The mid-nineteenth century is a gold mine for contemporary scholars interested in American Protestant ecclesiology. There one will find the extensive writings of John Nevin who came to the notice of the theological world with The Anxious Bench, a critique of the “quackery” of Protestant revivalism. Influenced by a critical appropriation of cutting-edge contemporary German theology, he came to believe that the church was not “invisible,” but the visible manifestation of Jesus Christ’s incarnate life. Christians were to pursue unity, not in external institutional arrangements, but as unity of spiritual life. This compilation presents his theology of the catholicity of the church prior to his masterwork, The Mystical Presence, and a multifaceted, sophisticated critique of American sectarianism. This edition carefully preserves the original texts while providing extensive introductions, annotations, and bibliography. The Mercersburg Theology Study Series presents for the first time attractive, readable, scholarly modern editions of the key writings of the nineteenth-century movement known as the Mercersburg Theology. An ambitious multi-year project, it aims to make an important contribution to the academic community and to the broader public, who can at last be properly introduced to this unique blend of American and European Reformed and Catholic theology.

Born of Water and the Spirit presents essays on the sacraments by the three major representatives of "Mercersburg Theology," John Nevin, Philip Schaff, and Emanuel Gerhart. It focuses on Mercersburg's doctrine of baptism and Christian nurture, attempts to correct putative deficiencies of the major Reformed trajectories (e.g., New England and Princeton), and vigorously critiques the anti-sacramental animus of revivalistic evangelicalism. Mercersburg understood baptism as initiating a person (adult or infant) into the sacramental life of the church. Baptism and Eucharist were objective, spiritually real actions that made (what Nevin called) the "mystical presence" of Jesus Christ present to Christians, bringing transformative power into their lives. The present critical edition carefully preserves the original texts, while providing extensive introductions, annotations, and bibliography to orient the modern reader and facilitate further scholarship. The Mercersburg Theology Study Series is an attempt to make available for the first time, in attractive, readable, and scholarly modern editions, the key writings of the nineteenth-century movement known as the Mercersburg Theology. An ambitious multiyear project, it aims to make an important contribution to the scholarly community and to the broader reading public, who can at last be properly introduced to this unique blend of American and European, Reformed and Catholic theology.

Description: 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. Endorsements: ""For an increasing number of Protestants, the dismemberment of Protestantism is a scandal, an oozing wound in the body of Christ, leaving behind a twisted Christ as painful to behold as the Isenheim altarpiece. But what is a Protestant to do? The Reformation was itself a rent in the vesture of Christ, so how can Protestants object to the tin-pot Luthers and Machens who faithfully keep up the Reformation tradition of fissure and fragmentation? . . . We need an American Reformation that recovers the original catholic vision of Protestantism, and in pursuing this, American Protestants do well to take a page from early twentieth-century Catholics and embark on a program of ressourcement, and to this program Littlejohn''s book is a valuable contribution . . . Here he explains the Mercersburg Theology fairly and thoroughly, and shows how Mercersburg interacts not only with nineteenth-century Reformed theology but with the developments in Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches over the past two centuries. Above all, Littlejohn is deeply conscious that historical theology is never an end in itself, never an exercise in mere antiquarianism. We remember so that we can know how to go forward, and we seek to recover lost resources so that we can pave a fresh future. [Littlejohn] demonstrates how Mercersburg, and especially Nevin, can assist in forming an American Protestant churchliness."" --from the foreword by Peter J. Leithart. ""Deeply sympathetic to the Mercersburg theologians, Nevin and Schaff, Littlejohn presents a plea for Reformed theology to take Church, sacraments, and apostolic succession seriously as divine means of salvation. By linking Mercersburg to the Oxford Movement, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Catholic movement of nouvelle theologie, this book contributes toward a renewal of Reformed theology. Littlejohn''s ressourcement of the Mercersburg Theology is courageous and stands as a model of solid ecumenical theology."" --Hans Boersma, author of Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross and Nouvelle Theologie & Sacramental Ontology ""Littlejohn has joined a growing number of fine scholars who have recently discovered the Mercersburg movement. Long overdue, research into this unsung and brilliant faculty of philosophers, theologians, church historians, and pastors has begun to reveal one of America''s most accomplished yet neglected schools of thought. With his focus on John W. Nevin, the school''s theologian, Littlejohn''s contribution is most welcome for the new and relatively untreated areas he opened up, namely Mercersburg and the Oxford movement and Mercersburg and Eastern Orthodoxy. H"

A study of the fundamental religious ideas of the Reformation and their relationship to liberal Protestantism.