"The Atlas of Independency": The ideas of John Owen (1616--1683) in the North Atlantic Christian world.
详细信息
文摘
The English minister and theologian John Owen (1616--83), the "Atlas of Independency," never stepped foot on the soil of North America, yet he was unquestionably a North Atlantic Puritan. His impact upon the course of Puritan and English history during the seventeenth century was immense. Yet, by not exploring his influence upon the trans-Atlantic world of Puritanism and, in particular, upon the development of Christian thought within North American history, scholars have failed to appreciate fully his international and historical importance. Owen is no minor figure in the history of Christianity. His theology remains widely read over three hundred years after his death, and his model of the Christian activist has inspired Christians across the centuries.;It was Owen, more than any other congregational Puritan, who provided a framework of what Independency might look like, what its theology should be, and what its future might become. Owen believed the world of politics was useful only as far as it might help bring about the return of Jesus. Nevertheless, he was a Calvinist modeled after Calvin, thus one who believed that God's representative should be active in all facets of life, including politics.;Owen's nineteenth century biographer William Orme proclaimed Owen "an Independent of New England," and that the noted eighteenth century of Oxford University Anthony Wood declared him "the Prince, the Oracle, [and] the Metropolitan of Independency." This study both reaffirms the value of studying individual Puritan thinkers and the world in which they lived. More than just a North Atlantic Puritan, John Owen remains central to understanding the contemporary trans-Atlantic world of Reformed thinking. To understand Owen's historical importance requires, therefore, an appreciation of both his thought and his person. This dissertation provides a needed intellectual biography of Owen, one that explains his development as a thinker and explores his impact within the North Atlantic World of Christianity. It identifies Owen as the most important Puritan theologian of the seventeenth-century, and demonstrates his influence in the Christian World of the North Atlantic.