Charles Augustus Briggs

Charles Augustus Briggs (January 15, 1841 – June 8, 1913), American Presbyterian (and later Episcopalian) scholar and theologian, was born in New York City, the son of Alanson Briggs and Sarah Mead Berrian. He was excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church because of his liberal theology regarding the Bible.

Briggs was educated at the University of Virginia (1857–60), graduated at the Union Theological Seminary in 1863, and after the Civil War, studied further at the University of Berlin from 1866 to 1869. In 1870, he was appointed pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Roselle, New Jersey which post he held until 1874, when he accepted the professorship of Hebrew and cognate languages at Union Theological Seminary, in which department he taught until 1891, and of Biblical theology there from 1891 to 1904, following which he became their professor of theological encyclopaedia and symbolics. From 1880 to 1890 he was an editor of the Presbyterian Review.

In 1892 Briggs was tried for heresy by the presbytery of New York, including James McCook, and acquitted. The charges were based upon his inaugural address of the preceding year. In brief they were as follows:

After much posturing, maneuvering and publicity-seeking by Briggs, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, to which the case was appealed, defrocked and excommunicated (expelled) Briggs from the Presbyterian church in 1893 in Washington, D.C. Some have argued that General Assembly's finding of heresy was influenced, in part, by Briggs' belligerent manner and militant tone of expressions; by what his own colleagues in the Union Theological Seminary called the dogmatic and irritating nature of his inaugural address.

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