New Phase of American Church History

"American Protestantism entered a new phase during Nevin's lifetime. It is not an overstatement or caricature to say that, no longer regulated by the state and no longer administered by ordained officers, Protestant Christianity in the United States became a religion of the people, by the people, for the people"  (D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 26).

High-Church Calvinist

"[John Williamson] Nevin recognized that, without the nurture of the institutional church through its worship and pastoral care, Calvinist theology would not survive as a vibrant expression of the Christian religion. For that reason, Nevin deserves the nickname "high-church Calvinist"" (D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 13).

Economic Reality and Stewardship

"[Dabney] urged young Southerners to remember certain unchangeable principles that formed his theological response to the economic realities of the new South -- in particular, the principle that God was the true owner of all property and wealth; humans simply used property as stewards. Dabney taught that God's Word outlined three appropriate purposes for wealth: personal sustenance, family need, and insurance against the future. Wealth was certainly not to be used in "superfluities" or on luxuries, which only produced a worldly conformity, led others to covet, and ruined one's own character. Such unproductive consumption was a "waste and perversion of a trust that should have been sacred to noble and blessed ends." Instead, excess wealth was to be used for evangelism and other ministries, for "every ignorant, degraded man who is enlightened and sanctified becomes at once a useful producer of material wealth, for he is rendered an industrious citizen. And every heathen community that is evangelized becomes a recipient and a producer of the wealth of peaceful commerce."" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 189).

Warning to Not Plunge Into Error

"On the atonement, Dabney claimed that the Westminster Confession did not take a position on the order of decrees -- the long-standing debate among Calvinists over infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism. Indeed, he held that "if we impute our sequences to God, we plunge into error. The most we can comprehend is that God, in entertaining from eternity one part of this contemporaneous purpose, has regard to a state of facts as to that part destined by him to result from his same purpose as to other parts of his moral government"" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 141-142).

Loss of Influence

"While Dabney was able to hold the line against any form of racial reconciliation, he was not as successful in his battle against fraternal relations with the Northern church -- in 1882, New South Presbyterians within the PCUS repudiated his position. This battle against the Northern church did more to damage his reputation than any other action, and would ultimately be the impetus that relegated Dabney to the margins, both ecclesiastically in his loss of influence within his church and geographically in his "exile" to Texas" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 135-136),

Preserving Southern Identity

"[Post- Civil War] The issues at home were pressing and demanded Dabney's energies. While the North had gained the upper hand politically through the force of arms, Dabney sought to maintain a distinctive Southern civilization . . . by strengthening the Southern institutions that remained. . . . It was primarily in the PCUS [Presbyterian Church in the United States, i.e. the Southern Presbyterian Church], not in monuments or Confederate Day speeches, that Dabney sought to preserve Southern identity" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 134-135).

American Maybe

"While before the war [Dabney] had been Virginian first, American second, after the war Dabney was Virginian first, Southerner second, and American maybe" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 130).

Dabney the Biographer

"Because he had already memorialized Stonewall Jackson in a powerful sermon after the general's death in 1863, and because he was both a relative and a former member of Jackson's staff, Mary Anna Jackson asked Dabney to write a biography of the Confederate chieftain. Dabney spent the rest of the war on his Life of Jackson -- researching the battles, visiting Mrs. Jackson, securing Jackson's remaining papers, and writing the manuscript. The resulting biography was Dabney's longest-standing literary monument and one of his chief glories" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 128).

Chief of Staff

"Dabney was interested in seeking another tour in the army as a chaplain and had been old by General D.H. Hill, a fellow Presbyterian, that he could have a position in his division. In the meantime, Stonewall Jackson had sent his wife away from Winchester to stay with her cousin, Dabney's wife, Lavinia, at Farmville. Jackson, as a result of his wife's intercession, offered Dabney the position of chief of staff of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 115).

