The New Southern Presbyterian Review: A Revival By MarkD. Anthony, Sr.

ChalCedOn Presbyterian Church recently launched The Neu! S oitthern Presf?yerian Revielv, a theological journal meant to continue in the tradition of the The SOllthem Presf?yte!ian RevieJV, published from 1847 through 1885. Its editors along the way included James H. Thornwell, Benjamin M. Palmer, George Howe, and Robert L. Dabney, among others. The inaugural issue of tl1e new Revielv was published online and in print the first week of July, 2002. We are reprinting two articles from that issue here. First, the original editor's note and second, an article about the history of the original review.

From the Editors of The New Southern Presbyterian Review

O ur desire and prayer is that we are inaugurating a journal for today's church that will accomplish the goals of the original RevieJvs luminous editors. Their desire was to exposit and defend the "Doctrines and polity of the Presbyterian Church ... " and to "make the Reviel}! worthy of the Southern Presbyterian Church, - the representative of its views and of its literature, the means of disseminating sound doctrine, and a stin1Ulus to the genius and talent of our ministers and people." They added to this "But our aim will be to present to our readers nothing which is not worthy of their serious consideration, or which shall be prejudicial to the cause of truth."

The heart of Old School Presbyterianism exposited in the original Revielv is an unwavering commitment to the principle of sola SCliptllra, the acceptance of the Bible as the plenary inspired Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice. The second great mark of the Old School is a strict subscription to the original Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms without hesitation or embarrassment. Believing that these standards are the system of revealed truth taught in the written Word of God, the original Reviel}! embraced the command of God to defend, expound, and apply that system to every area of faith and life. There were no subjects which for them were not tl1eological since there are no facts in the universe which are not Christ's facts. They applied God's truth as readily to geography, philosophy, or psychology as to church government. There was also a desire on their part to vindicate the South itself and the abilities of Lower

14 the COUNSEL of CHALCEDON

South theologians and church members against the anti-south sentiments of the north.

While there is no longer, in a strict geographical sense, an exclusively southern Presbyterian church, there is the legacy of a remnant who share many of the distinctives of Old School Calvinism. Along with those distinctives, this modern movement also shares in their persecutions. There are those today, ostensibly within the "Reformed" community, who call those of us still in the south "simple Southerners" and those of us not in the south "simple minded". They mock our tenacious grasp of the Westminster Standards and the solas of the reformation. They see in us a failure to think as they claim the Bible requires, urging us to move beyond our narrow thought and strict confines and to unlearn the "Greek propositions" and "non-Hebraic" ways of thinking found in such systems as the Westminster Standards, denouncing them as systems forced upon, rather than gleaned from, the scriptures.

We join the former editors in our desire to answer such views in such a way as to be "a stimulus to the genius and talent of our ministers and people" and that this publication, while useful in our own circles, "might redound elsewhere to the honour of" our cause and thus to the glory of our Lord.

The Editors of The Nel}! Southern Presi!Yterian RevieJ}! seek to set forth nothing new in the field of theology, but simply to imitate the original editors in defending, expounding, and applying God's word to every sphere of thought, faith and life. Like the former editors, we subscribe strictly to the Westminster Standards as the purist human expression of the doctrine revealed in the Bible. While there have been, and continue to be, advances in understanding of God's word and refinements in the language and arguments used, and while we do not agree with the former editors in every particular of doctrine, ours is a received orthodoxy recovered from the Bible by those great reformers of old and, guarded carefully through the generations since, passed down to us to be sinillarly guarded and handed down to our future generations. We are thankful to have such a faith once delivered to which to cling tenaciously.

It is to this purpose that we dedicate this RevieJv to the God of our fathers. We do so with prayer and the hope that our endeavors will bring Him the Glory which it is our chief end to promote. In this time when the battle cries of the Reformation are under attack even within "Reformed" circles, let us renew our dedication to them afresh:

Solo Christo - Christ Alone! Sola S criptura - God's Word Alone! Sola Fide - Faith Alone! Sola Gratia - Grace Alone! Soli Deo GiGlia - God's Glory Alone!

