The Heidelberg Catechism

The Mercersburg Understanding of the German Reformed Tradition

John Williamson Nevin, John Williams Proudfit, Lee C. Barrett

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781532698217
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

This volume is a collection of essays on the Heidelberg Catechism by John Nevin, a principal representative of the Mercersburg Theology that was birthed in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania. It also contains a critical response by John Proudfit, a more traditionally scholastic Calvinist. In these essays Nevin argued that the Heidelberg Catechism is an essential irenic confessional document that encapsulates the Reformed tradition and also builds bridges to Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism. According to Nevin the use of the Catechism is vital for shaping the identity of Christians and overcoming the dangers of individualism and subjectivism. Nevin's enthusiasm for the Catechism was a function of his understanding of the Christian life as progressive growth in Christlikeness, the church as the nurturing body of Christ, and the sacraments as conduits of Christ's vivifying personhood. These convictions stood in sharp contrast to the non-catechetical sensibilities of most nineteenth-century American Protestants who emphasized the sufficiency of Scripture alone, the church as a gathered community of like-minded individuals, dramatic conversion experiences, and the direct presence of Christ to the individual soul.

Document 1

The History and Genius
of the Heidelberg Catechism (1847)

(by John Williamson Nevin, D. D.)

Editor’s Introduction

When John Nevin began teaching at Mercersburg in 1840 he discovered that the German Reformed churches in Pennsylvania and Maryland were not uniformly committed to the catechetical traditions of their own heritage. Almost immediately he noted that revivalism’s cavalier attitude toward confessional traditions had infected many congregations, with the result that many of them only owed a “modicum of allegiance to the Heidelberg Catechism.”118 Much to his consternation, in many places the practice of confirmation and even the celebration of the Lord’s Supper had become infrequent.119

Nevin became increasingly aware of this situation after the end of the summer term of 1840 as he travelled from Mercersburg to Harrisburg and then to Easton in order to become familiar with the more rural German Reformed churches of eastern Pennsylvania. He was pleased with their Germanic traditionalism, but alarmed by the paucity of clergy and the weakness of pastoral oversight. He discovered that although many congregants were familiar with the Heidelberg Catechism, they did not necessarily comprehend it well. He observed that in many places confirmation had become a mere formality, with little examination of candidates before their admission to the church.120 More shockingly, other catechisms were being used in German Reformed communities, and in some of them none were being used at all.121 Nevin feared that his new denomination was in danger of losing its German Reformed confessional identity. He became even more convinced that the church needed to adhere to its own historic standards, particularly the Heidelberg Catechism, if it wanted to preserve its precious distinctive character.122 Nevin’s awareness of the continuing attractions of John Winebrenner’s revivalism, and his polemical exchange with Winebrenner in 1842–43, reinforced his antipathy to Finney-style proselytizing and his commitment to the “system of the catechism.”123

In some sectors of the denomination the mood was ripe for a catechetical revival. In 1840 the German Reformed Church, having adopted a proposal by the Maryland classis that Nevin himself may have inspired, began planning a centennial celebration of its founding (the coetus had been formally organized in 1747). At least some church leaders shared a conviction that the denomination needed to rediscover its historic roots in order to safeguard its imperiled identity. Nevin capitalized on this sentiment, insisting that that those roots extended further back than the last hundred years in America. The sources of the distinctiveness of the German Reformed heritage stretched back at least to the Reformation in Europe (and for Nevin even to the medieval and early church). In addition to recovering a consciousness of its own uniqueness, Nevin was convinced that his new denomination needed to learn to see itself as a branch of the broader body of Christ. Consequently, Nevin published a series of articles about the German Reformed Church and the Heidelberg Catechism in The Weekly Messenger.124 It was a massive undertaking, totaling twenty-nine numbers and taking almost two years. Together the essays constituted a brief history of the Reformation in general and the German Reformed Church in particular. Many of the articles focused on the dominating figures of the Reformation, like Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Only in the last few installments did Nevin deal in depth with the Heidelberg Catechism.

The series of articles did spark a revival of interest in the Heidelberg Catechism, at least in some quarters. In many congregations the use of other catechisms was discontinued. In light of that ostensible success, Nevin’s friends urged him to make his reflections on the Catechism more widely available. Responding to their request, in 1847 he used some of the material from his essays as the basis of a short book, The History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism.125 He omitted much of his treatment of the earlier reformers and added more information about the Catechism’s composition.

In these articles Nevin argued for the general theological importance of the Reformation era and the confessional documents that it produced, particularly the Heidelberg Catechism. Nevin’s exposition of the Reformation and its significance was often dialectical. On the one hand, he described it as seismic shift in the collective consciousness of Western Christianity.126 He dismissed the “great man” theory of the Reformation’s origins, for that would trivialize the phenomenon. The Reformation had not been the brain-child of any single religious hero, not even Luther himself. Rather, it was the efflorescence of the corporate spirit of the church at that point in history. Leaders like Luther and Zwingli merely epitomized that general consciousness and gave eloquent voice to it. On the other hand, no matter how revolutionary the Reformation might seem, it was rooted in the soil of the patristic and medieval church, and was the organic development of dynamics present within Roman Catholicism. It was not a complete rejection of the medieval past, nor was it a return to the pristine church of the era of the Apostles. The Reformation was both something novel and something rooted in the past.

In a similar dialectical manner Nevin discussed the relation of the various strands of Protestantism to the characteristics of the territorial cultures in which they arose. On the one hand he insisted that the shift in Christian sensibilities was not just the fruit of German or Swiss national movements.127 Luther was not merely addressing spiritual problems or cultural conditions that were unique to Saxony, nor was Calvin dealing with issues that were restricted to Geneva. The spirit of Protestantism could not be limited by ethnicity or geography; rather, it was of universal significance. Similarly, the Heidelberg Catechism should not be of interest only ...