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A Baptist at the Crossroads
The Atonement in the Writings of Richard Furman (1755-1825)
Foreword by Tom J. Nettles
Series: Monographs in Baptist History
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
South Carolina Baptist Richard Furman (1755-1825) personified a host of seeming contradictions. As a Regular Baptist baptized by a Separate Baptist, an ardent patriot with puritan sensibilities, a Federalist who zealously defended religious liberty, and a slave-owning aristocrat who associated with backwoods revivalists, Furman is a complex figure in American history. His doctrine of atonement exhibited this same complexity, as he uniquely held to both a penal substitutionary theory of the atonement as well as to a moral governmental view, models of the atonement that were often conceived as mutually exclusive in the nineteenth century. Furman was the first of his American Baptist kind to attempt to integrate these two models. As a Baptist standing at the political, cultural, and theological crossroads of America, Furman blended Edwardsean and confessional Calvinism, Regular and Separate Baptist traditions, and a host of other elements into his theology, laying the groundwork for an entire generation of Southern Baptists who followed in his theological footsteps.
Obbie Tyler Todd is pastor of Third Baptist Church in Marion, Illinois and serves as online adjunct faculty at Luther Rice College and Seminary.
“The sustained attack on orthodox Christianity by the Enlightenment and its advocates in the long eighteenth century forced a rethinking by Christian authors of a number of loci of Christian doctrine. Among the loci revisited in this crucial era in the development of Western society was the nature of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. In this new study, Obbie Todd examines how one Baptist thinker, the South Carolinian Richard Furman, pastor of the oldest Baptist church in the South—First Baptist, Charleston—sought to combine classical confessional thinking about the cross with new perspectives derived from Jonathan Edwards and Andrew Fuller. The result is an enthralling study of how an extremely influential Baptist leader sought to make biblical Christianity attractive and relevant to his fellow Americans. A tour de force of intellectual history.”
—Michael A. G. Haykin, chair of Church History, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“The thought, theology, and pastoral style of Richard Furman come alive in this excellent work by Obbie Todd. In this fine synthesis of primary and secondary source work, Todd has successfully presented Furman as an ‘eclectic theologian.’ . . . In particular, Todd carefully crafts Furman’s understanding of the elements of truth in the moral government theory without sacrificing the doctrines of propitiation and substitution emphasized in the Charleston Association Confession of Faith. Todd shows that Furman operated under the assumption that these treatments were not mutually exclusive, but could be partially blended with some nuancing of the strict peculiarities of each. . . . An admirable model of historical theology, as well as a careful engagement with intellectual history.”
—Tom J. Nettles, professor of Historical Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Richard Furman sought to meld into a unified view the strengths of both the moral governmental and the penal substitutionary theories of the atonement. This work is a thorough treatment of the intricacies and nuances of Furman’s eclectic view of the atonement, including the influences upon him and the context in which he was living. Furman’s contributions and failings are presented with a rich vocabulary in this engaging work.”
—Lloyd A. Harsch, director, Institute for Faith and the Public Square
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