Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 50:2 (Fall 1988)
Article: The Princeton Review
Author: Mark A. Noll

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WTJ 50:2 (Fall 1988) p. 283

The Princeton Review

Mark Noll

The evangelical revivals of the 1730s and 1740s provided the stimulus for the first religious periodicals in the Anglo-American world. The journals that arose to report on the American Great Awakening, the renewal in England associated with the Wesleys and George Whitefield, and the “Cambuslang Work” in Scotland did not last long. All had ceased publication by 1750.1 But they had established an important precedent. Soon weekly, monthly, and quarterly religious periodicals would become a central feature in the life of European and American Protestants—whether reporting on new surges of spiritual vitality, broadcasting the prophetic appeals of self-appointed religious leaders, providing a communications grid for denominations or interest groups within denominations, or acting as clearing houses for religious news and spiritual uplift. In the twentieth century, even with the general secularization of culture and the growing competition of electronic media, periodicals have retained their place as a vital part of religious life.2

To be sure, not all forms of periodical literature have fared equally well in more recent decades. Journals emphasizing a Christian perspective on the news, especially politics, may just be coming into their own. Denominations, voluntary agencies,

WTJ 50:2 (Fall 1988) p. 284

and special interest groups show no sign of giving up on the periodical, despite rising postal costs and volatile tastes of constituencies. Things are, however, different for the theological quarterly, which, at least in America, has definitely seen better days. Patience for theological reasoning, indeed for reasoning of all sorts, is now at a premium. An age of image, ideological posturing, and the quick intellectual fix is not conducive to the bland typography, lengthy articles, painstaking reviews, and discursive polemic for which theological quarterlies were once known. Doughty survivors do struggle steadfastly on. But it is against great odds that such reviews, like the Westminster Theological Journal, are able to sustain a useful existence for as long as a half-century. It was not always so.

In the nineteenth century, during the heyday of what Sydney Ahlstrom called “the golden day of democratic evangelicalism,” theological journals flourished.3 And the heavier, the better. It was a period when all denominations worthy of the name sponsored at least one such journal, and when Methodists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and other groups patronized several weighty quarterlies each. Presbyterians, whether fr...

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