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Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-9839046-0-1
Publisher: Pilgrim Platform
Copyright: ©2011

by Phillip A. Ross
355 pages

“Nevin’s Mystical Presence fell into my hands quite providentially at the most impressionable  stage  of  my  theological  formation,  and  it  made  a  lasting impression on me. Nevin’s burden is a theological genealogy: to evince that the paltry sacramental teachings in the Reformed churches of his day (mid-19th century) had degenerated  from  the  robust  views  of  the  original  Reformed testimony. He exhibits that even by the mid-17th century the rich sacramentalism of Calvin and other Continental Reformers as well as the Scotch had begun to wane, and the sacramental views of Nevin’s own contemporaries were, to him, positively bankrupt. We can only imagine what Nevin would have made of the utterly  de-sacramentalized  Reformed  churches  of our own time. I therefore commend Phillip Ross’s noteworthy revised re-release of this work and, without endorsing Nevin at every point, commend this rich—and equally convicting—study to your most careful reading.”

“One of the most encouraging developments of recent years has been the resurgence of interest in the 19th-century Reformed movement known as the Mercersberg theology. The publication of Philip Ross’s edition of John Williamson Nevin’s “The Mystical Presence” represents a welcome addition to this revival. Ross has updated Nevin’s language and clarified his obscurities to make Nevin speak in a direct way to contemporary Christians.”

Introduction

You have in your hands an unusual book—well worth your time an effort. I say this, not because it is my book, but because it isn’t. It is a work of plagiarism of sorts, but don’t be dismayed. This issue is not copyright infringement of the original 1846 book now in public domain. Rather, I have built upon this old foundation by blending voices. According to Augustine, Christians are supposed to copy the Word of God, to think God’s thoughts after Him. Paul insists that Christians imitate him (Paul). We are to take God’s Word, and the work of the great biblical writers and theologians, and make them our own. God is not after originality or novelty, but the faithful reproduction of His thoughts and ideas. This is what I have tried to do. Of course, Nevin was not God, nor am I denying that the bulk of the work belongs to him. Indeed, I stand in awe and have profound respect for his work.

So, it might be helpful to think of this as a contemporary edition of Nevin’s book, The Mystical Presence—A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (J.B. Lippencort & Co., 1846). But it is not simply a reissue of an old book. Rather, it’s a sort of dynamic equivalence approach to editing in order to make it more available to contemporary people. I have simply tried to take Nevin’s work and make it my own, in the sense of comprehending its significance and application. In doing so, I have taken broad license to edit, interpret, clarify and expand what I think Nevin is saying. My efforts will surely annoy Nevin purists, academics and Type A intellectuals who are more concerned with form than content.

Why have I approached The Mystical Presence in this way? Actually, it is not that I sat down and planned this approach. It just took on a life of its own. I understand what Nevin said and it has so resonated with me that it dominated me for several months. His book, like no other I have ever read, has brought together various strands of my own life and pursuits in such a way that has astonished me and filled me with joy for having found such a kindred spirit. It is like he is already where I have been trying to get to. I have been working over the past forty years to get where he already was more than a century and a half ago. I’m humbled.

Nevin was the American voice of the German Reformed Church. Having studied under Charles Hodge at Princeton, he accepted a position to lead their only American seminary. It is wonderfully curious that German immigrants would put an American in such a position, but that’s what they did. Nevin then called Philip Schaff, a Swiss born, German educated, Christian historian to join him in this effort. They then made a huge splash in the American Christian theological scene, after which Schaff went to Union Seminary to support the cause of liberal Christianity. And Nevin slipped into obscurity and an early retirement. It is often thought that Nevin also fed the liberal Christian stream in America, but that’s not what happened. Nevin simply held his theological ground and the world passed him by.

But there has of late been a resurgence of interest in Nevin and Mercersburg Theology. It seems that Nevin is at the center of what is still a little known controversy that has erupted among the conservative Reform­ed churches (Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA), and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States (RPCUS) and a few others). Other Christians and denominations outside of these circles will likely be completely unaware of these issues.

