PURPOSE

A Brief Biography of Nevin
https://www.mercersburgtoday.net/a-brief-biography-of-john-williamson-nevin/

This short article will provide the reader a quick summary of the life of John W. Nevin

Randall Z. Zachman On From Mystical Presence to Priest, Altar and Sacrifice

Randall Z. Zachman On From Mystical Presence to Priest, Altar and Sacrifice

A great deal has been written on John W. Nevin’s recovery of Calvin’s eucharistic theology for the German Reformed Church. Dr. Zachman speaks praise of the importance of this historic move. But much less has been said about where Nevin left his Calvinistic roots and forged his own way. Proceeding from and adding to the work of Brian Gerrish, Randall Zachman focuses on Nevin’s use of the terms priest, altar, and sacrifice as evidence of Nevin’s departure from Calvin.

Lee Barrett On Nevin and Kierkegaard
LEE BARRETT ON NEVIN AND KIERKEGAARD

Barrett recognizes that a cursory comparison of Kierkegaard the consummate individualist and Nevin the devoted churchman, might lead one to conclude they are worlds apart theologically and personally. Still, Barrett insists there are legitimate comparisons to be made.

For example, they both were captive to what Annette Aubert described as a robust transatlantic exchange going on between American and German theologians with Rauch, Nevin, and Schaff being very much involved in that exchange. Whether consciously or not, Barrett convincingly argues that they were part of a “Copernican revolution”—a “seismic shift” in Christian consciousness occurring in theology at the time. And while the modern pushback to figures like Nevin and Kierkegaard (but mostly the famous “liberal theologians” such as Schleiermacher) by Karl Barth and others, came as a result of fears that talk about humankind was replacing talk about God in theology, Barrett insists that such talk was earnest and important, emerging from the question of redemption and the corollary concern over human spirituality. It was meant to address the growing threat of alienation increasingly felt by the new rationalistic age.

Barrett’s essentially existential methodology is to pay close attention to the writers’ metaphors and basic images as they reveal the subconscious dark matter of their systematic claims. By focusing on these metaphors and images, Barrett convincingly demonstrates a qualitative shift in the larger paradigm of Christian theology, one that the reader will certainly acknowledge as evident in our current theological experience.

John Williamson Nevin: Evangelical Catholic A Book Review https://www.mercersburgtoday.net/book-review-of-nevin-biography

An able scholar of the Mercersburg Movement reviews Linden DeBie’s biography of Nevin. Her lifelong study of the man and the movement makes her revelations a wonderful pastiche to quickly view Nevin’s life and work as incentive to read on in DeBie.

Linden DeBie The Remarkable Centrolinialsim of Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin The Remarkable Centrolinealism of Schaff and Nevin

Perhaps because John Nevin and Philip Schaff were so similar in their theology it became a bit of a cause de célèbre for contemporary scholars to ferret out anything that the two disagreed about. There is simply little evidence to make the case for serious disagreement. The substantial points of distinction were of their very different personalities. But the remarkable similarity in their religious thought was tested later as the men went their separate ways. DeBie argues that in the end they remained committed to an agenda they had long before supported. Nevertheless, as they drifted apart the two developed very different ideas about the future of Christianity in America.

Linden DeBie and Bradford Littlejohn Real Presence Or Real Absence https://mercersburgtoday.net/real-presence-or-real-absence

Focusing on the debate between John Williamson Nevin of Mercersburg Seminary and Charles Hodge of Princeton Seminary, this paper evokes images of the Lord’s Supper that represent two different Protestant conceptions of the Eucharist to this day. The more catholic view of Nevin held to a “real presence” of Christ in the Supper, and the more Zwinglian view of Hodge is characterized here as the “real absence” of Christ in the Supper. Nevin would swim against the tide contesting the “memorialist view” of Hodge which was the more popular understanding among American evangelicals. The provocative term “real absence” is surely meant to suggest a kind of irony as neither would banish Christ from the table altogether. Convinced of their historical understanding, the two theologians set out to answer what Calvin’s conception of the Supper was, and which among the various confessions represent the authentic Reformed doctrine on the Supper? Their debate represents an unprecedented exchange given the still immature historical science in America. It pitted two of America’s most celebrated scholars equally recognized in Europe, something quite new to the young, expanding continent.

