You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The first critical biography of J. Gresham Machen, examining the full arc of his intellectual career J. Gresham Machen is known as a conservative hero of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. But was he always so staunchly antimodernist? In this sweeping new biography, Richard E. Burnett examines the whole of Machen’s life and career—from his early years at Princeton, to his experience in the First World War, to his founding of Westminster Theological Seminary . Burnett pays special attention to topics that have received little attention from biographers, like Machen’s crisis of faith and his support for historical criticism of Scripture. Incorporating all of Machen’s major works as well as his previously unpublished private correspondence, Burnett crafts a nuanced narrative of Machen’s intellectual journey from enthusiastic modernist to stalwart conservative. Nuanced and thorough, Machen’s Hope will challenge scholars’ assumptions about Machen and his dynamic era.
For many scholars of theology, Karl Barth's break with liberalism is the most important event that has occurred in theology in over 200 years. Richard Burnett shows that an important part of Barth's break was his attempt to overcome the hermeneutical tradition of Schleiermacher. This is reflected throughout Barth's Romerbrief period and especially in his attempt to engage in 'theological exegesis'.The hermeneutical tradition of Schleiermacher begins with Herder and extends through Dilthey, Troeltsch, Wobbermin, Wernle and Barth himself prior to 1915. It exercised great influence throughout the twentieth century and is characterized by its attempt to integrate broad aspects of interpretation,...