Title: John Williamson Nevin
First published: 1997
Description: This study of the life and thought of John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) offers a revised interpretation of an important nineteenth-century religious thinker. Along with the historian, Phillip Schaff, Nevin was a leading exponent of what became known as the Mercersburg Movement, named for the college and theological seminary of the German Reformed Church located in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The story is a neglected aspect of American studies.

Richard Wentz provides a kind of post-modern perspective on Nevin, presenting him as a distinctively American thinker, rather than as a reactionary romantic. Although influenced by German philosophy, historical studies, and theology, Nevin's thought was a profound response to the American public context of his day.

He was, in many respects, a public theologian, judging the prevailing development of American Christianity as a new religion that was fashioning its own disintegration and that of American culture at large. Nevin's reinterpretation of catholicity in the American context opened the way for a radical understanding of religion and of American public life.
Subjects: Doctrines, Biography, Reformed Church, Mercersburg theology, Theologians, History, Biografie, Theologie, Godsdienstige bewegingen, Nevin, john williamson, 1803-1886, Reformed church in america, sermons, Reformed church, doctrines
Places: United States
People: John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886)
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: BX9593.N4 W46 1997