An Uncommon Union

Dallas Theological Seminary and American Evangelicalism

John D. Hannah

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN:
  9780310303022
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Dallas Theological Seminary is often viewed as a bastion of conservative evangelicalism, marked by an unswerving devotion to theological positions of fundamentalism, biblical inerrancy, and dispensational premillennialism.An Uncommon Union, the first book-length history of Dallas Theological Seminary, written by a graduate and veteran faculty member of DTS, provides a necessary corrective to such a simplistic assessment. Using the tenures of the school's five presidents as the backbone for his narrative, John D. Hannah reveals the tensions that DTS has experienced in its eighty-plus years of existence.Each successive president of DTS brought his own unique style and perceptions to the school, even as he dealt with the changing religious and cultural milieu that swirled around it. Hannah argues that, rather than being a monolithic institution, Dallas Theological Seminary is a unique blend of differing heritages and of opposing traditions, a place that defies easy categorization.A keenly insightful and thoughtful work, An Uncommon Union illuminates the path charted by the leaders of a prominent American seminary in a rapidly changing world. All readers interested in the history and future of evangelicalism, regardless of their theological persuasion, will benefit from this book.

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION: A Seminary, a Century, and American Scholarship
• CHAPTER 1: The World Begins to Spin: The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
• CHAPTER 2: The Making of a Dream: The Early Years of Lewis Sperry Chafer
• CHAPTER 3: The Founding of the Seminary: The Chafer Presidency (1924–1952)
• CHAPTER 4: The Stabilization of the Seminary: The Walvoord Presidency (1952–1986)
• CHAPTER 5: The Emergence of the Seminary into Mainstream Evangelicalism: The Campbell Presidency (1986–1994)
• CHAPTER 6: The Restabilization of the Seminary in Mainstream Evangelicalism: The Swindoll Presidency (1994–2001)
• CHAPTER 7: A School Poised for a New Century: The Bailey Presidency (2001—)
• CONCLUSION: The World Is Still Spinning: The Seminary and Personal Reflections
• APPENDIX: 1924 and 1952 Doctrinal Statements
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
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