<\/a> \u2013 Public domain\/Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to theological teaching and defending orthodoxy, Hovey also remained socially active for much of his life. In his years at Dartmouth, he was a part of an anti-slavery society and a temperance society. \u201cI take it that he simply believes an in individual sole liberty as a Baptist idea and applies that a little broader to the public and to your citizenship as part of a country,\u201d Shrader said. \u201cAnd he just sees slavery as contradictory to such an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shrader also noted that Hovey came from the north, so he was likely influenced by the context of his location. While he had a friendship with Dartmouth\u2019s president at the time, Nathan Lord, who was an abolitionist up until 1847, when he changed his view to pro-slavery, Hovey remained an abolitionist his entire life.<\/p>\n

Later in life, Hovey became a part of an anti-divorce society and remained active in temperance movements as well. His wife, Augusta, involved herself in many women\u2019s groups.<\/p>\n

In essence, he did not divide his theological work from social activism. Shrader said most Protestants of Hovey\u2019s day were involved in some sort of social activism. Some historians believe evangelicals became less involved with social issues in the 1930\u2019s and 40\u2019s after the Social Gospel movement.<\/p>\n

\"Clay<\/a>
A recent graduate of Bethel University (IN), Clay has previously written for Religion News Service and ReligionUnplugged.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reason Shrader became interested in the subject of 19th\u00a0century Northern Baptists and Alvah Hovey is because he wanted to know his own history. He has grown up in Baptist fundamentalism and wanted to know more about the theological influences of that movement. \u201cYou can find studies about the Southerners because you have a lot of Southern Baptist historians who have dug into that, but the Northerners not as much,\u201d Shrader said.<\/p>\n

He said that Hovey was a complex person, and it is easy to critique what people did during his lifetime. Shrader tried to understand Hovey by his own terms,\u00a0titling the book Thoughtful Christianity<\/em> because Hovey tried to give answers to questions the culture around him asked. Shrader admits that the issues of Hovey\u2019s day may be different from the issues of today, but he said he appreciated Hovey\u2019s intellectual rigor: \u201cHe helped forge this Northern Baptist theological tradition and that makes him more influential than we realize. I don\u2019t know if I know the full extent of his influence either, but I think that\u2019s a big takeaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though much has changed for Northern Baptists since Hovey\u2019s day, there is a continuation of social activism in some Northern Baptist denominations today. Yet, one must wonder where the intellectually rigorous and theologically minded spirit of Hovey has gone.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I\u2019m happy to welcome to the\u00a0Bench\u00a0Clay Sidenbender, a freelance journalist based in Edwardsburg, MI. Last month Anxious Bench\u00a0contributor\u00a0Daniel K. Williams imagined an evangelicalism where Northern evangelicalism was at the center instead of its Southern counterpart. This phenomenon actually happened in the mid to late-19th century, when Northern Baptists were the leaders in the denomination. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2794,"featured_media":73905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,3043],"tags":[2837,8071,8098,8074,4205],"class_list":["post-73816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baptists","category-guest-post","tag-abolitionism","tag-clay-sidenbender","tag-matthew-shrader","tag-northern-baptists","tag-seminaries"],"yoast_head":"\nAlvah Hovey and the Northern Baptists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I'm happy to welcome to the\u00a0Bench\u00a0Clay Sidenbender, a freelance journalist based in Edwardsburg, MI. 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