Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy by Paul C. Gutjahr

Author:Paul C. Gutjahr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-26T12:25:00+00:00

While Norton had done the once unthinkable in making common cause with Princeton, many Presbyterians began to wonder about Hodge's own theological loyalties when, in 1845, he refused to join the General Assembly in denouncing the efficacy of Roman Catholic baptism. Questions concerning Hodge's Catholic sympathies arose just when anti-Catholic sentiment was reaching an all-time high in the United States. His thoughtful and carefully circumscribed defense of Catholicism's sacrament of baptism subjected him to some of the most pointed and aggressive criticism of his career.'

The depth of anti-Catholic sentiment among Presbyterians can be seen in how by the mid-1840s the denomination had added a special time during its General Assemblies for the preaching of a sermon against Catholicism. By 1845, anti-Catholic sympathies were running so strong that a group of Ohio ministers introduced a motion in the General Assembly to declare Catholic baptism invalid, arguing that it was "the unanimous opinion of all the Reformed churches that the whole papal body, though a branch of the visible church, has long since become unutterably corrupt and hopeless apostate." The motion passed with a tidal wave of support. One hundred and sixty-nine delegates voted in favor, while only eight stood in opposition and six more abstained. Hodge viewed everything about this motion and the resulting vote in its support as a tragic mistake.

Presbyterian animosity toward Catholicism was but a reflection of American culture at large. Much of the nation's distaste for Catholicism lay in the fact that since the 183os, immigrants had been flooding into the United States from all over Europe, but particularly from Germany and Ireland, where there were significant Catholic populations 3 Between 1845 and 1855, nearly three million immigrants arrived in the United States, comprising a sizeable 14.S percent of the general population.4 The demographic shifts caused by such a massive population influx played a critical role in the development of antebellum American society. New York City stood as a particularly poignant example of population shifts rooted in immigration as roughly so percent of the city's residents were foreign born by 1855 s

American Protestants saw the massive influx of Catholics among these immigrants as a threat to both American religious and political values. Protestants railed against the Catholic belief that only priests-not common believers-were capable of interpreting the Bible. They saw this dependence on the guidance of an all-powerful priesthood as decidedly dangerous and undemocratic. It was this perceived undemocratic spirit that bled over into American politics. "Native" Americans played on the fear that the Pope himself wished to subvert American democracy by establishing priests as a new kind of aristocracy in a country where every man was supposed to think (and vote) for himself.'

Tensions between American Protestants and Catholics often took violent and deadly forms. Cities such as New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia all experienced significant unrest in the decades leading up to the Civil War as Americans repeatedly turned against Catholics by attacking their convents, churches, and schools. One of the most cataclysmic confrontations took

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