One writer said of Horace Bushnell: "The preaching of most men is fashioned by the theology of the day; Bushnell's preaching helped fashion the theology of his day."1

Born in 1802 on a farm near Litchfield, Connecticut, Bushnell was born to a Methodist father and Episcopal mother who had joined the only local church, the Congregational. Even before his birth, Bushnell's mother dedicated her first-born son to the ministry, and years later she persuaded her husband to give the boy a college education.

In 1823 Bushnell entered Yale, and upon graduation began teaching school in Norwich, Conn. Soon after that he accepted an editorial post with New York's Journal of Commerce, with which he soon grew dissatisfied. Bushnell returned to Yale to enter law school, sensing an inner struggle over his life's direction. While he knew his mother wanted him in the ministry, he wanted no part of it; he wasn't even sure he was a Christian.

Though he planned to practice law in the West, his mother's encouragement led him to accept a tutor's position at Yale. Two years later, when a religious revival swept the campus in 1831, Bushnell at first resisted involvement but eventually experienced a religious commitment.

That fall he entered Yale Divinity School, determined to enter the ministry. At that time the school was dominated by Nathaniel Taylor, with his New Divinity (easing the harsh Calvinism of an earlier era) and stress on revival preaching. Taylor's views became a starting point for Bushnell's theological development, which was further influenced by Aids to Reflection by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In 1833 Bushnell was called to the North Congregational Church in Hartford; it would be the only congregation he would ever serve as pastor. Within the year he was married to Mary Apthorp. He settled into a long and influential ministry which would be marred by health problems.

Bushnell's writings were widely known and debated. His book Discourses on Christian Nurture, published in 1847, challenged popular notions of conversion by arguing for the gradual development of Christian faith under the nurturing influence of family and church.

Though some of his later writings return to what was a more widely-accepted orthodox position, and though his approach to evangelism included strong support of the New England revivals of 1857-58, Bushnell continually faced criticism by ministers who opposed his views. He was cleared in the one formal heresy trial he endured, and the Hartford church withdrew from the local Congregational fellowship to avoid further difficulties.

It was in preaching that Bushnell found his greatest satisfaction. In an 1862 letter he wrote, "there is nothing I so much delight in as preaching." Several of his sermons have been called among the finest to emerge from an American pulpit.

While Bushnell's sermons reflected his intellectual gifts, they were also marked by clarity (especially in his later years). Over the years his style changed, moving from a fiery quality in his early ministry to a more restrained, even poetic quality in his mature years.