NEVIN, JOHN WILLIAMSON

American Protestant theologian; b. Upper Strasburg, Pa., Feb. 20, 1803; d. Lancaster, Pa., June 6, 1886. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.(1821), and entered Princeton Theological Seminary, N.J., where he studied under Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge. Through Hodge he became interested in the works of August Neander and began the study of German. In 1830 Nevin became professor of biblical literature at Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pa., where he was noted as an extreme abolitionist. Differences with the administration led to his resignation in 1840 to accept a professorship at the German Reformed Seminary, Mercersburg, Pa. Nevin's historical studies and sympathy for the German tradition, as well as his Old School background, made him a champion of the doctrine and liturgy of the Heidelburg Catechism against the "new measures" of revivalists. In 1844 he published The Anxious Bench, the first appeal of the Mercersburg theology, which emphasized the heritage of the Reformed Church from Catholicism. The following year he and Philip Schaff were codefendants before the Synod of Pennsylvania on charges of Puseyism. In 1846 Nevin published his best-known book, The Mystical Presence, an attempt to restore the traditional Reformed understanding of the Lord's Supper against prevailing Zwinglian views. His important works on The History and Genius of the Heidelburg Catechism and on The Church followed in 1847. With Schaff he founded in 1849 the Mercersburg Review, which became the chief organ of their movement. Nevin established a tradition of doctrinal loyalty, liturgical renewal, and ecumenism; but the Mercersburg movement was never wholly accepted by his church. In 1861 he left the seminary to become a professor at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa.; he served as its president from 1866 to 1876.

Bibliography: t. appel, The Life and Work of John Williamson Nevin (Philadelphia 1889). j. h. nichols, Romanticism in American Theology (Chicago 1961). d. dunn, A History of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (Philadelphia 1961).

[r. k. macmaster]