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The New Divinity and the Origins of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David W. Kling
David W. Kling
Affiliation:
David W. Kling is an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami.
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Extract

The theological influence of the New Divinity in the formation and character of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) is uncontested among scholars of American religious history and missions. Since the mid nineteenth century, both partisans of missions and nearly all scholarly observers have attributed the origins of the modern American Protestant missionary spirit to the writings of Jonathan Edwards and his self-appointed heirs, those Congregational ministers who came to be called New Divinity men. Edwards proposed a theology of cosmic redemption and supplied the exemplary missionary model in Life of Brainerd (1749), his most popular and most frequently reprinted work. Samuel Hopkins then furnished a theological rationale for missions by revising Edwards' aesthetic concept of “disinterested benevolence” into a practical one of self-denial for the greater glory of God's kingdom and the betterment of humankind.

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Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 791 - 819
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2003

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References

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60. Actually, Carey studied for two years under the direction of John Sutcliffe and was keenly aware of the importance of education. The Serampore Trio (Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward) complained to the Baptist Missionary Society that the educational level of missionaries sent out to them was deficient (Piggin, , Making Evangelical Missionaries, 160; also see chapters 6–8 for a discussion of British missionary training).Google Scholar

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100. Efforts to explore this British legacy are found in Walls, “Missions and Historical Memory,” and Piggin, Stuart, “The Expanding Knowledge of God: Jonathan Edwards's Influence on Missionary Thinking and Promotion,” in Jonathan Edwards at Home and Abroad, eds. Kling, and Sweeney, .Google Scholar