Book Review
John Williamson Nevin: Evangelical Catholic
Linden J. DeBie
Review by Deborah Rahn Clemens
2024
I have known Linden DeBie for a long time. Over the successive decades of attending Mercersburg Society meetings the two of us have come to engage in learning, discussion, and participating in Mercersburg scholarship. There has always been something I found curious about Linden. Why, I have wondered, would this impressive and accomplished Pastor- Theologian care so much about this nineteenth century German Reformed church movement? Why would his interest not waiver after decades of investigation? Why should he care so much about the life and legacy of John Williamson Nevin, an underpaid and over worked professor in a tiny seminary in the middle of Pennsylvania during the American crisis of the Civil War?
DeBie begins his book in a most unusual fashion. He describes a pilgrimage he had recently taken to the principal sites formative in the life of Nevin. It is as if his visits were a necessary part of DeBie’s homage to this man. The reader might be struck by the odd way he mixes 21st century, 17th Century and 19th Century phenomena into one. Does he do this to unsettle the reader or to indicate that there is something at work throughout the centuries that remains pressing and relevant?
What has fascinated DeBie for decades now about Nevin is how the professor’s philosophic orientation enabled him to see beyond the predominate philosophical views of his times into a wholly different way of assessing the human condition and the realities in which we live. The gradual evolution in Nevin’s thought from Old School Presbyterianism, through Scottish Common-Sense Realism to German Speculative Idealism is what empowered this man to revolutionize his analysis of Scripture, the Church, the Sacraments, Salvation, and the truth behind the entire history of the world and of the Christian faith.
In other words, DeBie argues that the philosophical lens one uses to interpret theology, anthropology, and life’s meaning makes all the difference. That is why the author spends so much time reviewing the philosophical influences, at work in nineteenth century colleges and theological seminaries. That explains how even today some people can read the very same Bible, recite the very same creed, worship in the very same building and be at polar opposite conclusions as to the truth of its meaning and how we respond in faith.
Scottish Common-Sense Realism focused on grounding reality in the natural world and what may be known empirically. Christian discipleship, therefore, is judged by how one chooses to act morally and believe rationally. German Idealism argues that reality begins and ends on a higher plane. It focuses both on science and mystery, expecting an essential union of the two someday. Christian discipleship, then, entails living in the community of the church in order to recognize, receive, and respond to God’s saving grace.
In his analysis of the formative years of young Sheldon (Opps) I mean young Nevin, Nevin is portrayed as a depressive, ailing, intellectual and social elitist who struggles to discern why he feels so unsettled in the current philosophical, scientific, and theological environment. Due to his superb intellect, however, Nevin is able to earn opportunities to explore the reasons for his discontent.
As a young man, fresh behind the lecturer’s desk at Pittsburgh seminary, he writes like a moralist, campaigning against slavery as an abolitionist. His advocacy made him increasingly unpopular due to Western Pennysylvania’s dependence of a slave-based economy. Nevin’s personality made it worse as he (like Sheldon Cooper) hardly noticed how his superior tone was downright grating. So, while in Pittsburgh he entertained himself reading German Ideaism and learning the German Language.
When offered a position at the Mercersburg college and seminary and the German Reformed denomination, Nevin jumped at the chance. After spending about one year with Frederich Rauch, who shared the Idealistic perspective, Nevin was fully entrenched in the German Reformed tradition. Upon Rauch’s untimely death, Nevin emerged as the lead professor of theology and a primary spokesman for the denomination.
DeBie then shows the reader how as Nevin then examined all the varied aspects of his new denomination’s faith and practice with his Idealistic lens. He discovered the “Genius” of the Heidelberg Catechism and was pleased to announce its spirit reflects more of the Reformer Melanchthon while the current thought that it was Zwinglian; that it teaches Christ’s real presence in the Sacrament as opposed to spiritual memorialism. and that it sidelines Calvin’s doctrine of predestination in favor of solid assurance of belonging through baptismal regeneration. In DeBie’s words, “This stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
When witnessing how Finney- like revivalism was sweeping across the nation displacing worship with performance, Nevin went on the attack. In his treatise of the Anxious Bench, he accused practitioners of employing drama, theatrics, and emotional tricks with the goal of forcing instantaneous conversions. This, he said is religious hucksterism. He insisted instead spiritual maturity is nurtured through ongoing pastoral guidance through the system of the Catechism. However, Revivalism “worked” for the most part, so clergy were resistant to abolish their new methods. DeBie rightly criticized our scholar for running rampid with his venom as he blanketly condemned Charles Wesley, the Methodists, and the United Brethren. The Mercersburg professor was not making many friends.