Book Review of Aubert’s German Roots of American Theology https://mercersburgtoday.net/german-roots-of-american-theology

Thanks to Annette Aubert we have a wonderful book on the nineteenth century Mediating School of Theology and its transatlantic influences. With this extensive review of Aubert’s book, we are provided additional, speculative conclusions about what that influence might mean today. The review does engage German Roots and tries not to unglue itself from the book’s narrative, but it is far more wide- ranging bringing together a great deal of commentary about a core issue wrestled with by the mediators, and that is Christology and incarnational theology in its role as the means by which God seeks union with God’s creatures and creation.

Linden DeBie “‘Unless A Seed Fall to the Ground:” The remarkable liturgical fecundity of Mercersburg” https://mercersburgtoday.net/unless-a-seed-fall-to-the-ground

The host of Mercersburg scholars rightly bracket the impact of Nevin and Schaff in America because, as James Nichols suggested in his masterful and groundbreaking book, Romanticism in American Theology, their influence is “hard to access,” more peripheral than direct. Less impactful, and rather a genius that anticipated in prophetic ways the direction America would take in religion. This was certainly the case with the Provisional Liturgy and Order of Worship produced by them and their sympathetic colleagues in the German Reformed Church. “Unless a Seed Fall to the Ground” takes us deep into the heart of Reformed liturgical history beginning with the Palatinate Liturgy of 1563 and brings us right up to today where what Mercersburg was striving for in terms of liturgical evangelical catholicity still needs convincing to the vast majority of Reformed churches, as well as the churches that make up evangelical Christianity.

Peter Schmiechen “Incarnation and Atonement: With special reference to Schleiermacher and Mercersburg Incarnation and Atonement

Peter Schmiechen has devoted a great deal of time and energy delving into the question of the Atonement. His book Saving Power was a magisterial work covering all the various theories of the Atonement, considering them in light of contemporary incarnational theology and moving them forward into a fresh, new approach to the Incarnation. This particular study brings atonement theory into conversation with the Mercersburg tradition. Schmiechen wrote that Mercersburg was “a theological tradition that takes incarnation as its starting point and treats atonement and incarnation as inseparable. When we explore Mercersburg from this perspective, it will not surprise us that its lineage takes us back to three other theological figures who also take incarnation as the starting point: Athanasius, Anselm, and Schleiermacher.”

David Layman “Was Nevin Influenced by S. T. Coleridge?” Nevin and Coleridge

An early question considered important by scholars writing on John W. Nevin was the degree to which Samuel Taylor Coleridge influenced him. Nevin’s first editorial position was of a periodical he named “The Friend” after a periodical edited by Coleridge. However, early suggestions of the degree of influence were not thoroughly researched, and so the various answers remained highly speculative. Layman goes as far as seems possible in order to definitively answer this old question.

William B. Evans “Mercersburg and the Reformation” Mercersburg and the Reformation

Here Dr. Evans explores the continuities and discontinuities of Mercersburg and the Reformation. He focuses on two seminal works of the movement: Schaff’s Principle of Protestantism and Nevin’s Mystical Presence. The stated goal is to provide valuable lessons for today’s theologians and students of scripture by way of a critical comparison of the Reformation and the Mercersburg Movement. In the end we might appreciate the lessons of innovation within tradition, the objective source of divine forgiveness, the centrality of Christ, and the eschatological future which moves us forward.

William B. Evans “A Tale of Two Pieties” American Piety

Willliam B. Evans “Twin Sons Of Different Mothers: The Remarkable Theological Convergence of John W. Nevin and Thomas F. Torrence” Twin Mothers

Paul Capetz “What Every Beginning Student Needs to Know About Nineteenth-Century Protestant Theology” What Every Beginning Student Need to Know

LINKS TO BOOKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ABOUT AUTHORS WORKING ON MERCERSBURG STUDIES

https://pccucc.org

This is the link to the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ. They are the official hosts of the Mercersburg Society and provide access to Society information.

