The Ecumenical Orthodoxy of Charles Augustus Briggs, 1841-1913 by Richard L. Christensen (review)

524book reviews The book is simply an unrevised doctoral dissertation Ln pubUshed form.That is unfortunate, for careful revision and editing would have greatly strengthened the presentation and eliminated irritating elements of dissertation style. Francis Paul Prucha, SJ. Marquette University The Ecumenical Orthodoxy ofCharles Augustus Briggs, 1841-1913- By Richard L. Christensen. (Lewiston, NewYork: MeUen University Press. 1995. Pp. vU, 236. $89.95.) At a party given in 1907 to honor the publication of Charles Briggs's Church Unity,WUliam Reed Huntington—the moving spirit behind the ecumenical efforts of turn-of-the-century Episcopalians—toasted his friend Briggs for the "softeness ofhis heart and the hardness ofhis head." (No, asAnna Russell would say, I'm not making this up.) A pretty shrewd judge of character, Huntington "got it" just about right in summing up the personaUty of the man more distrusted by evangeUcal conservatives and more lionized by theological Uberals than almost any other in GUded-Age America. Indeed, one might argue that the various "heresy trials" that Briggs underwent between 1891 and 1893 over his biblical theories—trials that represented a defining moment in the history of American religion in a way analogous to the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century and the "MonkeyTrial" of 1925—were due in no smaU measure to Brigg's warm-hearted but bellicose personaUty. Richard Christensen has published a finely crafted and engaging study ofthis complex and crucial figure who helped define the battle lines between the Fundamentalists and modernists of our own century. It is based on the dissertation he wrote at the UnionTheological Seminary inVirginia. Christensen argues that previous studies ofBriggs—studies that portrayed Briggs variously as being primarily a bibUcal scholar, an ecclesiastical politician, and an advocate of historical criticism—have all helped to uncover important strands of the life of this conflicted scholar, but have paid insufficient attention to what Briggs himself conceived to be the defining work of his life: the cause of Christian unity. Indeed , Christensen notes that whUe the beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement are well documented, the place of scholars like Briggs who contributed in significant ways to its emergence has been largely ignored.Thus, the author convincingly presents Briggs as a scholar who "spent his life in pursuit of the dream of church union, laboring tirelessly for his vision of a cathoUc unity," and attempts to show "how his work foreshadowed the greater ecumenical accord of the middle and later twentieth century." Christensen argues that Briggs's famous biblical works like the International Critical Commentary (edited with S. R. Driver and A. Plummer), his historical studies, and his efforts at creedal reform that eventuated in his famous heresy trial and suspension from the Presbyterian ministry, can aU be most fruitfully BOOK REVIEWS525 understood as various manifestations of his ecumenical dream. Christensen states that Briggs beUeved "that free inquiry, comparative historical research, and honest debate would bring about a synthesis of beUef and practice out of the variety of expressions of the faith. Historical critical study . . . would bring consensus, and differences between church bodies would eventuaUy be reconcUed in a comprehensiveness (one of Briggs's favorite words) which aUowed for a variety of temperaments." Of particular interest to CathoUc biblical scholars and historians of Modernism, Christensen documents Briggs's central role (Ln league with Baron von Hügel) in attempting to deflect the fuU brunt of the papal condemnation of critical biblical and historical scholarship in Pascendi and Lamentabili. Christensen offers students of the modern ecumenical movement, as weU as students of GUded Age reUgion, a smart new "read" on one of the most famous figures of the era. Christensen deftly makes comprehensible one of the most complex scholars in the history ofAmerican reUgion. Mark S. Massa, SJ. Fordham University John LaFarge and the Limits ofCatholiclnterracialism, 1911-1963- By David W Southern. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1996. Pp. xxüi, 385. $45.00.) As Professor David Southern mentions in his preface, Father John LaFarge, SJ., came to his attention while Southern was doing research on the influence of Gunnar Myrdal'sAn American Dilemma.Additional research on LaFarge left Southern wondering why no scholarly book had been written on this pioneer...