The Heidelberg Catechism in America: A Snapshot from the History of Its Reception

Three Types of Calvinism

A suggestion made by Thomas F. Torrance may be relevant here. Torrance distinguishes between “rationalistic Calvinism” and “evangelical Calvinism.” ³ To round out the picture, we would then need to add the third category of “revivalistic Calvinism.” Although these classifications may be rough and ready (and while they can overlap in complicated ways), they are nevertheless sufficient to illumine the broad lay of the land. It is the thesis of this article that the struggle for the Heidelberg Catechism in America has more or less been the battle for a truly evangelical Calvinism as opposed to competing varieties of this tradition in revivalistic and rationalistic dress.

Evangelical Calvinism, as Torrance defines it, has been a minority tendency in the Anglo-Saxon world, although he believes it to be closer to Calvin himself. Torrance associates it with John Knox and the 1560 Scots Confession, though he could easily have added the Heidelberg Catechism to the mix. By comparison with its more influential cousins, the orientation of evangelical Calvinism tends to be more unapologetically biblical. In theology it retains a modest, open-textured structure as opposed to more rigid dogmatic systems or tendencies to elevate religious experience over confessional faith. Evangelical Calvinism sees confessional statements as pointing away from themselves to the ultimate mysteries of God. These mysteries by their very nature cannot be contained in finite forms of speech and thought, although their truth is mediated by confessional statements. Evangelical Calvinism puts a premium on mystical union with Christ rather than on theological logic-chopping or peak religious experiences. It therefore holds that the personal is prior to the propositional, that the ineffable is higher than the experiential, and that spiritual nurture through catechetical instruction, as informed by Word and Sacrament, is preferable to either emotionalistic revivals or lifeless scholastic systems.

The priorities of rationalistic Calvinism would be more or less the reverse. This form of Calvinism, as described by Torrance, is associated with Theodore Beza, the Westminster standards (1646–48), and the Synod of Dordt (1618–19). It resulted in such curious outcomes as the doctrine of limited atonement, debates between “supralapsarianism” and “infralapsarianism,” and legalistic construals of “covenants” as if they were “contracts” that leaned unwittingly toward synergism. These dubious results were rooted in a broad orientation. The propositional was prior to the personal in matters of faith, the deductive was prior to the inductive in Christian thought, and the forensic was prior to union with Christ in soteriology. Rationalistic abstractions and fine scholastic distinctions were prized. According to Torrance, this stripe of Calvinism predominated from roughly 1650–1950 in the Anglo-Saxon world, especially in Scotland and North America.

However, Torrance may have underestimated another major factor, namely, the impact of revivalistic Calvinism, at least as far as North America is concerned. Rationalistc forces constituted only one front against which evangelical Calvinism had to contend. The other front had roots in Puritanism, especially with its penchant for valuing conversion experiences as the badge of religious authenticity. The general trajectory seems to have run from pietism through conversionism to revivalism. Campground meetings with hellfire preaching, religious frenzies, and dramatic conversions were only the most spectacular manifestations. In the mid-nineteenth century Charles Finney, a Presbyterian minister devoid of Presbyterian convictions, introduced “New Measures” of evangelism into cities like Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. His techniques included protracted evening meetings, theatrical preaching, dramatic prayers, and pressures on individuals to come to an immediate decision. Above all, he instituted the “Anxious Bench,” where fearful souls were summoned to perch themselves before the packed auditorium as they pondered their impending eternal doom. Those who came to a “decision” were straightaway admitted into full church membership, though it was not unknown for religious commitments to dissipate once revivalistic passions had cooled.

