Mercersburg Theology

When I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, I took a class from the great practical theologian Gordon Mikoski, and he had us read John Williamson Nevin’s The Mystical Presence as an exposition of the Reformed theology of Communion. The idea was to help Presbyterian students better understand their tradition, grounding their eucharistic theology in something richer than the symbolic memorialism that often pervades American Protestantism. But much to my surprise, as I read Nevin, I found something I didn’t expect—something that resonated not just with my theological interests but with my very experience of faith itself. Even more surprising was the realization that Nevin belonged more to my own tradition, the United Church of Christ, than to my Presbyterian classmates’. And yet, despite that historical connection, the insights of Mercersburg Theology have not remained central in the UCC or in much of mainline Christianity.  

That well, I believe, is worth returning to.  

Mercersburg Theology was a 19th-century movement in the German Reformed Church, centered at Mercersburg Seminary in Pennsylvania and led primarily by Nevin (an alumnus of Princeton Theological Seminary) and Philip Schaff. It was a theology deeply rooted in history, sacramental realism, and a high view of the incarnation. In contrast to the individualistic, revivalist spirit of American Protestantism, Nevin and Schaff saw the church as an organic, living reality—the body of Christ in the world. They believed that God comes to us concretely in human history, in the church, and most especially in the sacraments.  

One of Nevin’s sharpest critiques of American Christianity was its emphasis on human striving—whether in moral perfectionism, revivalist conversions, or even an obsession with correct doctrine. Against this, he held the primacy of divine action. God is not found through human effort, emotional experience, or moral achievement. God comes to us. This is nowhere clearer than in the Lord’s Supper, where Christ is truly present, offering himself to us in a way that is real, not merely symbolic.  

One of the reasons Mercersburg Theology resonates so deeply with me is that it understands the limitations of human agency. Nevin himself suffered from depression and anxiety, likely due to poor health and chronic pain. He experienced the impossibility of a theology that depends on human strength, effort, or decision. Revivalist theology in the 1830's and 40's, with its demand for a conversion moment, coercive methods like the "anxious bench," compulsions of emotional response, and moral striving toward holiness, implied a kind of optimism about human capability and individualism. But what happens when a person, like Nevin, simply cannot muster that kind of effort? What happens when faith does not feel like a choice but a burden too heavy to bear?  

Nevin understood that the gospel must come to human beings—we do not generate it ourselves. In a reversal of the typical American Protestant ethos of “striving for God” or “striving for perfection,” Mercersburg Theology asserts that salvation is only and always about God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ. This is a theology not of ascent but of descent. God does not wait for us to find the divine presence; God enters history, meets us in our brokenness, and unites us to Godself in Christ.  

This resonates deeply with my own understanding of faith. It means that my belonging to God is not dependent on my emotional state, my theological precision, my development, or my moral progress. It is grounded in the reality of Christ, who comes to me whether I feel it or not, whether I understand it or not, whether I strive for it or not.  

The insights of Mercersburg Theology are not just for the United Church of Christ but for mainline Christianity as a whole. Many churches, across traditions, have in various ways absorbed the individualism, moralism, and voluntarism that Mercersburg critiqued. In the tidal wave of secularization, human agency has taken center stage in the modern religious landscape. It is often shaped by an emphasis on personal spirituality, self-improvement, or activism—each of which has its place but can sometimes obscure the foundational truth that faith begins and ends with God’s action, not ours. Divine action gives human action it's meaning and its importance. Mercersburg offers a way to reclaim the rich, incarnational, and sacramental depth that has always been at the heart of the Christian faith.  

For me, Mercersburg Theology is not just an intellectual curiosity but a theological home. It speaks to a world where striving is exhausting and where human effort is never enough. It reminds us that the gospel is not a demand placed upon us but a gift given to us. In a time when American religion is so often about self-improvement, self-discovery, and self-expression, Mercersburg Theology insists on something far better: the concrete, historical, and sacramental presence of God in Jesus Christ, given to us freely.  

That, I believe, is good news.