Description: Evangelicals in nineteenth-century America had a
headquarters at Princeton. Charles Hodge never expected that a
former student of Princeton and his own replacement during his
hiatus in Europe, John W. Nevin, would lead the German Reformed
Church's seminary in a new, and in his mind, destructive direction.
The two, along with their institutions, would clash over philosophy
and religion, producing some of the best historical theology ever
written in the United States. The clash was broad, influencing
everything from hermeneutics to liturgy, but at its core was the
philosophical antagonism of Princeton's Scottish common-sense
perspective and the German speculative method employed by
Mercersburg. Both Princeton and Mercersburg were the cautious and
critical beneficiaries of a century of European Protestant science,
philosophy, and theology, and they were intent on adapting that
legacy to the American religious context. For Princeton, much of
the new European thought was suspect. In contrast, Mercersburg
embraced a great deal of what the Continent offered. Princeton
followed a conservative path, never straying far from the
foundation established by Locke. They enshrined an evangelical
perspective that would become a bedrock for conservative
Protestants to this day. In contrast, Nevin and the Mercersburg
school were swayed by the advances in theological science made by
Germany's mediating school of theology. They embraced a churchy
idealism called ""evangelical catholicism"" and emphatically warned
that the direction of Princeton and with it Protestant American
religion and politics, would grow increasingly subjective, thus
divided and absorbed with individual salvation. They cautioned
against the spirit of the growing evangelical bias toward personal
religion as it led to sectarian disunity and they warned
evangelicals not to confuse numerical success with spiritual
success. In contrast, Princeton was alarmed at the direction of
European philosophy and theology and they resisted Mercersburg with
what today continues to be the fundamental teachings of evangelical
theology. Princeton's appeal was in its common-sense philosophical
moorings, which drew rapidly industrializing America into its arms.
Mercersburg countered with a philosophically defended, churchly
idealism based on a speculative philosophy that effectively
critiqued what many to this day find divisive and dangerous about
America's current Religious Right. Endorsements: ""German idealism,
as set forth by such as Hegel, is reflected in a speculative
theology, expressed as a ""mediating"" theology. In this, a more
reconciliatory view of the relationship between God and His
Creation is proposed in opposition to the traditional orthodox view
that clearly separates the two. In America, traditional
theologians, more influenced by British Empiricism, viewed such
""mediation"" as a direct violation of simple ""common sense.""
This traditional ""common sense"" religion, reaching back to John
Witherspoon, being more evangelical than speculative in nature, has
both then and now, dominated theological studies. However, just
prior to the Civil War, Princeton University, as the academic
center of this tradition, found its hegemony challenged by a small
group of speculative ""mediation"" theologians from the Mercersberg
Academy, a small school in central Pennsylvania. It was not long
before Princeton took critical notice of their innovative
teachings, and something on the order of a minor heresy trial
ensued, with all of its irritated arguments and condemnations. We
are indebted to Linden DeBie who has admirably presented, in a
clear, concise, and scholarly manner, not only the philosophical
nature and origin of this neglected debate, but has allowed us to
appreciate its enduring theological significance."" --Lawrence S.
Stepelevich, PhD Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, Villanova
University President (1994-1996), The Hegel Society of America
Editor (1977-1996), The Owl of
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