Honor

"It is important to notice themes of honor and patriotism in Dabney's declaration of war [i.e. the Civil War]. He had advocated peace until it was no longer a 'virtue,' until the edge of 'dishonor' was reached" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 109).

Penal Substitution and Divine Providence

"Dabney believed that this "penal substitutionary theory" of the atonement was the keystone of Christianity. 'There is scarcely a leading head of divinity which is not changed or perverted as a logical consequence of this denial of penal substitution consistently carried out,' Dabney taught. Forsake the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement and other key doctrines were sure to go: God's distributive justice; God's immutability; the doctrines of adoption and perseverance; and the church's teaching on the eternal punishment of the reprobate. Most important, however, was what the denial of the penal theory of the atonement would do to the doctrine of providence. If there was no special providence in Christ's sufferings, then the problem of evil would forever remain an 'insoluble mystery.' Such an idea was unthinkable to Dabney. The scoffers against Christianity would have his objections answered in 'our doctrine of redemption through Christ's substitution, and nowhere else.' God permitted evil in the world and suffered with that world in order to demonstrate his glory through the cross-work of Jesus. Dabney exclaimed exultantly, 'The Messiah is our complete theodicy!' Divine providence was saved through the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 91-92).

Dabney on the WCF

"In an essay commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly, Dabney compared the Westminster Confession to an arch in which "the removal of any one [stone] loosens all the rest and endangers the fall of the whole." In the same way, the Westminster Standards were an organic whole; to deny one part was to do harm to the rest of the system. "It is for this reason," Dabney wrote, "that the Confession will need no amendment until the Bible needs to be amended." Strict adherence to an unchanging creed was the way to maintain orthodoxy in the South" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 86).

Dabney's Vision of Seminary: Theological and Intellectual Bootcamp (without "practical training in parochial duties")

"[Dabney] thought that seminary training should be instructed to intellectual labor and "thorough mental culture." If ministers were to gain pastoral skills, such training would have to occur "under the pressure of pastoral responsibilities," not in the seminary classroom" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 77).

Presbyterian Education

"Dabney believed that Union Seminary was a necessary bulwark against the concentration of power in a single institution, such as Princeton Theological Seminary. "Suppose that such an institution [were] training all or nearly all the ministers of our church, and consequently becoming the fountain of literary and theological opinion for the whole church," Dabney wrote. "The result would be most un-Presbyterian and dangerous, even while this school remained orthodox." And if this school were to begin to teach heresy, such an institution "might spread its poison unresisted through the whole body." Hence, Union Seminary was vitally necessary and deserved the support of the Synods of Virginia and North Carolina" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 64).

Dabney As Preacher

"The common threads in all of these contemporary appraisals of Dabney's preaching were his pulpit intensity, his lack of polished oratory, and his didacticism. And an examination of the extant sermons demonstrates that these appraisals were fair and accurate. These sermons indicate that the majority of Dabney's preaching generally shifted back and forth between passionate and direct evangelistic appeals to unrepentant sinners to come to Christ, and doctrinal sermons on points related to soteriology" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 51).

Shortened Civil War Career

"Dabney suffered from camp fever once again, a sickness 'which brought me to death's door.' The illness forced him to resign his commission, which Jackson accepted with 'great reluctance' . . . In summary, Dabney's career as a Civil War chaplain and soldier is difficult to assess with accuracy because he did not participate long enough in either office to be noticed" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 117).

Government

"From [John] Randolph and [John C.] Calhoun, Dabney learned that, while God himself had ordained human government, human sinfulness also made government a necessity" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 29).

History Learnt

"What [Robert] Dabney desired above all else was that the past be remembered and given its due weight in contemporary discussions. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" not only was the biblical motto placed on Dabney's tombstone in the Union Seminary cemetery in Farmville, Virginia, but also was Dabney's policy for New South Presbyterians. What was necessary, Dabney claimed, was the rising generation to learn the history of the past truly"" (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 21).