Thoughtful Christianity

"""In his deeply researched Thoughtful Christianity, Matthew Shrader casts new light on the career of Alvah Hovey, an often neglected but influential theologian in Northern Baptist history. But the author does more than that. Shrader makes the compelling case that students of American religion need to rethink a number of their common assumptions about the nature of the evangelical faith in the last half of the nineteenth century. Shrader's volume, then, is itself a 'thoughtful' piece of historical scholarship."" --John Woodbridge, Research Professor of Church History and Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ""The usual story that is remembered of the Northern Baptists in the nineteenth century is one of collapse under the juggernaut of higher criticism and schism as faithful Christians hived off into fundamentalist communities. As Prof. Shrader's new monograph on the Northern Baptist scholar Alvah Hovey shows, however, this is not the only story from this era. Hovey upheld classical orthodoxy and wielded an enormous influence among his fellow Baptists--a thousand or so students sat under his tutelage and his teaching bore fruit. A welcome study on a key figure in a denominational group, the Baptists of the nineteenth century, who have not been given their due in the world of historical reflection."" --Michael A. G. Haykin, Chair and Professor of Church History and Director of The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ""Alvah Hovey (1820-1903) is the most important Baptist in America about whom few nonspecialists have heard--and this is the first scholarly book about his massive scholarly footprint in Baptist life and American Christianity in general. Many thanks to Matthew Shrader for this first-rate scholarly monograph, and to Michael Haykin and friends for this crucial series of books. They are finally shining a light on an enormous but all-too-often neglected denomination in modern religious history."" --Douglas A. Sweeney, Dean and Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University ""A fine study into the thought of a theological stalwart. Hovey was the most significant American Baptist theologian of the nineteenth century because of his influence for thirty years as president of Newton Theological Institution, America's oldest Baptist seminary, and because of his voluminous literary output. Yet he has been that century's most under-studied Baptist champion largely because the ground shifted underneath him from the old orthodoxy to 'the new theology.' An important contribution!"" --Jeff Straub, independent scholar"