Everyone interested in American religious history—especially those with Reformed sympathies—should know about Charles Hodge. Some called Hodge, the most influential seminary educator of the 19th century, the "Pope of Presbyterianism." Hodge's stature in religious history has faded, obscured by figures from his era with more dubious legacies, including the evangelist Charles Finney, and Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. But Hodge's place in the first rank of American theologians should receive a deserved boost from Paul Gutjahr's excellent biography (just announced as a 2012 Christianity Today book award winner) Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy.
Hodge's father died when Charles was six months old, but his mother made sure that he was surrounded by mentors in the faith. Ashbel Green was Hodge's pastor at Philadelphia's Second Presbyterian Church, and later, the president at Princeton College when Hodge studied there. These were times—not entirely forgotten in some Christian circles today—of children committing doctrine to memory, and as a boy Hodge routinely appeared before Green to be drilled on the Westminster Catechism. Later, at Princeton, he again had to memorize the Catechism—this time in Latin.
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