A Stray Seminaiy Wants to Find Its Conservative Roots

Andover Newton rekindles a warm spirit.

Once promoted as a “hotbed of left-wing radicalism.” Andover Newton Theological School is digging back to its evangelical roots.

Andover Theological Seminary was founded in 1807 after the fall of Harvard Divinity School to Unitarianism and was commissioned to carry on the torch of Jonathan Edwards and the Reformed tradition.

Newton Theological Institution was opened by the Massachusetts Baptist Society in 1825, also with a strong evangelical thrust. The two schools were affiliated in 1931 and officially merged in 1965. The present school is connected with the American Baptist Churches in the U.S. A. (ABC) and the United Church of Christ (UCC). It is located in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, near Boston.

During the twentieth century, the seminary lost sight of its purpose, says George W. Peck, 51, who, as dean, has been a driving force behind efforts to recover the evangelical tradition. Peck was recently named president, replacing Gordon Torgersen, who retired after four years. “We tended from the thirties until fairly recently to relate ourselves so strongly to ‘mainline liberal’ churches that we neglected that other aspect of our history. Now we’re seeking to affirm it.”

A recently published 12-page brochure features a small picture of a haystack and the title “Andover Newton Theological School—theological education rooted in and nourished by the Reformed tradition.” The haystack is symbolic of the historic Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College that sparked the modern missionary movement. The nation’s first missionaries, including Adoniram Judson, Samuel Newell, and Luther Rice, studied at the new Andover Theological Seminary.

The recruitment brochure was written by an independent consultant, who first interviewed members of the faculty about their vision for the seminary. The result—a strong emphasis on the Reformed tradition—was based on what the consultant heard faculty members saying, and what they said surprised seminary officials.

The new brochure was a far cry from those sent out from the seminary’s public relations office in the late sixties and early seventies. Those publications “portrayed the seminary as a hotbed of left-wing radicalism,” Peck said.

“They thought that was the way to get students,” he added. Brochures from that period played up the faculty’s political stand on issues such as the war in Vietnam, race relations, and the civil rights movement, at the expense of their commitment to the church.

“The truth is that while the school is committed to social justice, it is also committed to the gospel and to the churches.”

Peck himself was nurtured in the evangelical faith. The son of an Australian coal miner-lay Baptist preacher, he says he was “evangelical without being conscious of it. “He experienced a very profound conversion as a teenager and began preparing for what he soon realized would be a teaching ministry. Peck served as a missionary teacher in the Assam province of India from 1958 to 1963 under the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.

He is a regular member of a group of evangelical leaders including Gordon MacDonald of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Richard Lovelace, professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who pray for renewal in New England.

Appointed the first dean of the combined theological school in 1966, Peck sees liberal American churches in a sad state.

“Mainline liberal Christianity as a ‘party movement’ has run out of energy, and people are looking for alternatives,” he said, citing the decrease of denominational church memberships. “There’s a sadness, a sense of being defeated, that ought not to be characteristic of the church. The energy has shifted. Clearly the evangelical wing has it.”

Although the seminary has no doctrinal statement, most faculty members are committed to the tenets of the Reformed tradition, which Peck listed as: Scripture as the sole authority for faith and conduct, the sovereignty of grace, justification by faith alone, the Christian life and action as an expression of justification, the gospel as God’s word to humanity, and an orthodox view of Christ as both God and human.

When Peck uses the term “evangelical,” he prefers the German definition of the word evangelische, which means “Reformed.” In other words, the seminary is not teaching a “reformed fundamentalism,” but is seeking to recover the spirit of the European Reformers, explains Gordon-Conwell’s Lovelace.

“These are not card-carrying evangelicals,” he said of the Andover Newton faculty. Lovelace sees Andover Newton faculty members as being “to the right of (Karl) Barth, but to the left of the evangelical establishment,” especially on the issue of Scripture. Still, Lovelace said he has found a “warm evangelical spirit” among many of Andover Newton’s staff, and he considers the emphasis on recovery as a work of the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile, Andover Newton professors have begun to teach the history and theology of the movements that helped shape the seminary.

Also, the seminary is offering courses in evangelism and is encouraging students in their spiritual growth. In the fall of 1981, the seminary sponsored an evangelism conference that drew surprisingly large crowds. MacDonald of Grace Chapel in Lexington and Sen. Mark Hatfield addressed audiences of 400 and 1,200, respectively.

In January, Peck and Richard Broholm, who directs the seminary’s new Center for the Ministry of the Laity, taught workshops at Congress ‘83, an annual conference sponsored by the Evangelistic Association of New England. It was the first time in Peck’s 17 years that representatives of the seminary were invited to participate in an evangelical conference.

As president. Peck will continue to hold the chair of Judson Professor of Christian Theology and International Mission. He sees that decision as symbolic, an indication of the seminary’s commitment to international missions and the church in general.

Peck sees a critical need to recruit the kind of students who are rooted in the Reformed tradition and eager to pursue that kind of ministry. “That’s not the easiest thing to do,” he said, “because unfortunately, many of our churches have lost hold of this tradition and don’t always instruct their people in it. Students come with only a vague idea of what it’s all about.”

As Lovelace sees it, that means stiffer competition for the kind of student Gordon-Conwell has been getting since the Jesus movement of the early seventies. That’s the sort of competition that’s already taking place between Gordon-Conwell and Princeton, he said. “It’s the friendliest form of competition I’ve ever seen.”

Despite the conservative shift in the direction of Andover Newton, the seminary will not be hoisting an evangelical banner over its campus, said Peck. The seminary sees itself in a good position to establish links between the mainline denominations and other points of view, including those of evangelicals.

“The last thing we need is another round of party squabbles,” he said. “We don’t want to belong to a party. We want to affirm the gospel and get on with God’s work in the world.”

STEVE CROWE

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.