Everything, in Nevin’s mind, could be reduced to the Church question. Is the Church an assembly of likeminded persons who gather for fellowship and worship? Or, is the Church an actual organic being, a living continuation of the Incarnation, divine in an of itself through which God’s grace is dispensed? If that be the case, which Nevin was assured it is, then sectarianism, based on human differences is pure and simple SIN. Along with his new colleague, the future great church historian, Philip Schaff, he advanced the philosophy of Historical Idealism. The present church is an organic outgrowth of the Judaic and then the Roman Catholic past, they taught. Protestants have not invented themselves or taken their faith directly from the Biblical pages but are also indebted to the faithful of the past, through even the Dark Ages, and is destined for the glory of God’s consummation in the end. Philip Schaff’s heresy trial gives us a pretty good idea as to how well that message went.
These events prompted Nevin to zero in and attempt to teach that the whole purpose of the Christin religion is divine/human union. It is that union with Christ which is realized most perfectly in this life in the churchly sacrament of the Eucharist or Holy Communion. In his premier treatise, The Mystical Presence, Nevin attempted to explain that when the Sacrament is received in faith, Christ is really, substantially, and spiritually present to the recipient. In the celebration of the meal, we are lifted up into fellowship with the human Jesus the Christ who lives and reigns in heaven. In the act we are fed, albeit mystically, with his divine spirit and his humanness. Therefore, we become partakers of God’s essence and citizens of the new creation. Nevin strived to defend his conviction historically, philosophically, Scripturally, Confessionally, and, deliberately, according to the 16th century teachings of the great Reformed scholar John Calvin.
(It’s interesting that DeBie takes time to survey his contemporary theologians as to their assessment of Nevin’s philosophical orientation and concludes that there is no common conclusion). Most of Nevin’s contemporaries appeared unable take the matter on head-to-head. That is until his old Princetonian teacher/colleague, Charles Hodge got wind of it. His interest peeked when he examined Nevin’s reading of the sacramental theology of Calvin. Calvin, after all “belonged” to Princeton!
Here the debate became both personal and public. The sides unequal: Mercersburg versus Princeton, former student versus teacher. Hodge suggested Nevin might indeed be a heretic. He challenged whether his former student’s view of the unique efficacy of the sacrament, his claim of union with Jesus’s person, the necessity of the church, and most of all his reading of Calvin was Reformed or not? DeBie concludes that Nevin won the debate due to his extensive research of the Reformer. However, it is clear Hodge won by popular opinion.
After taking on Princeton, it appears as though Nevin was now ready to take on a wider audience. So, he resigned his seminary position, moved Marshall college to Lancaster, and became the de-facto editor of the “Mercersburg Review’” a by monthly publication that would be read by even European theologians. A large number of the articles written by Nevin are reviews of other resent publications which he critiqued according to his standard Idealism. In them he addressed subjects like predestination, historical progression, ecumenism, and sectarianism. Notable other essays offered his stance on the Apostles’ Creed, which he insisted was more than human dogma but divine revelation whose spirit went to nurture the early church before the formation of the Biblical Canon. He developed his theology of the Incarnation whereby, Nevin believed, God entered into the world with the coming of Christ and initiated a whole new creation which continues to this day in the church and with the sacraments. Weakest, according to DeBie, is JW’s treatise on Baptism. He writes
He stumbled badly, however, on one count because of his unfamiliarity with the Orthodox Church, accusing them of losing sight of their original freedom in such matters. The question is, where did Nevin get his information, and what was the source of his conclusions? He provided no citations, and surely, they did not come from personal experience. What Greek or Russian Churches did he have access to or knowledge of? His accusation of rigid adherence to outward form, and their failure to appreciate the scope of freedom given by the inward spirit, seems to be utterly anecdotal, inferential, and without basis in fact. (254-255)
We can only wonder how “Herr Professor” would have reacted to that!
At this stage of his life Nevin became deeply depressed. His 19th century biographers called it his “dizzy” period. Was this because he was so sorely overworked, under constant attack both within and outside his denomination, or agonizing over whether or not to become a Roman Catholic? His youthful dyspepsia returning was most likely a result of all of them.
Nevin continued to write. His urgency was to defend his view of the Church by examining the organization, worship, and teaching of the early church to highlight essential elements of the Christian religion. Conciliar governance through a network of bishops, sacramental theology of Christ’s Real Presence, and the conviction that there is no salvation for those who separate themselves from the Body were prime arguments. Nevin never would have wished for the church of the present to return to the past. Rather he hoped for a recognition that the present church grows organically from its past and that the future church will be the natural outgrowth of a union of Evangelical Catholicism.
DeBie rightly points out that Nevin saw more strengths on the Catholic wing of things. But he hoped the theology of the real spiritual presence would bring this future union with a more evangelical balance.
Nevin advanced his teaching of the Incarnation by indicating that the coming of Christ was in the divine plan even before the act of creation. Was the fall of Adam the reason for the Incarnation? Was the Atonement only about Satisfaction? He wouldn’t risk his neck to profess it wasn’t but it seems he was leaning towards faith in original grace more than original sin.
Hadn’t Nevin poked enough holes in the American Protestant system to now call it quits and disappear into reclusive retirement? Apparently not. For, the biggest battle of his life was about to commence.