John Williamson Nevin

It was a champion of the Heidelberg Catechism, John Williamson Nevin, who emerged as one of Finney’s most trenchant opponents. It may be said that Nevin was the soul of evangelical Calvinism in nineteenth-century America. As an undergraduate he had undergone an abortive “new birth” at the hands of revivalistic Calvinists, whom he would later look back on as “miserable obstetricians.” ⁴ He developed into a high church Calvinist, with a distinguished career as a theology professor, a liturgical scholar, and a college president, while gaining fame and notoriety along the way as a theological polemicist. He profiled himself in his autobiography as follows:

The old Presbyterian faith, into which I was born, was based throughout on the idea of covenant family religion, church membership by God’s holy baptism, and following this a regular catechetical training of the young, with direct reference to their coming to the Lord’s table. In one word, all proceeded on the theory of sacramental, educational religion. ⁵

Nevin’s Critique of Revivalism: Finney

Nevin’s appreciation for the Heidelberg Catechism lay at the heart of his various polemical engagements, beginning with his book against Finneyism, entitled The Anxious Bench. ⁶ Nevin argued against Finney that the apparent effectiveness of the “New Measures” was no proof of their validity. Gaining numerous apparent converts, Nevin insisted, was no justification for resorting to dubious means. Fanaticism could only lead in the end to shallow conversions and ecclesial disarray. “There can be no surer sign of grossness and crudeness in religion,” he intoned, “than a disposition to tolerate this monstrous perversion [Finneyism], under any form.” ⁷

Nevin pitted what he styled the “system of revivalism” against the “system of the catechism,” by which he meant primarily the Heidelberg Catechism. “The two systems,” he wrote, “involve at the bottom two different theories of religion. The spirit of the Anxious Bench is at war with the spirit of the [Heidelberg] Catechism.” ⁸ The two systems were mutually contradictory. “They cannot flourish and be in vigorous force together. The Bench is against the Catechism and the Catechism against the Bench.” ⁹

As Nevin saw it, the revivalistic system of the Bench was rife with any number of errors. It was

characteristically pelagian, with narrow views of the nature of sin, and confused apprehensions of the difference between flesh and spirit; involving in the end the gross and radical error, that conversion is to be considered, in one shape or another, the product of the sinner’s own will, and not truly and strictly a new creation in Christ Jesus by the power of God. ¹⁰

The system of the catechism was very different. “It is a different system altogether,” Nevin wrote, and it is this system “that is required to build up the interests of Christianity in a firm and sure way.” ¹¹ He summarized the catechetical system as follows:

A ministry apt to teach; sermons full of unction and light; faithful, systematic instruction; zeal for the interests of holiness; pastoral visitation; catechetical training; due attention to order and discipline; patient perseverance in the details of ministerial work; these are the agencies by which alone the kingdom of God may be expected to go steadily forward, among any people … It is not meant, of course, that the whole system [of true Christianity] originated in the Catechism, or that it must stand or fall in every instance with the use of the Catechism; but simply that this belongs to it in principle and constitution, and is well fitted at the same time to stand as a specimen of its general meaning and force … The theory of religion in which the system of the Catechism stands is vastly more deep and comprehensive, and of course vastly more earnest also, than that which lies at the foundation of the other system. ¹²

Nevin’s Appreciation of the Heidelberg Catechism

Three years later, in 1847, Nevin published a work called History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism, ¹⁴ but the book had begun years earlier in 1841 as a series of articles in a denominational journal to commemorate the centenary of the German Reformed Church in America, with which Nevin was by that time affiliated. ¹⁵ Nevin’s account was largely historical. He traced the catechism’s development from its origins in the Palatinate in 1563 through the early history of its reception in the sixteenth century on down to its use by German and Dutch Reformed churches in America. His estimation of its significance can be gathered from his introductory remarks:

If the question be asked, which among all the symbolical books that have appeared in the Reformed Church, has the best claim to be regarded in the light of the oecumenical or general symbol; the answer must be that it is the Heidelberg Catechism … No other Catechism or Confession comes down to us, under the same broad catholic character, or with equal claims, in the view now mentioned, to historical attention and respect. ¹⁶