The New Southern Presbyterian Review: A Revival

A Retrospective Editor} Note: Milch thanks and appreciation are expressed to Jack P. Maddex, Jr., professor if History at the Universiry if Oregon, for his express permission in using large portions if his Ivork in prepating this article. This article is mitten merelY as a history if the original Sottthem Pres/Jyteriall RevieJlJ. The Nelv SOllthern Pres/Jytetian Revielv does IIOt tlecessalilY share or endorse all if the original Revielv} opinions and goals. The goals if the !le}v RevieJv mq)1 be found in the Editor} Note and at the front if each isslle.

Charles Hodges' Ptil1cetoll Revie7V undoubtedly was the leading theological journal in America by the 1840s. The British QuarterlY RevieJv, in 1870, pronounced it "beyond all question the greatest purely theological Review that has ever been published in the English tongue."! Hodges' journal set the pace for the Presbyterian church in America and exerted great influence in American society at large.

It was only natural that the bright theological stars in the Lower South would seek to present their studies and opinions to their fellow Presbyterians. However, in spite of the existence of many able and well known minds among them, Hodge published few of their articles even on subjects about which they chiefly agreed. His muzzling of this group stemmed predominantly from their disagreement with Princeton over issues of church government and the relationship between church and state. On these issues he did not publish them at all.

In Columbia, South Carolina, the idea of a competing journal germinated among those who felt, with justification, that they were being shut out of the Princeton Review. In an 1846 letter to Dr. Robert J. Breckintidge, James Henley Thornwell wrote of his plans for the advent of the new publication. "The editors of the concern are Dr. Howe, brother Palmer, and myself. We intend to make it a free journal on the subject of Eldership, Boards, Agencies, et id omne genus. We shall not, like Princeton, put an extinguisher upon any candle that emits any light."2 Now by "free" Thornwell did not mean that any and all views were welcome. This is evidenced by two notes from the editors, the first in 1848 and the second in 1878, one or the other of which in some form was included in many issues of the Revie}v.

We are obliged to admit in our pages some latitude of discussion. But our aim will be to present to our readers nothing which is not worthy of their serious consideration, or which shall be prejudicial to the cause of truth.3

Free discussion, too, is important to the interests of truth, if kept within just limits. These limits must be strictly observed. The Editors would be worthy of censure, should they allow opinions to be expressed, subversive of any doctrine of the gospel; nor would it

be becoming to allow their own views, or those of their contributors, to be rudely attacked in their own pages.4

Open discussion was not the concern but rather the desire to have an organ by which to make known their views. Thus:

... between 1845 and 1847, the desire to have an organ for the thorough, scholarly and tlflllJllzi/ed discussion of theological and ecclesiastical themes became strong in Columbia. There were giants there, in those days. They had messages from the Lord to their brethren, which they burned to deliver; and they liked not Princeton's disposition to put a gag into their mouths. Accordingly, an association of ministers, in the town of Columbia, established that very able periodical, The SOllthem Pres/Jytenall RevieJv; the first issue of which bears the date, June, 1847. This association conducted the Revielv for about a score of years, when the governing body was reorganized on a wider geographical basis and continued the publication of the periodical down to 1885.5

The first three issues of the original volume (published in June, September, and December of 1847) were accompanied with the following inscription on the back cover:

THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW

Will be published Quarterly, in June, September, December, and March, at Three Dollars per annum, payable in advance.

It will be devoted mainly to the exposition and defence (sic) of the Doctrines and polity of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Still, as it is designed to be thoroughly Evangelical and Protestant, its Editors hope to give it attractions for all who love the truth as it is in Jesus.

