Prologue II

The Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin, ’97, who chaired the blue-ribbon committee that in 1952 answered William F. Buckley Jr. with the categorical conclusion that “religious life at Yale is deeper and richer than it has been in many years,” could recall more distant student days when Yale’s religious life was deeper and richer still. Coffin was a renowned preacher, was the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City (he had once been a leading candidate for the Yale presidency), and had done as much as anyone to shepherd mainline Protestantism from evangelicalism to theological modernism....

Two Students

Reinhold Niebuhr’s influence extended beyond his own prolific writings and his role as a public intellectual through students who were shaped by their encounters with him during his long career as a teacher at Union Theological Seminary. In his classes, he taught many students who went on to careers in ministry and others who became scholars and writers. He was also a powerful influence on everyone at Union through his sermons in the chapel, and many remembered informal gatherings that Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr hosted in their home. While it is difficult to formulate meaningful generalizations about so many students, two in particular remind us of the scope of Niebuhr’s influence through his teaching: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) and Kiyoko Takeda (1917–2018).

A Teologia Protestante de Rubem Alves

Precisamente neste ano de 2019, que nós celebramos o jubileu da publicação da obra A Theology of Human Hope de Rubem Alves (1933-2014), fruto de uma tese de doutoramento defendida no ano anterior por ele no Princeton Theological Seminary. Seu título original era Towards a Theology of Liberation, que foi mudado por questões editoriais. Pouco conhecido, entretanto, foi seu primeiro trabalho acadêmico – dissertação de mestrado defendida em 1964 no Union Theological Seminary (New York) – A Theological Interpretation of the Meaning of the Revolution in Brazil. Rubem Alves, muito influenciado por Richard Shaull, e indiretamente por teólogos como: Barth, Rauschenbush, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Cox, pelo testemunho missionário de Albert Schweitzer e pelas reflexões de Paulo Freire e da ISAL, como também pelos resultados da Conferência do Nordeste (1962) conseguiu amalgamar esta nova teologia protestante, sendo o pioneiro protestante a utilizar as expressões “revolução” (1963) e “libertação” (1968) em trabalhos acadêmicos de cunho religioso, alterando permanentemente a vocação da teologia no Brasil. Para além dessa celebração, a pesquisa de mestrado de Rubem Alves indicava a emergência de um novo movimento na Teologia latino-americana, muito embora ele não possa ser nomeado como um teólogo da libertação stricto sensu, suas ideias teológicas sobre a revolução foram um tipo de preâmbulo ao que viria na sequência.

How Liberal Protestant Church Historians Helped Turn “Christianity” into a Good White Protestant American Religion in the Twentieth Century

From the three historians of early Christianity whose lives and careers Elizabeth Clark discusses in The Fathers Refounded—Arthur Cushman McGiffert of Union Theological Seminary in New York, George LaPiana at Harvard Divinity School, and Shirley Jackson Case from the University of Chicago Divinity School—there breathes a palpable air of white, upper-middle-class liberal Protestant complacency and intellectual superiority. Modernists all, they know they are on the winning side of truth because they are confident that they are on the winning side of time. Summarizing McGiffert's distinction between ancient and contemporary Christianity, Clark writes: “Only in modernity, when God's immanence was championed, was the dualism between human and divine in Christ overcome.” “Christ, if he was human,” McGiffert believed, “must be divine, as all men are.” McGiffert's historiography shimmers with Emersonian confidence and ebullience. In his assumption—his assertion—of “only in,” we hear the ringing sound of modernity's triumphant temporality.

Remembering Dr. James H. Cone

In this essay, I reflect on Dr. James H. Cone’s legacy as a teacher and mentor who generously invested in multiple generations of students – including white students like me. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

You Have To Find Your Voice: James H. Cone’s Commitment to Theological Education

This reflection is on the teaching philosophy of James H. Cone (1938-2018). It connects Cone’s personal journey towards self-realization as a black theologian to his deeply held commitment to helping his students find and cultivate their own theological voice. The essay shares best practices from Cone’s methods within the classroom. It also describes his passion for teaching and love of his students. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

James Cone: Notes on a Critical Theologian

This short essay reflects on James Cone’s transformational impact as a teacher inside the classroom and through his voluminous writings. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

Cone's Consistency: Reflections from a Teaching Assistant

Beyond his academic contribution of Black Liberation Theology to the church and academy at large, James Cone should be remembered on a personal level as one who prioritized the task of teaching his students, placed the student perspective and the development of independent student voices at the center of his pedagogy, pushed his students to take classroom learning out into the world, maintained exemplary standards of consistency in his theological work and moral character, and contributed to the legacy of his home institution Union Theological Seminary in immeasurable ways. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

Learning Theology In The Struggle For Freedom

In his work as a scholar and educator, James Cone developed leaders. He built a network of scholars, clergy, and activists committed to the power of God in history and to the role of the poor and dispossessed in realizing earthly freedom. Cone’s courses began with the situatedness of the theologians being studied and always returned to the problems of the world that theologians sought to answer. He challenged his students to do the same, identifying and answering the crises of our communities, doing theology in the struggle for justice and liberation. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

Presbyterianism in the United States and Canada in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

This chapter traces the history of Presbyterians in the United States and Canada from the turn of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. It considers the predecessor denominations to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as well as the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, ECO (Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians), Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada, among others. It investigates theological, liturgical, missional, and educational developments in these denominations and analyzes conflicts over biblical authority and interpretation, confessionalism, communism, civil rights, sexuality, marriage, ordination, race, and the role of women in the church. The theological movements examined include confessional conservatism, evangelicalism, feminist theology, fundamentalism, liberalism, and neo-orthodoxy. Significant institutions noted include Erskine Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, Knox College, Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary in New York, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and Westminster Theological Seminary.