[(B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought * *)] [by: Gary L W Johnson] Paperback

The reader of contemporary theology will have come across comments, at one time or other, attempting to discourage him from turning to the writings of B. B. Warfield. Such comments usually come in the form of broad caricature or contextual dishonesty. They are invariably prefaced by some word of praise of the man being slandered, which is the honey that the poisonous lie comes coated with. Gary Johnson highlights a typical specimen of this harmful slander on page 216 in his essay, Warfield and C. A. Briggs: Their Polemics and Legacy. Attacks of this sort commonly spring from writers who advocate “a generic Christianity revolving around a bare minimum of theological definition” (p. 194.) See page 180 for a summary of the shoddy study methods that are used by writers like that. Reminds me of C. I. Scofield. I can say with confidence from my own reading experience that the institutions named in a footnote on page 210 are frequently guilty of producing these ‘generic’ writers whose habit (they think it a duty) it is to dupe unwary readers into sticking with simplistic systems of theology of the very recent past. These faculties of ‘learning’ are Prairie Bible Institute, Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, and Dallas Theological Seminary. It is interesting to know that these are centers for the Victorious Christian Life heresy, the idea that you can, by a single act of surrender, get to a point at which you no longer sin. That heresy may be classified under ‘enthusiasm,’ or ‘mysticism’ (p. 54.) Old Princeton did not fall into such heresies because, unlike the case with ‘bare minimum’ institutions, historical theology was a highly valued source of knowledge there (p. 181.) And Princeton men were not boxed in by the one-language limitation that fundamentalists are satisfied with. Warfield knew the biblical languages, and at least a couple of European ones (p. 179.) And yet in spite of this extra mental burden, what fundamentalist writer can equal him in English?Beside William Cunningham, R. L. Dabney and B. B. Warfield are my two favorite theological critics. Their compositional tones are not similar, however. That of the first is hot and nerving, while that of the second is warm and calming. Apart from the burning in his heart for God’s word, I do not know what caused Dabney’s pages to take fire. As for Warfield’s gentle flame, it had something more than divine influence for its cause. His grandfather on his mother’s side, a theologian who had studied at Princeton, was temperamental, and always embroiled in controversy. Warfield inherited that temper, was admonished about it by his mother, and decided to do all that he could to triumph over it (pp. 25, 48, 50, 207.) This grandfather, incidentally, is the second most interesting character in this book. His indignant stand against the Roman Catholic Church is more commendable than the charming tone of Charles Hodge (pp. 39-41.) Like Lloyd-Jones of more recent history, he advocated for a tighter union between the seminary and local churches; in other words, his opinion was that professors should be experienced in the pastoral charge in order to ground ‘ivory tower scholarship’ in the surrounding culture (pp. 41, 42, 47.) This pedagogic approach need not be anti-intellectual. Readers of Warfield’s works, however, are quite okay with the fact that he was an ‘academic theologian.’ Only, he did lack, as Francis Landey Patton pointed out, “the clarion tones of impassioned oratory” (p. 47.) It is strange for Patton to say that this kind of speech was unnatural to him, though, and in the next breath say that Warfield deliberately kept his passion down in order to avoid being like his grandfather (p. 48.) It was a mistake, I think, a sinful over-reaction for Warfield to suppress his passion as much as he did. If Old Princeton had copied R. J. Breckinridge more, and Charles Hodge less, New Princeton Liberalism might never have come to be. That is my own uneducated opinion from the data presented here, not that of any writer in this compilation.Bradley J. Gundlach’s “B” is for Breckinridge yields insight into the formation of a great scholar’s character and work. It contains, as well, many of those incidental remarks from the past that shed light on the situation in our own times. Are our churches not filled with ‘premature, superficial, half-converted professors’? (p. 24.) It is generous to call them as much as that, is it not? Revivalist methods are the cause of this now even more than they were the cause of the same in the 1830’s. The ‘anxious seats’ of then are the ‘altar calls’ of today. Memberships were granted too hastily back then; we are hasty to do that and more: baptizing and giving full communion to sinners that we’ve never seen or even heard about before the unfortunate day of admission.The only other essay out of the nine that may be highly ranked is the only other one by Gundlach: “Wicked Caste”: Warfield, Biblical Authority, and Jim Crow. This wonderfully balanced essay sets out to show and prove that Warfield was ahead of his time on the color question, as were some of his immediate progenitors. Warfield’s grandfather and Great-Uncle William seem to have had the best idea for inherited slaves: gradual emancipation into Liberia (pp. 44, 141.) Though man-stealing does not come up in this research as a sin acknowledged by the slave owners mentioned, emancipation into the continent of origin might have been the right remedy for it. This was not done in a wholesale manner by the Warfield clan, though. B. B. was raised in a household among slaves (p. 143.) As with his essay on Warfield’s maternal kin, this one contains historical remarks that reflect the situation we face today. The comment from 1887 by Samuel Ellis Wishard is working itself out like a prophecy would. “If we are recreant to our trust God will take care of these poor helpless ones, but possibly in a way that may grind us to powder” (p. 153.)B. B. Warfield, Essays on his Life and Thought has more facts and church politics in it than life and depth. The writing styles of the contributors are not outstanding. The tone is neither flat nor inflammatory. And the Index I found unhelpful every time I fell back on it. There are pleasant surprises in the essay collection, as I have underlined, even a pretty decent poem by the Subject on page 166. I moderately recommend the book.