Revjw’s Book Corner: Hoffecker on Hodge

In this 200th year of Princeton Theological Seminary, it seems appropriate to read the latest biography of Charles Hodge penned by Andrew Hoffecker. Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton is also the latest entry in the American Reformed Biographies series published by P&R Publishing. Like its predecessors, this volume was a pleasure to read. It has more of the flavor of an intellectual biography than Paul Gutjahr’s Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy published by Oxford University Press. Hoffecker writes sympathetically yet not uncritically of his subject and the issues of the day. At the end of the book I felt, as I did with John Muether’s volume on Cornelius Van Til in the same series, that I did not want to close the covers and leave the presence of a friend. I have personally found this study to be encouraging and inspirational.