https://pccucc.org/mercersburg-society

Here you can go directly to the Society’s webpage sponsored by the Penn Central UCC Conference

https://debiebooks.com

This is the link to the books written by Linden J. DeBie most on Mercersburg theology and history

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

abouttheauthors

CONTACT THE AUTHORS

lindendebie@debiebooksgmail.com

You can contact the various authors (those still living) by using this email address. Your message will be sent to the authors. THE MERCERSBURG SOCIETY

THE MERCERSBURG SOCIETY

Society History

The Mercersburg Society was founded in 1983 by a group of pastors, professors, church judicatory persons and laity for study and discussion of matters of contemporary theology within the context of Mercersburg Theology, a theological system of thought developed by John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff from 1840-1860 at the Seminary of the German Reformed Church in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

The membership of the Society is open to laity and clergy, with the current membership around 125 from a number of different denominations, including the United Church of Christ, Unitarian-Universalist, Episcopal Church, Reformed Church in America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Mennonite Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the United Methodist Church.

The Society organized a theological gathering in 1984 with a group called the Biblical, Theological, Liturgy Group at Craigville, Massachusetts and had its first Mercersburg Convocation, an annual two-day event for members and friends of the Society to study and discuss theology and Mercersburg, in 1985 at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Following the 1985 Convocation, The New Mercersburg Review, the journal of the Society, was started and is published twice a year. A newsletter of the Society has been published at least once a year since 1986.

From 1991-2000, a Theological Forum of the Society convened to gather together members and friends of the Society to discuss theology and produce documents responding to specific theological concerns of the Church today.

The income of the Society is primarily derived from membership dues, life memberships, and private donations.

The Mercersburg Theology Study Series: Introduction and Volume List

People come to learn about Mercersburg Theology for a variety of reasons. Some come to read Nevin’s explanation of Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine, The Mystical Presence. This work is recognized as the first American refutation of memorialism, the theory predominant in American Protestantism for most of its history. The eucharist is not merely a memory of something that happened two millennia ago, but a spiritual and sacramental reality in its weekly reenactment. (See volumes 1, 2, and 6 in the list below.)

A second group read Nevin’s early tract, The Anxious Bench, and resonate with his criticisms of the emotionalism and manipulative techniques of “new measures” revivalism, especially exemplified by Charles Grandison Finney. (See volumes 5 and 7.)

Some have been attracted to the historical scholarship of Philip Schaff, and find especially in The Principle of Protestantism a forceful explanation of the historical and spiritual unity of the Reformation with medieval Catholicism—in contrast to the claim that the latter had apostatized from the apostolic faith. (Volumes 3 and 12.)

Perhaps the theme that unites all these interests is “the church question”: What is the church? How does it carry out its life and work? Is it a “mere” voluntary community, a group of people who decide to accept a set of beliefs about God and Jesus Christ? Mercersburg Theology responds that the church is a divine gift, revealed in and through the life of Jesus Christ, a supernaturally created community, whose own life exemplifies and responds to that gift. (Permeating all the volumes of course, but especially volumes 5, 7, 11, and 12.)
Maintaining the textual tradition of Mercersburg Theology has been difficult, in part because its original ecclesiastical home, the German Reformed Church, has been twice absorbed by larger bodies: the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and later the United Church of Christ (UCC).

Modern scholarship on Mercersburg Theology began with James Hastings Nichols’ classic 1961 study, Romanticism in American Theology: Nevin and Schaff at Mercersburg. While dated in many ways, every student of Mercersburg Theology must begin here. Given the paucity of modern sources, Nichols complemented this study with a 1966 anthology, The Mercersburg Theology.

Doubtless inspired by Nichols’ work, United Church Press (the publishing arm of UCC) began the “Lancaster Series on the Mercersburg Theology.” Its promise of six volumes went unfulfilled, but at least it published modern editions of Schaff’s Principle of Protestantism (1964) and Nevin’s Mystical Presence (1966).

Fifteen years later, Charles Yrigoyen Jr. and George M. Bricker edited a pair of volumes: Catholic and Reformed: Selected Theological Writings of John Williamson Nevin (1978) and Reformed and Catholic: Selected Historical and Theological Writings of Philip Schaff (1979). The former was especially important in giving us a modern text of The Anxious Bench. Otherwise, these two texts simply reprinted photocopies of the original monographs and essays. There were no critical notes, no updated citations of sources or explanations of hundreds of references and allusions. The introductions were brief, and left many background issues undiscussed.

