Faculty Scholarship

IN THE FALL OF 2006, Yet Saints Their Watch Are Keeping: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and the Development of Evangelical Ecclesiology, 1887- 1937 by Elliott Associate Professor of Religion J. Michael Utzinger was published by Mercer University Press. In the book Utzinger examines the idea of the church, or ecclesiology, within the Northern Protestant “establishment” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, arguing that evangelicals’ ecclesiology was characterized by denominational ambivalence. Further, this ambivalence often acted as an agent for change that not only disturbed, but revitalized the home denominations of the evangelicals. Using the Northern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and Disciples of Christ as case studies, Utzinger showed that, despite their infighting, evangelicals typically found ways to cooperate with one another in order to preserve their denominational institutions. In other words, the results of the controversies were not only contention but compromise. And rather than indicating the eclipse of denominationalism, fundamentalism and modernism acted to revitalize those institutions and help them persist.

In the fall [2007] two articles by Utzinger were published. In the first he was a participant in a review symposium on Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s Is the Reformation Over?, which Over? appeared in Horizons. Th e second is entitled “Is Faith Th at Kills the Reason Religion Is Important?” and was presented at the Lilly Fellows Conference in Indianpolis last June; it was published in The Cresset. In the article Utzinger argues that the suggestion that religion is important because of its violent manifestations undermines the significance of religion as a general and genuine human experience.

Recently he has been working on a biography of the Rev. Dr. Charles R. Erdman (1866-1960). Erdman, a Presbyterian minister and professor of practical theology at Princeton Seminary, was a key figure in the fundamentalistmodernist controversies in the 1920s. A selfproclaimed fundamentalist, he worked to create an inclusivist vision of the church and thereby decisively shaped modern American Presbyterianism.

Utzinger serves as moderator of the Southeastern Colloquium of American Religious Studies, which brings together scholars of American religion in Virginia, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia. He has also participated in the College Theology Society’s evangelical-catholic theology consultation.

Utzinger was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2006. He arrived at the College in 2000 with a B.A. from Valparaiso University, an M.Div. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

BEYOND THE Classroom FOR THE Classroom
Hampden-Sydney College Faculty Scholarship 2005-2008
A report by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty

posted 2-13-2008