Princeton Theologians

Princeton Theologians

The Princeton Theology was a tradition of conservative, Christian, Reformed and Presbyterian theology at Princeton Theological Seminary lasting from the founding of that institution in 1812 until the 1920s, after which, due to the increasing influence of theological liberalism at the school, the last Princeton theologians left to found Westminster Theological Seminary. The appellation has special reference to certain theologians, from Archibald Alexander to B.B. Warfield, and their particular blend of teaching, which together with its Old School Presbyterian Calvinist orthodoxy sought to express a warm Evangelicalism and a high standard of scholarship. W. Andrew Hoffecker argues that they strove to "maintain a balance between the intellectual and affective elements in the Christian faith."

By extension, the Princeton theologians include those predecessors of Princeton Theological Seminary who prepared the groundwork of that theological tradition, and the successors who tried, and failed, to preserve the seminary against the inroads of a program to better conform that graduate school to "Broad Evangelicalism", which was imposed upon it through the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.