Charles Rosenbury Erdman Sr. (1866-1960) was an American Presbyterian minister and professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Erdman was born on July 20, 1866, in Fayetteville, New York, to William J. Erdman, a leader in the premillennialist and holiness movements of the late nineteenth century. [1] He earned his B.A. (1886) from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and went on to study at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887 to 1891. Erdman was ordained on May 8, 1891, in the Presbytery of Philadelphia North, PCUSA. [2]
Erdman served as pastor of Overbrook Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1891 to 1897, and then at First Presbyterian Church in Germantown from 1897 to 1906. He joined the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1905, where he served as professor of practical theology until his retirement in 1936. During that time, Erdman was elected the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1925, and also served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1924 to 1934. [2]
Erdman was a major voice for tolerance toward deviation from the Westminster Standards, in opposition to J. Gresham Machen, which led to the reorganization of the seminary and some faculty breaking off from Princeton to form Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. [3]
During his time in Princeton Erdman was instrumental in bringing to Princeton the Westminster Choir College, where a building bears his name, and the American Boychoir School. The site of his former home is now occupied by Princeton Seminary's Erdman Hall which is named in honor of Charles and Estelle Erdman and houses the Erdman Center. [4]
Erdman died in 1960 and is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church. [5]
Erdman was the author of over thirty popular biblical commentaries and books of pastoral theology. Two of his essays entitled "The Coming of Christ" and "The Church and Socialism" were included in The Fundamentals .
James Montgomery Boice was an American Reformed Christian theologian, Bible teacher, author, and speaker known for his writing on the authority of Scripture and the defense of Biblical inerrancy. He was also the Senior Minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death.
Charles Hodge was a Reformed Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878.
John Gresham Machen was an American Presbyterian New Testament scholar and educator in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1906 and 1929, and led a revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. As the Northern Presbyterian Church continued to reject conservative attempts to enforce faithfulness to the Westminster Confession, Machen led a small group of conservatives out of the church to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. When the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) rejected his arguments during the mid-1920s and decided to reorganize Princeton Seminary to create a liberal school, Machen took the lead in founding Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia (1929) where he taught New Testament until his death. His continued opposition during the 1930s to liberalism in his denomination's foreign missions agencies led to the creation of a new organization, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (1933). The trial, conviction and suspension from the ministry of Independent Board members, including Machen, in 1935 and 1936 provided the rationale for the formation in 1936 of the OPC.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), who objected to the rise of Liberal and Modernist theology in the 1930s. The OPC is considered to have had an influence on evangelicalism far beyond its size.
John Murray was a Scottish-born Calvinist theologian who taught at Princeton Seminary and then left to help found Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught for many years. He was ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1937.
Covenant theology is a biblical theology, a conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall structure of the Bible. It is often distinguished from dispensational theology, a competing form of biblical theology. It uses the theological concept of a covenant as an organizing principle for Christian theology. The standard form of covenant theology views the history of God's dealings with mankind, from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Consummation, under the framework of three overarching theological covenants: those of redemption, of works, and of grace.
Charles Augustus Briggs, American Presbyterian scholar and theologian, was born in New York City, the son of Alanson Briggs and Sarah Mead Berrian. He was excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church for heresy due to his liberal theology regarding the Bible.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was a Presbyterian denomination existing from 1789 to 1958. In that year, the PCUSA merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The new church was named the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It was a predecessor to the contemporary Presbyterian Church (USA).
Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson is a Scottish theologian known in Reformed Christian circles for his teaching, writing, and editorial work. He has been Chancellor's Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary since 2017, commuting from Scotland, where he was an assistant minister at St. Peter's Free Church of Scotland, Dundee. He is currently a preaching associate at Trinity Church, Aberdeen.
Harold John Ockenga was a leading figure of mid-20th-century American Evangelicalism, part of the reform movement known as "Neo-Evangelicalism". A Congregational minister, Ockenga served for many years as pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a prolific author on biblical, theological, and devotional topics. Ockenga helped to found the Fuller Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, as well as the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
The Nassau Presbyterian Church is a historic congregation located at 61 Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It has been the home of many important figures in the history of Presbyterianism in the United States as a result of its proximity to Princeton University and the Princeton Theological Seminary. The church operates the Princeton Cemetery and is a contributing property to the Princeton Historic District. The current pastor is the Reverend Dr. David A. Davis.
Geerhardus Johannes Vos was a Dutch-American Calvinist theologian and one of the most distinguished representatives of the Princeton Theology. He is sometimes called the father of Reformed Biblical theology.
Jennings Ligon Duncan III is an American Presbyterian scholar and pastor. He is Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary.
The fundamentalist–modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and 1930s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity; the authority of the Bible; and the death, resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged: fundamentalists, who insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian orthodoxy; and modernists, who advocated a conscious adaptation of the Christian faith in response to the new scientific discoveries and moral pressures of the age. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed churches and centered around the Princeton Theological Seminary, whose fundamentalist faculty members founded Westminster Theological Seminary when Princeton went in a liberal direction. However, it soon spread, affecting nearly every Protestant denomination in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran churches, eventually were embroiled in the controversy, leading to a schism in the United States.
Mariano Di Gangi was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
George William Knight III was an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He was a theologian, author, preacher, churchman, and adjunct professor of New Testament at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina. Formerly, he was the founding Dean and Professor of New Testament at Knox Theological Seminary. Prior to his appointment at Knox Theological Seminary, he taught New Testament and New Testament Greek at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. As a pastor, he planted Covenant Presbyterian Church in Naples, Florida and has served numerous other local churches in the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. A former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, he has also taught and preached the Bible at many other seminaries and churches around the world. He has authored several works, most notably The Pastoral Epistles and a short commentary of Timothy and Titus as included in the Baker Commentary on the Bible. He received his theological doctorate from Free University of Amsterdam in 1968. Dr. Knight was a member of the General Assembly-appointed Ad Interim Committee to study the number of ordained offices in the Presbyterian Church in America according to Scripture. His Ad Interim Report of the Number of Offices by George W. Knight IIIArchived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine was incorporated into the polity of the Presbyterian Church in America. He also served on an ad interim committee to study the issue of marriage, divorce and remarriage, which brought about the 1992 publication of a Position Paper of the Presbyterian Church in America on Remarriage and Divorce, 1992.Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (1915–1990) was an Anglican clergyman and New Testament scholar whose life spanned four continents: Australia, where he was born; South Africa, where he spent his formative years; England, where he was ordained; and the United States, where he died in 1990, aged 75.
Charles Jahleel Woodbridge was an American Presbyterian missionary, minister, seminary professor, founding member of the National Association of Evangelicals, and author of The New Evangelicalism.
E. Elizabeth Johnson is an American New Testament scholar and the J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is widely known for her writings on the New Testament, specifically the Pauline Letters.
Earl Frank Palmer was an American Presbyterian minister and Reverend. He served in pastoral ministries at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Union Church in Manila, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, and The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Palmer was known for his expositional preaching and teaching style. He had a strong interest in pursuing theological themes that are present in classic and contemporary literature, with focus on authors such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Palmer wrote over 20 books, and served on the boards of Princeton Theological Seminary, New College Berkeley, Whitworth University and Regent College.