That controversy is known as the Federal Vision.¹  The Federal Vision is often confused with the “New Perspective on Paul,” another current controversy. The two issues are not the same and must not be conflated. It surfaced in 2002 at a conference entitled “The Federal Vision: An Examination of Reformed Covenantalism,” which means that it’s new. So the determination of exactly what the Federal Vision actually is and its impact on Christianity today is still in discussion. My concerns here are not for or against the current expressions of Federal Vision, but for Nevin’s contribution to American theology. Nevin will demonstrate that this concern is not new at all, but goes back to the original teachings of the Reformation. It was hotly disputed then and still is today.

These things connect to my life because I was raised and ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC), the heir of the German Reformed Church in America. And what is even more astonishing to me is that having grown up in, graduated from a UCC seminary and served UCC churches for fifteen years, I had never been exposed to Nevin in any meaningful way. In hindsight, this is all the more significant because it appears that Nevin’s ideas provided the original impetus for the founding of the UCC and its initial ecumenical focus. It was Nevin’s ecumenical vision of Christianity, supported by Philip Schaff, that provided the central stake for the UCC ecumenical efforts.

And yet, Nevin’s name is not associated with the UCC in any significant way, probably because the UCC never actually did anything with Nevin’s work. They likely got the idea that something important was afoot with Nevin, and got distracted by the excitement of what he was saying and how it blew open the future of Christianity in what was perceived to be a new way, and the UCC went their own way to do their own new thing. Unfortunately, what began as an effort to unite Christianity, the founding of the UCC in 1957, has actually resulted in bringing the most divisive issues into the church that have nothing to do with Nevin. Too bad! Had they run with Nevin, things would have been quite different. Anyway, Nevin connects me with my own Christian roots, which is important to me because I left the UCC more than fifteen years ago for a variety of reasons that are not germane here.

During my undergraduate years of wandering, I studied, both formally in school and informally on my own, philosophy, Eastern religions, mysticism and New Religious Movements. My studies in mysticism led me to many mystics, Eastern and Western, and to Meister Eckhart, whom I adored for a while. I adored him because I thought that I understood what Eckhart was talking about. He was trying to bridge the subjective/objective bifurcation in consciousness in order to provide a greater human integration with God. Eckhart is important because he is one of the preeminent Christian mystics, and because Nevin’s work corrects Eckhart’s error—and that is no small feat! Eckhart continues to have a small and loyal following. So, I pray that Nevin’s correction will be clear in the text. It’s brilliant!

Nevin was also unapologetically Reformed, which connects to another strand in my life. You might think it not unusual for a person who grew up in and was trained in the UCC to be Reformed, since the UCC claims to be an heir of the Reformation, as well. If so, you may not be aware that not all Reformed are Reformed in the same sense that “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Romans 9:6). While Congregationalism began as the most consistent of the Calvinistic Reform­ed denominations, by 1865 it had mostly lost its Reformed distinctives, though there has always been a small cadre who have soldiered on, who have tried to hold on to Reformed Congregationalism.

I belong to that cohort, though I didn’t realize that I was Reformed until I read Calvin’s Commentaries after a decade of church difficulties as a UCC pastor. These difficulties helped me better understand how far the church has fallen from being “a city set on a hill” (Matthew 5:9) in the new land of America. In the 1600s and early 1700s ninety-five percent of American churches were Reformed.²  Today, those numbers are completely reversed. Today, there are two versions of Reformed—liberal and conservative. And Nevin faults them both for falling away from the original teachings of the Reformation in a number of ways. No doubt, this played a major role in Nevin’s unpopularity among his contemporaries. He had a serious theological dispute with his teacher, Charles Hodge, where Nevin won the argument but Hodge won the day.³  Popular opinion would not tolerate Nevin’s biblical and historical fastidiousness. Of course, those who were not Reformed had little in common with Nevin to begin with. Others in the liberal wing of the Reformed churches liked his ecumenism, but not his biblical and historical integrity. And those of the conservative wing of the Reformed churches took umbrage at his accusation that they, too, had fallen from Reformation teachings. Up with such an accusation they would not put.

