The Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity

W. Bradford Littlejohn

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781606082416
  9781498252409
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621892472
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

In the mid nineteenth century, Reformed churchmen John Nevin and Philip Schaff launched a fierce attack on the reigning subjectivist and rationalist Protestantism of their day, giving birth to what is known as the "Mercersburg Theology." Their attempt to recover a high doctrine of the sacraments and the visible Church, among other things, led them into bitter controversy with Charles Hodge of Princeton Seminary, as well as several other prominent contemporaries. This book examines the contours of the disagreement between Mercersburg and Hodge, focusing on four loci in particular-Christology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, and church history. W. Bradford Littlejohn argues that, despite certain weaknesses in their theological method, the Mercersburg men offered a more robust and historically grounded paradigm for the Reformed faith than did Hodge. In the second part of the book, Littlejohn explores the value of the Mercersburg Theology as a bridgehead for ecumenical dialogue, uncovering parallels between Nevin's thought and prominent themes in Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox theology, as well as recent debates within Reformed theology. This thorough study of one of the most creative movements in American theology offers an alluring vision of the quest for Reformed catholicity that is more relevant today than ever.

Chapter 1

Situating the Mercersburg Theology

Nevin’s Early Life

John Williamson Nevin was born on February 20, 1803, in rural Pennsylvania, to a family of traditional Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.1 As a child, he quickly imbibed the churchly, Calvinistic faith of Middle Spring Presbyterian Church, only to find his faith challenged upon entering Union College, a Puritan institution in upstate New York. There he encountered the revival preaching of Asahel Nettleton, one of the great conservative leaders of the Second Great Awakening. While strongly opposed to the extreme revivalism of fanatics like Charles Finney, Nettleton and his insistence on the necessity of a personal conversion experience threw Nevin into doubt and confusion over the validity of his childhood faith. He later recounted the experience:

I, along with others, came into their hands in anxious meetings, and underwent the torture of their mechanical counsel and talk. One after another, however, the anxious obtained “hope”; each new case, as it were, stimulating another; and finally, among the last, I struggled into something of the sort myself, a feeble trembling sense of comfort—which my spiritual advisers, then, had no difficulty in accepting as all that the case required. In this way I was converted, and brought into the Church—as if I had been altogether out of it before—about the close of the seventeenth year of my age.2

In 1821 Nevin graduated with honors from Union College and returned home. Two years later, he determined to renew his preparation for the ministry by attending the young but thriving Princeton Seminary, where he came under the tutelage of his future nemesis, Charles Hodge. Hodge had been born in 1797, and like Nevin, had been raised in the Presbyterian faith. Also like Nevin, he encountered challenges to his faith while at the College of New Jersey, in the form of Archibald Alexander’s preaching. However, Hodge saw no contradiction between this newer, more experiential faith and his Presbyterian heritage, and he thrived under Alexander’s preaching. After graduating, Hodge attended Alexander’s seminary in Princeton as well, and then joined him on the faculty there in 1822.

Despite continuing spiritual confusion, Nevin excelled as a student and soon earned Hodge’s approbation and friendship. Indeed, when Hodge left to study in Germany from 1826–28, Nevin was appointed to fill his teaching position.3 Following Hodge’s return, Nevin took up a post as professor at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, where, though a prominent local religious leader, he had little involvement in denominational politics or theological disputes.

During these ten years the stresses of revivalism began to take their toll on the Presbyterian Church. Finney’s “New Measures” and the questionable New England theology they represented were loudly decried by the “Old School” Presbyterians, led by the likes of Charles Hodge, while the “New Schoolers” just as loudly castigated their brethren for their stiff traditionalism and indifference to evangelism. At the General Assembly of 1837, many of Hodge’s compatriots (though without the support of Hodge himself) succeeded in ousting hundreds of “New School” churches from the denomination, creating a schism that was to last until 1869.4 Interestingly, Nevin, though no friend of revivals, was one of only a few members of his presbytery to reject the General Assembly’s resolution, objecting to the overly dogmatic and divisive nature of the decision. This difference between Hodge’s rigid, dogmatic adherence to orthodoxy and Nevin’s vigorously catholic, anti-sectarian attitude was to become very prominent in their later debates.

Ironically, though, it was Nevin who became a member of the small, backwoods denomination, joining the German Reformed Church in 1840 to take up the post of theology professor (and subsequently headmaster) at their seminary in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and of the denominational college, Marshall College. It was there that he published his first major work, a short but potent critique of revivalism called The Anxious Bench (1843). While many other such works had been written before Nevin’s (including some by Hodge and his stalwart Princeton compatriots), The Anxious Bench soon gained attention for the piercing insight with which Nevin unmasked the ecclesiological assumptions at the root of revivalism. However, few grasped the full implications of the new paradigm of church and liturgy that Nevin was propounding. That would have to wait until the arrival of his new colleague, Philip Schaff, the following year.

The Controversy Years

Schaff, who was later to gain a name for himself as the greatest church historian of the nineteenth century, was only twenty-five years old when he sailed over from Germany to join Nevin at Mercersburg. However, he had already earned a brilliant reputation among the distinguished theologians under whom he had studied in Germany, and came to America brimming over with zeal and knowledge. His inaugural address, “The Principle of Protestantism,” embodied Schaff’s strong sense of catholicity and historic continuity, and took fierce aim at the common (then and now) notions that Protestantism was a complete rebellion against Roman Catholicism and that, as it had continued to free itself of remaining Romish superstitions, it had continued to grow into apostolic purity. The address was soon translated into English by Nevin, and created quite a stir within the denomination and without, even catching the attention of Charles Hodge.5 Between 1844 and 1847, the ranks of the German Reformed Church became increasingly polarized, with those more favorable to the New Measures rallying behind the critiques of minister Joseph H. Berg , while others supported Nevin and Schaff’s ecclesiological vision, which soon came to be known as the “Mercersburg Theology.”