In spite of these limitations, these four books were mainstays of Mercersburg scholarship for an entire generation. The next step would have been difficult without them.

The creation of a new and comprehensive series of Mercersburg texts was the vision of a new generation of young scholars, led by W. Bradford Littlejohn in 2010. Although Littlejohn moved on to other interests in 2017, he created an entire program that has directed the current editors (the present writer, David Layman, and Lee Barrett of Lancaster Theological Seminary) and the community of scholars that Littlejohn and others have enlisted in the effort.

The goal has been a modern reprinting of the texts. Textual errors have been corrected. Sources in the texts—whether cited in an older form or uncited—have been located and fully cited in proper scholarly form. References—scriptures, historical personages, theological concepts, cultural allusions—are noted and explained. Comprehensive introductions preface the essays and essays likewise are provided with individual introductions.

Nevin. The Mystical Presence and the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper. 2012. Edited by Linden J. DeBie.

As Nevin’s most important work and his only large-scale monograph, his exposition and defense of Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine takes pride of place in the series. This volume includes Nevin’s later defense against Charles Hodge’s critique, a summarized version of the argument now published in Coena Mystica (below).
https://wipfandstock.com/9781610971690/the-mystical-presence/
https://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Presence-Doctrine-Reformed-Mercersburg/dp/1610971698/

Nevin and Charles Hodge. Coena Mystica: Debating Reformed Eucharistic Theology. Edited by Linden J. DeBie
Hodge waited two years to attack The Mystical Presence. The Mercersburg Review did not yet exist, so in order to defend his position, Nevin had to use the pages of the weekly broadsheet of the German Reformed Church, The Weekly Messenger. Throughout the summer of 1848, Nevin quoted Hodge section by section and presented his counterargument. This volume is the only modern publication of that debate.
https://wipfandstock.com/9781620327678/coena-mystica/
https://www.amazon.com/Coena-Mystica-Debating-Eucharistic-Mercersburg/dp/1620327678/

Schaff, The Development of the Church: The Principle of Protestantism and other Historical Writings of Philip Schaff. Edited by David R. Bains and Theodore Louis Trost
Also includes What is Church History?, which gives us Schaff’s theory of historical development, and a brief review of Principle by Hodge.
https://wipfandstock.com/9781625645234/the-development-of-the-church/
https://www.amazon.com/Development-Church-Protestantism-Historical-Mercersburg/dp/1625645236/

Nevin, Schaff, and Daniel Gans. The Incarnate Word: Selected Writings on Christology. Edited by William B. Evans
Includes such essays as “New Creation in Christ” and “Jesus and the Resurrection,” along with several review essays (on Sartorius, Wilberforce, and Liebner).
https://wipfandstock.com/9781625645227/the-incarnate-word/
https://www.amazon.com/Incarnate-Word-Selected-Christology-Mercersburg/dp/1625645228/

Nevin. One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: John Nevin’s Writings on Ecclesiology (1844–1849): Tome One. Edited by Sam Hamstra Jr.
From The Anxious Bench to his analyses of sectarianism: Antichrist and “The Sect System.” Documents his growing preoccupation with “the church question.”
https://wipfandstock.com/9781532618970/one-holy-catholic-and-apostolic-tome-1/
https://www.amazon.com/One-Holy-Catholic-Apostolic-Ecclesiology/dp/1532619626/

Nevin, Schaff, and Emanuel Gerhart. Born of Water and the Spirit: Essays on the Sacraments and Christian Formation. Edited by David W. Layman
Primarily focused on baptism—including the transcription of Nevin’s 1847 debate on Christian nurture with Horace Bushnell—it closes with a late eucharistic sermon, “Bread of Life.”
https://wipfandstock.com/9781498235488/born-of-water-and-the-spirit/
https://www.amazon.com/Born-Water-Spirit-Sacraments-Mercersburg/dp/1498235484/

