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Vanderbilt Divinity School: Education, Contest, and Change. Edited by Dale A. Johnson. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2001. x + 420 pages. $49.95.
This fine history of the Vanderbilt Divinity School is a collection of thirteen chapters by thirteen scholars, with one chapter, "The Lawson Affair, 1960: A Conversation," by six persons involved in the event (James Lawson, Gene Davenport, Langdon Gilkey, Lou Silberman, John Compton, and Charles Roos) and the convenor, Dale Johnson. The volume has six appendices and a number of excellent illustrations. The chapters are more thematic than chronological. Former dean Joseph Hough sets the context with his opening chapter, "Theological Studies in the Context of the University," in which he has this quotation by Erasmus: "Knowledge perished wherever Lutheranism became dominant."
At the beginning of the school's history there was some conflict over whether the school should be academic or practical. Bishop George Pierce of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, stressed the practical and preferred ministers who experientially knew that "breaking hearts with the hammer of words is better employment than splitting hairs with metaphysical acumen." Another anonymous author warned, "There is not a Church in existence but has degenerated spiritually as they have courted an educated ministry" (97).
The chapter by...