For Dabney, preaching was not a fundamentally man-driven task dependent upon the preacher’s ability to convert sinners, but a fundamentally God-driven task, dependent upon God to convict, wound, save, sanctify, edify, mold, shape, and make listeners into the people God would have them to be.

Yet, despite his total reliance on God, and his love for the Word of God, he still placed a great deal of emphasis on the pastor becoming a pastor-theologian.

Robert Lewis Dabney and the Greatness of Old Southern Presbyterianism

I’m a bit of a book collector. I love getting my hands on an old volume from some obscure theologian and basking in the riches of God’s goodness and grace, flowing from the pen of an old and departed saint. But, every now and again, I’ll encounter a theologian that so encourages my heart and soul, I will immediately set about the work of trying to find more works from them to study.

This was my experience with Robert Lewis Dabney back in about 2019. The trouble, I quickly found, was that his works were almost all out of print (at the time). Doing a bit of research, I soon found out why.

Born in the nineteenth century, Dabney really was one of America’s premiere theologians. He lived from 1820-1898 and served on no less than three academic faculties—Union Theological Seminary, the University of Texas, and Austin Theological Seminary. He was, by all accounts, a brilliant theologian and scholar. In fact, his first appointment at Union in 1853 was as Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity at the age of thirty-three.

His interests, hobbies, abilities, and expertise varied greatly, as he worked various professions from architect, to planter, to teacher, to pastor. His biographies report that he built a stone house for his family with his own hands. He was not, as some may expect, just a scholarly theologian, but a very hands-on scholarly theologian.

He also wrote extensively and prolifically. Some of his most important works (in my humble estimate) would include a fantastic biography The Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), Evangelical Eloquence: A Course of Lectures on Preaching, and Systematic Theology. He also wrote countless articles and essays on topics as various as education, theology, and history, and which are almost always a pleasure to read.

But perhaps the profession that Dabney is most remembered for is his time under the service of Brigadier General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson during the Civil War. He had become a chaplain with the Eighteenth Virginia Volunteers in 1861 and by 1862 found himself being offered the position of Adjutant-General, rank of Major, under Jackson’s command. Along with this, he would be permitted the opportunity to preach to the troops on Sundays.

It is for this position within the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and various writings and speeches in favor of slavery, that would later be detrimental to the republication of his works and the reception of his theological contributions.

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