He praised the Catechism for its moderation: “As a whole, it is moderate, gentle and soft.” ¹⁷ It therefore stood opposed to “the great plague of present Christianity,” which consisted in both “rationalism and the spirit of the sect.” ¹⁸ Nevin saw it as a definite strength that the Catechism excluded the rough edges of rationalistic Calvinism: “It has sometimes been made an objection to the Catechism, that it is not sufficiently definite and explicit on some of the hard points of Calvinism. But we should consider this to be rather one of its highest recommendations.” ¹⁹

All thorny, dialectic subtleties, of force for the understanding only, and having but little value for the heart and life, are for the most part carefully avoided. The knotty points of Calvinism, as they have been called, are not brought forward as necessary objects of orthodox belief one way or the other. ²⁰

These words capture the spirit of evangelical Calvinism as Nevin represented it. Union with Christ, for him, was the essence of Calvinistic religion. “Faith uniting us with Christ in the power of a common life” was something he associated especially with the Lord’s Supper. On this point, Nevin believed that the Catechism was “explicitly Calvinistic; steering throughout a careful middle course” between Lutheran and Zwinglian understandings. He approved of the “irenical condescension in the Catechism … such as we do not meet with in the Calvinistic symbols commonly.” Although he might have preferred even stronger language about eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood in the sacrament, he found what the Catechism did say to be fully satisfactory. “Still its general sense is sufficiently clear, as corresponding in full with the sacramental theory of Calvin.” ²³

The church feeling of the Catechism appears again, in the high account which it makes of the sacraments. … The Lord’s Supper is the actual bearer of a divine life; the mediatorial life of the Son of God, designated as his body and blood; with which he feeds the souls of his people, by the power of the Holy Spirit, unto everlasting salvation (q. 75). It is not a token merely of our interest in the atonement of Christ, but serves actually to unite us more and more to his sacred body (q. 76), thus helping forward that great mystery, by which we are to become fully like him at last in the power of a common life. ²⁴

Nevin’s Critique of Rationalistic Calvinism: Hodge

Nevin battled not only against revivalistic Calvinism, but also against rationalistic Calvinism in American church life. Rationalistic Calvinism belonged, in part, to Puritanism, which he saw as the dominant force in mainstream Presbyterian life, for Puritanism formed “the atmosphere with which we are surrounded.” ²⁵ As in his battle against revivalism, he again made the Heidelberg Catechism the foundation of his argument. Although Puritanism had long since embraced “conversionism,” Nevin did not necessarily fault it for that reason. He was opposed to revivalism, but not to the need for conversion per se. ²⁶ Nevin rather objected to Puritanism because he found it to be “unhistorical, unsacramental, unliturgical, and unchurchly altogether.” ²⁷ These were exactly the charges that he would level against his former teacher, the formidable Charles Hodge of Princeton, in their famous debate about the Lord’s Supper, one of the most significant exchanges in nineteenth-century American Reformed theology.

Both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster standards were in play. Neither Nevin nor Hodge wanted to reject either of these venerable Reformed symbols. Nevertheless, it seems fair to say that Nevin read Westminster through the lens of the Heidelberg Catechism, while Hodge did much the reverse by reading Heidelberg through the lens of the Westminster standards. Philip Schaff, the distinguished American church historian, who together with Nevin formed the Mercersburg movement in American theology, characterized Heidelberg and Westminster as standing in limited convergence but also in clear contrast.

Ever the generous commentator, Schaff praised the Larger Westminster Catechism as “a masterpiece of catechetical skill, superior to any similar work,” ²⁸ and the Shorter Catechism as attaining “mathematical precision in its definitions, some of which are almost perfect.” ²⁹ Nevertheless, he did not refrain from pointing out what he regarded as their defects. The Westminster standards, Schaff suggested, exhibited “a dry scholasticism” and “the defects of a one-sided intellectualism.” In observations that his colleague John Nevin would fully have welcomed, Schaff continued: “[Rationalistic Calvinism] shows usually a marvelous dexterity in analysis, division, subdivision, distinction, and definition, but it lacks the intuition into the hidden depths and transcending heights where the antagonisms of partial truths meet in unity.” ³⁰

