$27.00

Horace Bushnell, Congregationalist preacher, pioneering Christian educator, and theological innovator, is often cited as a pivotal figure between old New England theology and evangelical liberalism and the social gospel. This study focuses on the treatment accorded the Bible in his thought: his understanding of biblical authority, his definition of the task of biblical interpretation, and his conception of the uses of the Bible in theology and the church. What emerges is a program designed to direct biblical studies toward an approach that is literary and aesthetic rather than precritically dogmatic or historical-critical. Included is the most comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Bushnell compiled to date.

James O. Duke is Associate Professor of Church History at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. He received his B.A. in History from the University of Maryland and his M.Div. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He is translator, in collaboration with J. Forstman, of Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics (Scholars Press, 1977) and, in collaboration with Francis Fiorenza, of Schleiermacher’s On the Glaubenslehre (Scholars Press, 1981). He is coeditor of the American Academy of Religion Studies in Religion Series.