The final issue of the first year, published in March of 1848, carried these words on the back cover:

With the present Number, the first volume of tlle SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW, reaches its completion. It is a work, the desirableness of which has long been felt, but which in past years we have not had the courage to attempt. In the view of some who have been most active in the enterprise, there were more chances of its failure than of its success .... An entire unity of views on all subjects which are moved in the Presbyterian Church exists neither among our subscribers nor our contributors. Weare obliged to admit in our pages some latitude of discussion. But our aim will be to present to our readers nothing which is not worthy of their serious consideration, or which shall be prejudicial to the cause of truth. The differences which exist, are upon points of order in the church, rather

the COUNSEL ofCHALCEDON 15

The New Southern Presbyterian Review: A Revival

than points fundamental in doctrine; and if on these, we claim the privilege of differing among ourselves, these differences, however inconvenient at the moment will in the end sub serve the true interests of the Ch~rch. Our desire is to make the Review worthy of the Southern Presbyterian Church, - the representative of its views and of its literature, the means of disseminating sound doctrine, and a stimulus to the genius and talent of our ministers and people. It has been too common among those who occupy the other extremity of these States, to represent us as but slighdy removed from barbarism, - as having long since come to a complete stand in intellectual and moral improvement, as without a literature, or the ability to create one, as without energy enough even to think. And beyond the bounds of the Presbyterian Church, we are rarely noticed, save in the language of rebuke and detraction. Though the attempt to convince those who say "We are the people, and wisdom will die with us," may be vain in the extreme, - it has been our hope that our humble efforts, while useful at home, might redound elsewhere to the honour of the Southern branch of our beloved Church. That our condition is not hopeless, that in this portion of our land, we are not

church, and their intellectuals carried on a long tradition of seeking to comprehend all knowledge within a grand ideological synthesis."8 That ideological synthesis, of course, is the Reformed faith of the Westminster Standards.

During the years from 1847 to 1864, the Review was published by "an association of ministers" led by Thornwell. During these years, the Revielv was ever in fear of insolvency, surviving on "patronage from wealthy supporters and on the efficient utilization of the network of family fraternal and alumni connections that united the Presbyterian church leadership of the South. The RevieJv's network began in South Carolina and swept across the Lower South, where Presbyterianism bore the South Carolina imprint. The connection soon extended to Upper South Presbyterians, whose traditions differed slighdy but who shared most of the Carolinians' concerns. Ministers promoted subscriptions in their localities and kept files of the journal to use as a reference source in their preaching and writing."9 During some years pastors were rewarded for their efforts in obtaining subscribers with free subscriptions and financial rewards.

The Thornwell years saw the Revielv

beyond the reach of improvement, we well know. We see its progress on every hand. Though we are an agricultural people, and cannot experience those rapid changes which commercial and manufacturing communities enjoy, we also are improving in arts, in education, in morality and religion, and in all that gives happiness to the social state.

" ... not a detached presenting "not a detached theology but a comprehensive worldview, interpreting the entire cosmos in terms of Calvinist theology... Articles about philosophy, science, history, literature, and social thought stood in the Review alongside articles about doctrine, biblical studies, church government, and current religious developments. Applying

theology, but a comprehensive world view, interpreting the entire cosmos in terms of Calvinist theology ... "

Thankful for what they have already done, we anew call on those who are friends to our enterprise to exertions in its behalf. We need a more extensive patronage for its full success, and any considerable diminution of the measure we now enjoy, must bring our labours to a close. The Southern Presbyterian Review will be published quarterly, as heretofore, in June, September, December and March at Three Dollars per annum, payable in advance.

During its nearly 40 years "the Southern Presbyterian Review expressed the changing conservatism of the ministers and the most erudite laity of the Presbyterian church in the South."6 The readership was mosdy in the South with its core constituency in Virginia and South Carolina. While the Southern Presbyterian Church was not overwhelming in numbers, its membership included "many educated gentry and exerted influence out of proportion" to its size.7 It "boasted 1,000 ministers who met the denomination's high educational standards. Most lived well as pastors of stable congregations, teachers in schools and colleges, or successful agriculturists. The great majority of Southern Presbyterians belonged to the stricdy Calvinist Old School branch of the

16 the COUNSEL of CHALCEDON

the same analytical method to all subjects, the writers sought to discern the same providential logic in all aspects of reality.

