John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist Book

Well researched and sympathetic. Hart does a fine job of laying before the reader both Nevin's genius and weaknesses.

Nevin himself is intriguing. A truly creative and deeply conservative man. His insistence on the central importance of the incarnation is surely correct, at least in part, but like many who discover or recover something truly helpful he takes it all too far and runs a little wild with it.

His critique of Finney is the best we have. His work on the presence of Christ at the Eucharist is convincing and was genuinely a recovery of the older reformed position. And his evolutionary theory of Church history with its corresponding organic nature as Christ's body is exceptionally helpful. But beside all this is a measure of philosophical speculation, a commitment to German idealism, a theological vagueness on some important points and a tendency to Romanist (or early Church) errors that leaves the reformed reader cautious. Hart does a fine job of navigating through these various pitfalls with a light hand, however, and overall a study of the Mercerburg Theology is highly beneficial and thought-provoking.

Loved it.

Favourite part: the chapter covering Nevin's critique of Finney