Nevin. One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: John Nevin’s Writings on Ecclesiology (1851–1858): Tome Two. Edited by Sam Hamstra Jr.
Continues Nevin’s reflection on “the church question”: “Catholicism,” “The Christian Ministry,” “Hodge on the Ephesians” (Nevin’s critique of scholastic predestinarianism), “Thoughts on the Church.”
https://wipfandstock.com/9781532619625/one-holy-catholic-and-apostolic-tome-2/
https://www.amazon.com/One-Holy-Catholic-Apostolic-Ecclesiology/dp/1532619626/

Nevin, Schaff, and John Williams Proudfit. The Early Creeds: The Mercersburg Theologians Appropriate the Creedal Heritage. Edited by Charles Yrigoyen and Lee C. Barrett
The debate between Mercersburg and “Puritanism” (represented by Proudfit) over the use and theological authority of the Creeds (notably the Apostles’ Creed).
https://wipfandstock.com/9781532697913/the-early-creeds/
https://www.amazon.com/Early-Creeds-Mercersburg-Theologians-Appropriate/dp/1532697910/

Gerhart. Christocentric Reformed Theology in Nineteenth-Century America: Key Writings of Emanuel Gerhart Edited by Annette G. Aubert
The first ever collection of the writings of the third major figure of Mercersburg. Includes significant excerpts from his Institutes.https://wipfandstock.com/9781725250864/christocentric-reformed-theology-in-nineteenth-century-america/
https://www.amazon.com/Christocentric-Reformed-Theology-Nineteenth-Century-America/dp/1725250861/

Nevin, and John Williams Proudfit. The Heidelberg Catechism: The Mercersburg Understanding of the German Reformed Tradition. Edited by Lee C. Barrett
Continues the debate with Proudfit over the use of creeds and confessions. Begins with Nevin’s historical work on the Heidelberg Catechism and its primary author, Zacharius Ursinus, and concludes with an excerpt on the theology of the Catechism.
https://wipfandstock.com/9781532698194/the-heidelberg-catechism/
https://www.amazon.com/Heidelberg-Catechism-Mercersburg-Understanding-Tradition/dp/1532698194/

Nevin. Philosophy and the Contemporary World: Mercersburg, Culture, and the Church. Edited by Adam S. Borneman and Patrick Carey
Two themes predominate in this volume: Nevin’s defense of idealism (esp. Human Freedom and a Plea for Philosophy) and his understanding of Christian supernaturalism, in contrast to “Romanism” (his interaction with Orestes Brownson), “The Anglican Crisis,” and “Evangelical Radicalism.”
https://wipfandstock.com/9781666762716/philosophy-and-the-contemporary-world/
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Contemporary-World-Mercersburg-Theology/dp/1666762717/

Nevin. Retrieving Catholicity in American Protestantism: Essays in Church History. Edited by Michael J. Stell
The essays on “Early Christianity” and “Cyprian” in a critical edition, with complete documentation of the original sources, including citations of the church fathers in modern editions.
https://wipfandstock.com/9781532699283/retrieving-catholicity-in-american-protestantism/
https://www.amazon.com/Retrieving-Catholicity-American-Protestantism-Mercersburg/dp/153269928X/

• “Unless a Seed Fall to the Ground: The Remarkable Centrolinealism of Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin
• A Brief Biography of John Williamson Nevin
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• AMERICAN PIETY
• BOOK REVIEW OF AUBERT’S GERMAN ROOTS
• BOOK REVIEW OF NEVIN BIOGRAPHY
• Incarnation and Atonement
• LEE BARRETT ON NEVIN AND KIERKEGAARD
• MERCERSBURG AND THE REFORMATION
• NEVIN AND COLERIDGE
• PURPOSE
• Randall Z. Zachman On From Mystical Presence to Priest, Altar and Sacrifice
• REAL PRESENCE OR REAL ABSENCE
• The Remarkable Centrolinealism of Schaff and Nevin
• Twin Sons of Different Mothers
• What Every Beginning Student Needs to Know
• Why Nevin Wrote the Mystical Presence
• “UNLESS A SEED FALL TO THE GROUND:”

.

Site managed and edited by Linden J. DeBie

I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at debielinden@lindendebie

Read On and Keep in Touch

---