Joseph McKeen

Joseph McKeen (1735–1807) was an influential American Congregationalist minister and educator who served as the founding principal of Bowdoin College, where he shaped early American theological education through his emphasis on rational piety and moral philosophy. His Election Sermon exemplifies the genre's role in early American political discourse, blending Calvinist theology with Enlightenment principles to address questions of civic virtue and divine providence during the formative decades of the American republic. McKeen's intellectual legacy reflects the broader transition in late eighteenth-century New England theology toward a more moderate Calvinism that sought to reconcile traditional doctrine with contemporary philosophical thought.