Defining Theology with Dr. Girardeau

Receive our blog posts in your email by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

Editorial note: Our guest writer today is Zachary Groff, Director of Advancement & Admissions at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC.

John Lafayette Girardeau (1825-98) occupies a significant place in the history of American Presbyterianism. His importance is most evident in his record of service to the Church as a preacher, pastor, churchman, and seminary professor. In 1875, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) voted to replace William Swan Plumer with Dr. Girardeau as Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina. On this development, Dr. C. N. Willborn notes, “For the next twenty years, [Dr. Girardeau] carried forth the Thornwellian tradition from the theological chair in Columbia…. Girardeau committed himself to working on those areas of doctrine Thornwell had not been able to complete” (C. N. Willborn, John L. Girardeau (1825-98), Pastor to Slaves and Theologian of Causes, PhD diss, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2003: pgs. 304, 305).

The profundity of Dr. Girardeau’s theological thought is demonstrated in the important (and posthumously published) volume recently posted to Dr. Girardeau’s Log College Press author page: Discussions of Theological Questions. In this anthology of articles and essays, Dr. Girardeau develops a definition (and division) of Theology along the lines of his teacher and predecessor at Columbia, Dr. James Henley Thornwell (1812-62). In doing so, he identifies and confounds variants of the aberrant theology he denominates as Rationalism, including pantheism, intuitionalism, deism, technical rationalism, mysticism, and Romanism. Beyond the discussion of Theology as-such, the volume includes a brief article on the Person of Christ and a very significant contribution to the development of the doctrine of Adoption in Christian soteriology.

Students of American Presbyterian theology will mine rich rewards from a careful consideration of Dr. Girardeau’s Discussions of Theological Questions. While the Discussions is now available to all visitors to the Log College Press website, it was released a couple weeks ago for members of the Dead Presbyterians Society. By signing up for the Society (here), you will gain access to exclusive content, including the Log College Review, a new short-form scholarly resource page with articles on American Presbyterian history and theology. You can read an expanded version of this blog post at the Log College Review in which I give a brief introduction to Dr. Girardeau’s Discussions of Theological Questions by considering his definition of theology as an objective scientific discipline distinguishable from – but necessarily correlative to – subjective religious experience.

A Window into Early American Presbyterianism: The Virginia Religious Magazine (1804-1807)

Receive our blog posts in your email by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

Editorial note: Our guest writer today is Zachary Groff, Director of Advancement & Admissions at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC.

From 1804 to 1807, The Virginia Religious Magazine enjoyed the editorial labors of then-President of Hampden-Sydney College Archibald Alexander and “a few of his ministerial colleagues” (perhaps including Samuel Houston, Matthew Lyle, George A. Baxter, Samuel Brown, Daniel Blain, Samuel L. Campbell, Conrad Speece, and John Holt Rice) “under the auspices of the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia.”

This short-lived Presbyterian periodical ran through three volumes comprised of six issues each. Despite its short tenure and relative obscurity, The Virginia Religious Magazine deserves celebration as one of the earliest religious periodicals in the United States of America, preceded by the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine (published by the congregational Missionary Society of Connecticut). Barring the discovery of evidence to the contrary, The Virginia Religious Magazine was the first such publication in the American South.

Though the authorship of individual articles included in the Magazine is difficult to determine, readers will benefit from a careful examination and consideration of the contents. William H. Foote attributes four (unspecified) articles to the pre-Princetonian Archibald Alexander, though the principal contributors seem to have been Conrad Speece and John Holt Rice.

Readers may choose to read the contents of the Magazine from beginning to end to catch a glimpse of an important historical moment in the development of American Presbyterianism. Reflections on practical religion, church history, theological topics, and contemporary revivals provide a window into the religious life of American Christians as they pressed westward into the frontier. Alternatively, a more selective approach to the contents of the Magazine will yield great spiritual benefit to interested readers. For example, the cautionary tale of Jack Vincent (The History of Jack Vincent, as found in Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 212-222), which is authored under the pseudonym Philo and attributed by William H. Foote to John Holt Rice, is a moving apocryphal – or at least embellished – account of the sad life and death of a certain Jack Vincent. Such tales powerfully warned readers away from carelessness in religion and child-rearing. In these stories we recognize one of the perennial concerns of ministers and parents: the diligent nurture and admonition of the rising generation.

To access The Virginia Religious Magazine in its entirety, please refer to the Archibald Alexander page. To pursue your own research into this fascinating periodical, be sure to consult the biographies of John Holt Rice, one by Philip B. Price and the other by William Maxwell, both available on the Log College Press website. Tolle Lege!