A failure of theological imagination: Beginning to deal with the legacy of Princeton Seminary on matters of slavery and race

Abstract

Princeton Theological Seminary has an ambiguous legacy around issues of slavery and race. From its founding in 1812 through at least the period of Reconstruction, the seminary’s faculty espoused African colonization as the only viable response to the problems caused by slavery in the United States. In their enthusiastic support for the colonization effort, the seminary’s faculty manifested a profound failure of theological imagination in that their efforts along these lines were premised upon an inability to conceive of a society in which Black and White could live together as equals before God. This article signals the beginning of an effort by current faculty to research the history of the seminary’s ambiguous legacy around matters or slavery and race with an eye toward developing a constructive way forward in the present and for the future.