Several more publications by Nevin and Schaff culminated in Nevin’s magnum opus, The Mystical Presence (1846), a historical vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and of the entire Christocentric, ecclesiocentric view of religion which that tradition embodied. The book eventually drew the criticism of Charles Hodge, who published a 50-page response in The Princeton Review in 1848. In his article, Hodge questioned Nevin’s orthodoxy and his loyalty to Reformed Protestantism, and attempted to marshal his own historical arguments for a very different view of the Reformed eucharistic doctrine. Nevin and Schaff responded by creating the Mercersburg Review in 1849, from which Nevin and his colleagues launched stinging attacks on sectarianism and the low ecclesiology of the Princetonians and other opponents. When Nevin published his 128-page rebuttal of Hodge’s view of the Eucharist, Hodge never directly responded, probably because there was very little response he could offer. Most scholars have concluded that, whatever the virtues of Nevin’s theology, he manhandled Hodge on the historical question; indeed, many consider his rebuttal of Hodge to be the best historical survey of the doctrine that had yet been published.6

Hodge’s disengagement from this debate certainly did not mean the end of controversy for Nevin. The pages of the Princeton Review saw several more anti-Mercersburg articles over the next few years, including a piece by Hodge entitled “What is Christianity?” where he sought to cast Nevin as a heretical disciple of Schleiermacher. Even twenty years later, Hodge did not miss the opportunity to take some potshots at Nevin from the pages of his Systematic Theology. But Nevin’s fiercest opponents were closer to home. Though he had gained a number of allies in the seminary and throughout the German Reformed Church as he developed more fully his incarnational and sacramental system of theology in the early issues of the Mercersburg Review, he soon ventured onto even more controversial ground. As Nevin embarked on a thorough study of the early Church Fathers (the fruits of which appeared as three articles on “Early Christianity” in 1851 and four on “Cyprian” in 1852), and called more of the Protestant heritage into question, many opponents felt vindicated in their early warnings against Mercersburg’s “Romanizing.” Joseph Berg grew more and more shrill in his attacks, finally resigning his pastorate in the German Reformed Church with a rhetorical flourish in March 1852. The Dutch Reformed Church, a sister denomination to the German Reformed, cut their ties with the denomination when it failed to repudiate Nevin’s teachings, while publications like the Lutheran Observer and the Puritan Recorder loudly sounded their alarms. Indeed, considering the very controversial tenor of these articles (though Schaff himself confessed them historically above reproach), Nevin was lucky to find as many allies as he did. His powerful personality and tremendous labors for the denomination and the seminary had won him many disciples among students, ministers, and fellow faculty, and even when they did not share his doubts or conclusions, most stood behind him.7

And indeed, at this time, his doubts were mounting rapidly. Stung and disillusioned by Hodge’s attacks and disgusted with the vapidity of American Protestantism, Nevin began to wonder if he really could maintain his theological views as the true heritage of the Reformation. His study of the early Church, which he hoped would reassure him, prompted deeper doubts, as he found little hint of Protestant theology in the writings of those first few centuries. Indeed, he was forced to conclude that the theology of the Fathers was much closer to Catholicism than to any form of Protestantism. The Reformation could still be justified on the theory of historical development, but what guarantee was there that it was a legitimate advance and not a mere rebellious innovation? These doubts, coupled with ill health and family bereavement, drove Nevin into near-retirement by early 1853, as he resigned from his posts at Marshall College, Mercersburg Seminary, and the Mercersburg Review. In the end, though, despite personal urgings from Roman Catholic leaders such as Orestes Brownson, he chose to remain Protestant and began to resume active service in his denomination by the end of 1854.

However, the heyday of the Mercersburg Theology and the debate it generated was over. While he eventually went on to write more articles and even a new liturgy for the German Reformed Church (1867), and in 1866 became president of the recently merged Franklin and Marshall College, his most creative work was done, and he shied away from taking center stage. The sole exception, a heated debate over the new liturgy which broke out in 1867, saw him back to his polemical brilliance once again, this time in debate with the famed German theologian Isaak Dorner. However, this was short-lived and the rest of his days as a teacher, writer, and denominational leader were remarkably uneventful. In 1863, Schaff moved on to a brilliant career at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and never returned to Mercersburg. Though he gained great fame as a church historian and stood by many of his early teachings, he rarely emphasized Mercersburg distinctives and few of his later admirers remembered his early career. By 1870, it was clear that the Mercersburg Theology would never gain much influence outside of the German Reformed Church. Even there its influence r...

Table of contents

• The Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: The Silenced Seers
• Chapter 1: Situating the Mercersburg Theology
• Chapter 2: Hodge Offers His Two Cents
• Chapter 3: Paradigms in Collision
• Chapter 4: The Dons Across the Pond
• Chapter 5: Facing East
• Chapter 6: The Church as “Catholic” and the Catholic Church
• Chapter 7: Lessons from Mercersburg
• Appendix: A Timeline of Key Dates
• Bibliography
• Index