And then, social gospel and Harry Emerson Fosdick; the fascination of philosophy, and the freedom to think and rebel. Luther was a hero, but Calvin was almost evil!
I started preaching at a little mission church as a junior in college, so I had to deal with all this. When I started seminary, I battled systematic theology all the way. For sure, I did not like that neo-orthodoxy stuff! I felt like I was fighting the very thing I was working to become part of. Sound familiar?
Ed Dowey saved me! We were at McCormick Seminary then. The faculty was composed of giants: G. Ernest Wright, Frank M. Cross, Floyd Filson, and others, but the man who moved to the head of the pack as my leader was Edward A. Dowey Jr. And he was a hero for many of us. In addition to superb biblical education, I needed something solid in systematics, and Dowey’s seminar on Calvin provided that. Our textbook was his own work, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology, which was produced from his doctoral dissertation. Looking at Calvin through Dowey’s eyes, I saw a meaningful and personally relevant Christian theology that I had not been able to see in Barth, Brunner, Niebuhr and even Tillich.
We were dazzled, but not quite intimidated, by the depth of scholarship in that wonderful textbook. (I recall clearly the 469 footnotes in the second chapter on God the Creator!) Word around the seminary was that the review committee at Zurich had said it was the most brilliant dissertation they had ever been presented. Central to Dowey’s teaching of Calvin’s understanding of how we know God is that very “living and active” work of the Holy Spirit as our here-and-now interpreter of the Scriptures when we read in faith prayerfully. That fit so powerfully for me then, made faith come alive for me then, and it remains today, fitting quite well with the more mystical aspect of my faith. Historically, the “Calvinist Crusaders” among later Scots attacked the Celtic Christians of the Hebrides, but in fact John Calvin’s knowledge of God via the activity of the Holy Spirit is quite compatible with the “mystical” knowledge of God in Celtic spirituality.
Dowey’s years at McCormick were the same as mine. He went on to Princeton, and I went to my first ordained pastorate in Ohio. I had not really gotten close to him in our first two years, but that seminar during my senior year was the spiritual highlight of my years in seminary. When I asked Ed to come to my ordination and deliver the sermon, he accepted. Columbus Presbytery officially invited him and he rode the train down from Chicago to preach at my home church, Hoge Memorial. I felt honored. With the other pastors he laid ordaining hands on me, but in reality, that had already occurred at seminary.
Not only did Dowey move on to Princeton, where he later became the Archibald Alexander Professor of the History of Doctrine (1982), but he also was named chair of the commission that produced The Confession of 1967. That labor took eight long and difficult years from conception to adoption. The product of that effort has become a permanent pillar of Presbyterian and Reformed doctrine. Here is a credo that stated not only the authentic belief system of the historic church, but was framed in the language of the present. It also reflected the cultural contemporary concerns of the 20th century, and has an impact on the 21st in a prophetic way.
A stained glass window in the National church, Washington, D.C., commemorates his contribution to this denomination through the production of that creed. The central theme of C-67 is reconciliation, echoing and calling to the fore the one-liner creed of the Apostle Paul:
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
The call to reconciliation in the PC(USA) in this century is loud and clear.
At Princeton, Dowey continued his academic career with distinction. He was friend and mentor to many graduate students. Recently, I met at the 215th General Assembly a young woman pastor that he mentored through her doctoral work, Deborah Brincivalli, pastor at the Burlington, N.J., church, who chaired the Assembly Committee on Church Orders and Ministry. She spoke warmly of Dowey, his scholarship, and his pastoral concern for her and other students. She also expressed sadness at the passing of this wonderful man who has made such a huge contribution to the church. I share that sadness, and I thank God for the life of Edward A. Dowey.
We Presbyterians try so hard, in our Reformed and Being Reformed efforts not to have “saints,” but if we could have one now and then — I surely believe ….
Fred Louis Wollerman Sr. is pastor, Mayberry church, Meadows of Dan, and Bluemont church, Fancy Gap, Va.
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