Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton (American Reformed Biographies)

"Charles Hodges's magisterial systematic theology has rightfully earned its place on bookshelves for the last two centuries. Thanks to the skillful work of Professor Andrew Hoffecker you can now get to know the man behind the book. Here you?ll find Hodge waxing anxious over his Greek as a college student and you?ll see him standing valiantly for truth in times of conflict. Ultimately, you?ll see a theologian in the service of the church. Professor Hoffecker has already set the record straight on the Princetonian constellation; now he helps us fully appreciate the legacy of its North Star."

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"This is a first rate work by a seasoned historian of American religion. Hoffecker’s treatment of the towering figure of 19th century American Presbyterianism is both sympathetic and constructively critical. Hoffecker helps us grasp why Hodge had such enduring influence beyond his life. One cannot understand the 19th century without taking Hodge seriously, nor can one understand the Reformed tradition in America without seeing Hodge as its foremost advocate. Hoffecker has reminded us throughout of both these realities. This is a masterful biography lacking any vestiges of hagiography but warmly appreciating the larger theological project which motivated Hodge. Hoffecker’s Hodge is a mediating figure in an age of increasing polarities."

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"Andrew Hoffecker’s biography of Charles Hodge is a beautifully written, compelling analysis of the theologian whose name is synonymous with the Princeton Theology. Incisive, appreciatively critical, and refreshingly judicious, Hoffecker’s Hodge is neither a rigid rationalist nor an unbridled religious enthusiast, but a man of the center who combined both the head and the heartboth Presbyterian confessionalism and evangelical pietismin the ideal of the Princeton tradition. Hoffecker’s study, which clarifies the role that Hodge played in the development of American Presbyterian identity and uncovers the relevance of his European sojourn both to his understanding of theological education and to his infamous claim that no new idea ever originated at Old Princeton Seminary, is a masterful examination of the life and ministry of the theological giant whoto the dismay of some and the delight of otherscontinues to exert a formative influence on the life of the evangelical mind."

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"Charles Hodge has for too long been victimized by stereotypes. In this fine biograph Andy Hoffnecker sets the record straight. Here we meet Hodge the careful Reformed thinker who nurtured a deep piety. This book gives us a winsome portrait of a theologian who still deserves to be taken with utmost seriousness."

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"In 1981 Andrew Hoffecker published his Piety and the Princeton Theologians, creating renewed interest in Old Princeton Seminary and, surprisingly, focusing that interest more on Princeton’s piety than on its theology. Now in his biography of the central figure of Princeton’s great triumvirateAlexander, Hodge, and WarfieldHoffecker has done it again. In his Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton he has given us a long-needed biography of Hodge that is properly sympatheticand criticalwith careful attention to the life and thought of this many-sided man. This book provides great reading for Princeton Seminary’s bicentennial history in 2012."

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"Years ago I read Andrew Hoffecker’s Piety and the Princeton Theologians, a very moving account of the vital spirituality among the founders of the Princeton Theological Seminary. That point needs to be renewed in our own day, when some writers are suggesting that it is un-reformed to find anything good in revival or in pietism. Who better to meet that need the Hoffecker himself, who has now returned with a full-scale biography of Charles Hodge, the great systematic theologian of Princeton. Hoffecker teaches us that Hodge’s theology is rooted in the confessional traditions of the reformed faith, but also in the new side Presbyterianism that emerged from the revival of the Great Awakening. We learn, too, that Hodge also valued friendships with German scholars of pietistic background and spirit. So Hodge developed a form of Presbyterianism known for its balance, a balance sorely needed in our own day. Although church history is my normal field of specialization, I could not put Hoffecker's book down. It clearly and vividly presents Hodge's theology and his story. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the nineteenth century, with this book as my guide. I pray that God will give it a broad readership and use it to promote balanced Reformed theology in our day."

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"There has been a happy little renaissance of attention to Charles Hodge of late (e.g. Charles Hodge Revisited and Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy) as we mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of Princeton Seminary, and now Andy Hoffecker has made an essential entry in the current discussion with Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton. Hoffecker is uniquely qualified and widely respected as a scholar of Hodge and the Princetonians. His presentation of Hodge as combining in his life and ministry both the warm-hearted piety of the New Side and the sturdy confessionalism of the Old School is not only historically accurate but deeply relevant to the needs of our own time. But Hoffecker also captures Hodge’s fairness to the Old Side, the development of his own views, his instincts as a churchman, his participation in polemics, his engagement with the broader church and dozens of other aspects necessary to a real appreciation and assessment of Hodge as a theologian and doctor of the church. This is now the first book to read for an introduction to Charles Hodge."

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"While several prominent evangelists led by Charles Finney and a handful of princes of the pulpit, most notably Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks, had a tremendous influence on the nineteenth-century American religious scene, arguably the impact of Princeton Seminary professor Charles Hodge surpassed them all. In his masterful biography of Hodge, Andrew Hoffecker describes the theologian’s many contributions: his educating of 2,500 Presbyterian ministers, editing one of the nation’s religious journals for more than half a century, writing a three-volume systematic theology, and engaging in debates over the direction of the Presbyterian Church, Darwinism, and serving as the leading voice of Reformed theology. Hoffecker clearly shows how Hodge combined a powerful intellectual defense of Reformed orthodoxy with evangelical piety. He carefully situates Hodge in the changing religious and theological world of nineteenth-century American and Europe. Hoffecker makes Hodge come alive as a person, controversialist, apologist, and professor. Hodge led Princeton Seminary in training pastors to be rigorous scholars, careful exegetes, solid preachers and teachers, and spiritual guides."

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"Professor Hoffecker stresses the fundamental significance of Charles Hodge’s lifelong adherence to his pietist-confessional upbringing, a determination reinforced by his formative time in Europe as a young man. Treating Hodge’s life thematically, as the author does, draws out the many-sidedness of his career as Christian believer, educator, theologian, churchman, evangelical statesman, and controversialist. Those who may associate Hodge only with his Systematic Theology (great work though that is) are in for a surprise! Written clearly and accessibly, and thoughtfully and reflectively, and full of interesting detail, this biographical study adds momentum to the flow of recent serious writing on Princeton theology and its theologians."

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"A many-sided theologian demands a many-sided biography, which is exactly what Andrew Hoffecker has provided in this careful, balanced, discerning, and insightful book. Although the volume offers an unusually full treatment of the unusually full life of Charles Hodge, who is universally recognized as one of the leading American theologians of the nineteenth century, Hoffecker also has an argument to make. The argument is that in his long career as the mainstay of Princeton Theological Seminary, Hodge successfully combined a strong commitment to confessional Reformed theology and a winsome practice of humble evangelical piety. . . . Hoffecker’s life of Hodge demonstrates much more conclusively that any fair reading of Hodge must recognize at least three things: a full and well-rounded life of steadfast Christian devotion, a more-than-capable advocacy of classical Calvinist doctrines such as universal original sin and the substitutionary atonement, and a set of intellectual instincts commonplace among Americans in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century."

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