A call for continuity: the theological contribution of James Orr
Abstract
James Orr (1844-1913) was a Scottish theologian, apologist
and polemicist. He was the leading United Presbyterian theologian
at the time of the United Free Church of Scotland union of 1900, and
beyond his own church and nation he came to exercise a significant
influence in North America. This study is an examination of Orris
theological contribution, what he believed and how he expressed it,
in its historical setting Particular attention is paid to the
convictions which undergirded and gave impetus to his activities.
The study reveals that while Orr was far from unaffected by
the intellectual movements of the late-Victorian period, his contribution
may best be described as a call for continuity with the central tenets
of evangelical orthodoxy. He was one of the earliest and principal
British critics of the Ritschlian theology, and a strong opponent
of rationalistic biblical criticism. He emphatically rejected all
evolutionary interpretations of man's moral history, and held firmly
to orthodox Christological formulations in the face of alternative
assessments of the historical Jesus.
While factors of temperament affected the tenor of his work,
his contribution was most decisively shaped by the convictions that
evangelical orthodoxy is ultimately self-authenticating, that truth
comprises a unity or interconnected whole, that genuine Christian
belief implies a two-story supernaturalist cosmology, and that the
rationalism of the times was a temporary malaise.
A general lack of support for his views within the scholarly
community, combined with his own deep-seated populist instincts and
common sense convictions, led Orr in later years to direct his
appeals primarily toward the Christian public. The conclusion reached
is that Orr deserves to be recognized, not so much as a brilliant or
particularly original thinker, but as an able and exceptionally
vigorous participant in a period of dramatic theological challenge
and change.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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