John Williamson Nevin: High-Church Calvinist (American Reformed Biographies)

John Williamson Nevin (1803–1886) taught at Mercersburg Seminary when he wrote The Anxious Bench (1843) and The Mystical Presence (1846), volumes dealing with revivalism and the Lord’s Supper, respectively. The last ten years have seen a revival of interest in this theologian, who was a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. D.G. Hart seeks to fan this revival. “Because of his critique of the revivalist-inspired Protestant mainstream, and because the circumstances he faced are still important, Nevin’s ideas and arguments possessed relevance not only for his own age but also for contemporary Protestantism,” writes Hart. “However offbeat Nevin’s thought may sometimes appear, his assessment of popular Christianity in the United States was arguably the most astute from the perspective of historical Protestantism that any American Reformed or Presbyterian ever formulated.”