Nevin didn’t have much respect for Lutheran theology, either. His criticism of consubstantiation put Lutherans in the same category as the Roman Catholics and their transubstantiation. Both, Nevin argued, made the same error, but in different ways. Both mistake Christ’s presence in the Eucharist with the physicality of the elements, which blurs the distinctions between spiritual and material by bridging the differences with various ideas of superstition and magic. Transubstantiation takes the hard position of saying that one substance actually becomes another, where consubstantiation takes a muted or blended view of saying that the spiritual substance is locally and materially near the material bread and wine. Nevin rejected both.

There is some speculation that Nevin seriously thought about converting to Roman Catholicism because of his emphasis on the ancient church and the importance of liturgy. But it is hard for me to understand how anyone who has seriously read The Mystical Presence could entertain such a thought. Nevin’s criticism of transubstantiation is so clear and accurate that he could not possibly convert without losing his own integrity. And besides, the Catholics simply would not have him. I’m not aware that Roman Catholicism has ever dealt with Nevin’s criticism of transubstantiation or his doctrine of the mystical presence—nor is it likely that they would be able to, in my opinion. He got an obscure short shrift in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2007.

While The Mystical Presence is probably Nevin’s most important book, it is also his worst. The edition I worked from is a facsimile of the original 1846 edition by J.P. Lippencott & Co. Why is this edition so bad? Because it seems as if the original editor read and edited the first few chapters, but stopped editing for whatever reasons. It is not simply that Nevin’s English is antiquated by today’s standards, or that he loves to wax philosophically and mystically eloquent—which he does, but that in too many places the language is too loose and inadequate.

So much so that I was compelled to improve it as best I can simply to understand it. Much mystical writing suffers from excessive fogginess, but Nevin’s perspective is too clear for such excesses, at least my understanding of Nevin’s perspective is. Short of completing my first reading of the book, I decided to edit the text in order to understand it better myself and bring greater clarity to some of his arguments. At least, that is my intention.

At first, I tried to maintain Nevin’s voice, but as I progressed I found myself enthusiastically adding explanations and references to clarify and expand his thoughts simply because I knew exactly what he was saying. He was articulating the same kind of perspective that I have been writing about over the past twenty years. Or at the very least, his perspective and mine are in substantial harmony. Nevin’s context and clarity so encouraged me that my own voice simply replaces his at various points. I pray that this will not trouble you, but that it will enhance your understanding of Nevin’s perspective—and mine.

My concern has not been to produce a scholarly or intellectual work that accurately preserves Nevin’s words or arguments, but to produce a work that honors and makes his arguments better available to people today. Indeed, Nevin is not an easy read. His language is labored and archaic, as was much of the literature of his age. And his ideas are absolutely grandiose by today’s standards, but if you can catch on to what he says you will understand the necessity for his largesse.

You may have noticed that old books often have long titles, subtitles and tables of contents. In this case it seems that Nevin was working from an outline, and that outline was used as the table of contents. However, the headings of the table of contents are not found in the text. So, I have integrated them to provide both the outline and the text together in order to both break up the text and improve the readability. In addition, I have added two appendixes to further bolster the arguments. One is an early draft of a thesis by Michael J. Pahls, whom I thank for permission to use it. The other is a selection from John Calvin’s Tracts & Letters on The Supper Of Our Lord. Here Calvin makes his position clear.

Nevin’s work was very contemporary when it was first published, so he referred to various articles, people and books as if they were common knowledge, too many without references. To acclimate himself to his seminary position and his new denomination, he immersed himself in contemporary (1850s) German theology, philosophy and literature. Consequently, I have added many footnotes to identify the various people and references in the text. In addition, his own footnotes and text are strewn with Latin, Greek and Hebrew—to the point of distraction for today’s readers. So, I have endeavored to locate and translate these references so that contemporary readers today can focus on his arguments and not get distracted by the languages. My efforts in this regard are spotty, incomplete and undoubtedly inaccurate in some cases. Again, I readily admit that I am not doing scholarship, and that scholarship is not my contribution here. Nonetheless, I pray that my efforts will be useful for the forwarding of Nevin’s work and the Spirit’s vision for the future of Christianity in the Twenty-First Century.
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¹ Wikipedia: Federal Vision; FederalVision.com; OPC Federal Vision Article; etc.
² The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Roger Finke & Rodney Stark, Rutgers University Press, 2005.
³ Mercersburg Literature