Thus the geologist Joseph LeConte contributed articles on 'The Relation of Organic Science to Sociology' and 'Morphology and Its Connection with Fine Art."'l0

In Theology, the Revielv during this period "promulgated an uncompromising Calvinist predestinarianism. Since the writers did not adhere to liberal individualist principles, they had no difficulty with the doctrine that Adam, the father of the human family, had involved his posterity in guilt and that Christ had redeemed the elect by a corresponding imputation of his righteousness."!! The Revielvwas covenantal and, during the antebellum years, postmillennial. "Writers expected that the progress of Christianity would lead to a millennium of universal piety and peace, which would precede the return of Christ.12 Another thread of theology in the Revielv was that of the Scottish Common Sense position. While this view is mosdy rejected by the reformed world today, it was shared by the Southern Presbyterians and the Princetonians alike in the mid 19th century. During this time of upheaval in the scientific realm, the view of creation associated with Hugh Miller of Scodand was adhered to by many of the Revielvs writers and editors, that "the Biblical days corresponded to

The New Southern Presbyterian Review: A Revival

the epochs recorded in geologic strata, and God had created the earth and its life forms in successive acts separated by long intervals. In anthropology, Revielv writers joined battle fervently against the polygene sis theory that the races of humans were separate species descended from diverse creations."13 In church polity, The RevielJJ directly "challenged Princeton's leadership in defining Old School ecclesiology ... invoking the jttre divino principle that the church could not do anything the Scripture did not mandate, they opposed the use of semiautonomous denominational boards, argued that ruling elders were as essential to a presbytery quorum as ministers, and helped to make members' tithing the foundation of church finance.14

The creation of the Confederate States of America brought articles from the RevieJv defending the South's seccession. "The severing of contact with the north enhanced the journal's responsibility as the voice of the Calvinist intelligentsia in the new nation."15 After the Presbyterian Church in the CSA became an officially separate entity, "the journal carried discussions of its denominational policy."16 During the war, the Revieu/s editors "anticipated that a glorious historical epoch would begin with Confederate Independence. Optimistically, they began for the first time to pay contributors for articles they published. In actuality, however, the journal suffered severely from the war.17 Thornwell died in 1862 and by 1863 the journal had shrunk to 100 pages. The April 1864 issue was the last before the fall of the Confederacy and "after the burning of Columbia, the resumption of the publication was in doubt."18

After the war, James Woodrow was provided with funds with which to start a printing business by his brother in Ohio and in 1866 the RevieJJJ was started up again under his ownership.19 Woodrow became the publisher and chief editor of the RevielJJ along with George Howe and John B. Adger. All three of these men had been editors under Thornwell. The Revielv's audience in the South was "initially impoverished and disoriented" after losing the war and being occupied and "reconstructed" by the North.20 This disorientation was seen in the RevieJJJ. "The inner agony that church leaders articulated in personal writings did not appear in the journal, but a sense of dislocation did. Authors referred gloomily to the decline of things Southern. Deploring Reconstruction without defying it, they withdrew from secular politics to internal church politics. Cosmology also faded as a concern. Contributors began to describe the world not as coherent and progressing, but as fragmented and degenerating. Their confidence in the future waned; the RevielJJ began to publish articles rej ecting postmillennialism. "21

During the Woodrow years, "the Review increasingly served as a forum for both sides in church controversies. During the 1870s many tenets of the journal's pervious credo were questioned in its pages. Some of the changes were improvements to more Biblical positions, some were not. ''Judge W. Archer Cocke of Florida rejected moral

philosophy, counterposing Christian revelation sharply to human reason. Dabney suggested that the study of nature, instead of amplifying the Genesis account of creation, would mislead. The young South Carolina theologian, John L. Girardeau severed the Calvinist alliance with determinist psychology, contending that only original sin, not the created structure of the mind, limited human freedom to choose. Hamilton and the Scottish philosophy became debatable ... Contributors question the biblical authority for tithing and for Sunday rest." 22

