While the long 19th century gave birth to a variety of intellectual movements, it also saw its fair share of anti-intellectualism. The fallout from the Second Great Awakening was one such example; this era of American religious life witnessed the rise of pietism and biblicism, both of which called into question the value of both classical theological education and church history as a guide to biblical interpretation.
In the early 1800s, large crowds gathered at encampments throughout upstate New York, with many traveling long distances to witness great preachers deliver long and stirring sermons on hellfire and damnation. Among the most popular of the orators was Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875), a former lawyer turned Presbyterian minister (despite many doubts about Presbyterian theology), and the most famous of the itinerant preachers of the Second Great Awakening. Finney, at a towering 6’3″, was known for his theatrical performances during these camp meetings and his controversial use of what was called “the anxious bench,” a practice of pressuring congregants to come forward during a service to experience conversion. Figures like Finney would come to determine the general direction of American evangelicalism and the role that big personalities—celebrity preachers—would play in it.
Read more»David Mendoza | “John Williamson Nevin and the Revival of the Evangelical Mind” | March 28, 2024
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David Mendoza
David Mendoza an educator at a classical academy in California and a contributor for Young Voices. He holds a B.A. from The Master’s University and an M.A. from Westminster Seminary California. He is a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
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The RCUS gave up on a denominational Seminary for over one hundred years because of these Mercersberg kooks.
Nevin had a proto Fed Visionistic theology. Many RCUS congregations turned Roman after his poisonous influence. Schaef is little better.
Nevin is one of the great villains of Reformed history. This is not a good article.
In this HB post https://heidelblog.net/2022/02/created-for-union-john-williamson-nevin-and-the-supper/, Christopher Smith states, “In “The Mystical Presence”, Nevin outlined the differences between the early Reformed and what he called the “New Puritan” views of the Supper, which he believed were memorialist.” Who is Nevin referring to as the “New Puritans”?
Generally speaking, when Nevin used this term he had his sights on his contemporary American Protestants (mainly the Reformed/Presbyterians, but also many Anglicans and Lutherans). He believed that, by and large, his contemporaries had fallen away from Calvin and the first generation of Reformed confessions on the Supper and were more “Zuinglian” (to use his spelling). Hodge was included in this, according to Nevin. It isn’t exactly the same as the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis, but it shares some similarities.