Actually, the Liturgical Crisis which nearly blew the whole denomination into bits was the logical next step in Nevin’s vision of the future of the Church into Evangelical Catholicism. A liturgy that would unite the whole denomination in its way of worship would begin to make the shift from rationalism, pietistic emotionalism, individualism, and pulpit performance. It could bring the focus from subjectivism to objective apprehensive of the Real Presence. An ideal liturgy (one acceptable to Nevin) could expand the German provincialism and speak a language recognizable in even Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism. It could embody the voices of the past (the Creed, the Te Deum etc.) and offer a view of future ecumenism. It would instill his Mercersburg principles in the hearts of the laity as they repeat the sacred words week after week after week. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. Of course, a uniting liturgy would be the culmination of his Idealistic faith and a lasting legacy.
Nevin was reluctant to accept the denomination’s request that he lead the liturgical planning committee. He expected it would create more heated controversy. He was not in any shape to fight another unpopular fight. However, once Philip Schaff took over the chair of the committee, the two would be determined to do the job right. Thus: the Provisional and then the 1866 Liturgies. The difference between this war and all of their other theological arguments in the past is, this was the first time Mercersburg moved out of the classroom, out of the academy, out of the lofty magazines, into the local congregational sanctuaries. Common folk were not about to be told how to pray! The rubber hit the road, literally. DeBie quotes Maxwell:
Nevin was able to see current developments in the church and so speak prophetically of a time to come – a time more indicative of our current age. In that sense he was earmarking individualism as on the rise with free worship as its provocateur was revealing…. Perhaps he anticipated our contemporary loss of sacramental and confessional center (namely the Apostles’ Creed), which was to lose in some measure Christ himself.
The Liturgical controversy extended all the way to Germany. In 1867 Lutheran theologian Isaac Dorner criticized the work, its high view of the Church, and especially the order for ordination to ministry. He thought it to be dangerously close to teaching apostolic succession sacramentally. Nevin responded. (And, this is the most ironic if not humorous part of this entire biography.) Nevin accused Dorner of being out of touch with the American scene, and of being stuck back in the Reformation with Luther’s doctrine of justification of faith. He asked, “Why should the church in America conform to the expectations of the leaders of Germany?”
After all this time tracing Nevin’s journey from Old School Presbyterianism, through Scottish Common-Sense Realism to German Idealism, with Hegel and Schleiermacher and the Mediating theologians engaged, after the trip through the Heidelberg Catechism, the Palatinate Liturgy, and Calvin’s Eucharistic theology, Nevin declared Mercersburg was indebted to none other than “the original idea of Christianity” and was more Anglican than German in its interpretation of faith!
In his later years Nevin became more mellow and more the Mystic. It might be said he dwelled more and more in his Idealism while becoming, at the same time, much more realistic about the church and about historical progressivism. He was ready to admit that “his confidence in the inevitable upward progress of the church was significantly weakened, and so much of his German philosophical foundation was shaken.” But some things never changed: his Christo centrism, his belief in the cosmic impact of the Incarnation, his assessment of Biblical historical criticism, and his adherence to the Apostles’ Creed as inspired revelation. He did confess, however, that private judgement could serve as a necessary corrective for ecclesiastical overreach while a knowledge of history and churchly hermeneutics can be a necessary corrective for individualistic faith.
DeBie ends his study by concluding Nevin’s idealism proved to be for the most part ineffective. The prevailing philosophy of our modern scientific world is individualistic, materialistic pragmatism. Except for a very small number of his denominational descendants, Nevin and Mercersburg liturgical theology has been essentially forgotten. Evangelical Catholicism has not happened. The author did attempt to draw some parallels between Nevin’s teachings and that of some contemporary theologians but the evidence for any direct influence is thin.
I have no doubt that DeBie is correct in his assessment of Nevin’s legacy in the academy. However, I see a lively legacy for him in the future of Christianity. While it is true that the Church question is hardly the relevant question for today, the question of the Incarnation is essential and timely. Nevin’s understanding of the Incarnation as a divine and cosmic reality is core to the Christian religion’s search for unity. It refocuses the doctrine of the fall, the sin of Adam, the Atonement and Eschatology from a negative, punitive accusatory story where each individual is responsible for his or her own salvation until Christ’s death gives welcome relief, to a story of God’s unilateral and unprovoked action to bring His whole creation into oneness eventually. The Church question then follows. Where is the Incarnate Presence of Christ in our world today? That Mystical Presence is realized through the church in the sacrament by all who receive it in faith.
I thank Linden DeBie. He is a true scholar who has meticulously taken us on a pilgrimage through John Williamson Nevin’s life journey. Like the pilgrimage DeBie traveled through the physical sites of Nevin’s life as if to imply that there is a continual thread connecting all history, this biography should assure us that there truly is something at work through the centuries that remains ever pressing and relevant today.
.
Mercersburg Today 