"Despite all the questioning of their antebellum tenets, the editors and writers were not conscious of a decline in orthodoxy among their ranks. They took it as axiomatic that their Southern Presbyterian church was the most orthodox in the world and suspiciously scrutinized ideas that originated outside it... Turning inward after 1865, the RevielJJ emphasized spiritual devotion and the structure of church government. It took Thornwell's version ofjttre divino ecclesiology as its platform, and contributors quoted Thornwell as an authoritative source. They nevertheless changed the meaning his precepts unconsciously by abstracting them from his comprehensive social theory. The postbellum ecclesiologists adopted as their foremost doctrine 'the nonsecular character of the church,' insisting that church bodies must completely ignore civil and political topics."23

The Review also continued to explore issues in regard to deacons, evangelists, ruling and teaching elders, and the biblical authority for boards or any other type of centralized church structure. "At the end of the 1870s, advocates of decentralization opposed every kind of central church agency, and a few reduced the differences between ministers and ruling elders to the point of imperceptibility. They invoked Thornwell's authority for those positions, while other Thornwell disciples just as confidently invoked it against them."24

During this same time, Columbia Seminary was losing ground as a leader in the church and was being gradually overtaken by Union Seminary in Virginia under the leadership of its principle professor R.L. Dabney. "During the early 1870s their relations were strained, and the editors appeared to be stacking their presentation of controversies against the Virginian. In 1874 and 1875 Dabney considered founding a new journal or buying the RevielJJ and changing its location. In 1875 the Carolina and Virginia groups reached a compromise rapprochement, broadening the journal's base by adding Dabney and two of his Union colleagues to the editorial board... The South Carolina editors managed to satisfy their constituency while the Review's intellectual center of gravity was shifting to the Upper South, but their task was sometimes delicate."25

For a number of years after this, the RevielJJ began to break out of the limited approach it had taken since the end of the war, once again broaching secular topics. However, it never was to recover fully its antebellum role. During this time,

the COUNSEL of CHALCEDON 17

The New Southern Presbyterian Review: A Revival

Woodrow became increasingly controversial and by 1884, when he announced his acceptance of evolutionary theory within the framework of theistic evolution, he came under condemnation by many church bodies and was removed from his professorship at the seminary.26 "Woodrow aired his side of the controversy in the journal, devoting most of the July 1885 issue to it. He solicited antievolution articles as well, but his opponents were already boycotting his periodical. Most of the Southern Presbyterian constituency could not accept an evolutionist publication as its theological journal. The RevieJlJ concluded its distinguished history at the end of 1885.'>27 G>1

1 Mark A. Noll, ed., The Plillcetoll Theology, 1812-1921 (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983) 22, quoted in Howard Miller, "Princeton Review," in The COllservative Press ill Eightemth alld Nineteenth Century Amelica, ed. Ronald Lora and William Henry Longton (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999) 303. 2 James H. Thornwell to Robert J. Breckinridge, 6 November 1846, in Benjamin M. Palmer, The Life alld Letters of James Hellley Thorlllvel! (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1986 reprint), 296. 3 SOllth07l Presbyteliall RevieJv, Volume I, No.4 (March, 1848), back cover (hereinafter cited as SPR). 4 SPR, Volume XXIX, No.4 (October, 1878), back cover. 5 Thomas Carey Johnson, The Life and Letters ofBenjamill Morga/l Pal Iller (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987 reprint), p.126 (emphasis mine). 6 Jack P. Maddex, Jr., "Southern Presbyterian Review," in The Conservative Press ill EighteelJth and Nifle/eelJth CeIltllry Amelica, ed.

Christ Co"~ge For Culturat Reformation

Ronald Lora and William Henry Longton (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999) 303. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 304. 10 Ibid., 305. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 306. 15 Ibid., 307. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 307. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 308 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 309. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid.

www.chalcedon.org/review

A Christian undergr::lintl'!:l\'ite~t;c~Ut~:te~"lhlict to

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