The chief characteristics of Calvinistic scholasticism as it prevailed in the seventeenth century are that it starts from God’s sovereignty and justice rather than from God’s love and mercy, and that it makes the predestinarian scheme to control the historical and christological scheme. This brings us to the most assailable point in the Westminster Confession and Larger Catechism, the abstract doctrine of eternal decrees, which will always repel a large portion of evangelical Christendom. We believe that the divine-human person and work of Christ furnish the true key to the full understanding of the plan of salvation and the solid platform for the ultimate agreement of all evangelical creeds. ³¹

Much of what Schaff discerned as unfortunate in the Westminster standards, Nevin would also have objected to in Hodge. As seen from the precincts of Mercersburg, the great Princeton theologian lacked sufficient “intuition into the hidden depths and the transcending heights” of sacramental theology. He failed properly to appreciate that “that the divine-human person and work of Christ furnish the true key to the full understanding of the plan of salvation and the solid platform for the ultimate agreement of all evangelical creeds.” ³² Hodge did not see, with Schaff and Nevin, that the Lord’s Supper was more than the solemn remembrance of a saving event that had happened in the past. Hodge vigorously disagreed with Nevin’s claim that “The Lord’s Supper is the actual bearer of a divine life; the mediatorial life of the Son of God, designated as his body and blood; with which he feeds the souls of his people, by the power of the Holy Spirit, unto everlasting salvation.” ³³

In his masterful study of The Doctrine of the Sacraments in the Heidelberg Catechism, Lyle D. Bierma argues that the Catechism deliberately struck a pose of “critical silence” on disputed points about the Lord’s Supper. ³⁴ Neo-Zwinglians like Hodge, who subscribed to “symbolic memorialism,” could read their views into the document. Calvinists who went further, however, along the lines of “symbolic parallelism,” found nothing in the Catechism to which they could object. Finally, even high church Calvinists like Nevin, who leaned toward “symbolic instrumentalism,” and who stressed the role of the Holy Spirit as the bond of mystical union between Christ and the faithful, also felt that they could claim the document in support. ³⁵ These widely different readings of the Heidelberg Catechism were possible, Bierma suggests, because the text was indeterminate enough to permit them all.

The Debate between Nevin and Hodge on the Lord’s Supper

Although Hodge and Nevin differed profoundly about the Lord’s Supper, they both appealed to the Catechism (among much else) to back their views. Besides the question of union with Christ, two closely related points may be mentioned: first, whether the faithful partook of the substance of Christ’s flesh, and second, whether the sacramental signs conveyed the reality they signified.

Hodge staunchly rejected the idea that the faithful partook of the substance of Christ’s flesh. They did not receive its life-giving virtue in the sacrament. Hodge did not believe that this virtue or substance flowed into them through their union with Christ. For him that union was something more federal or legal than mystical. Hodge acknowledged that Calvin, to whom Nevin had appealed at length, took the opposite view. But the Princeton theologian dismissed Calvin as a deviant voice on the Lord’s Supper as over against received Reformed tradition. “The most authoritative of all the symbols of the Reformed church,” Hodge insisted—including “the Heidelberg Catechism,” which he mentioned expressly—outweighed “the private authority of Calvin or the dubious expression of…some minor Confessions.” ³⁶

Hodge located the sacramental presence and reception of Christ solely in the mind. Christ was present to the mind, he believed, but not to the whole person. Christ was, moreover, present in his divinity but not in his full humanity, in his efficacy but not in his substance. Hodge cited Zwingli in support:

The natural substantial body of Christ in which he suffered, and in which he is now seated in heaven, at the right hand of God, is not in the Lord’s Supper eaten, corporeally, or as to its essence, but spiritually only. … Spiritually to eat the body of Christ, is nothing else than with the Spirit and mind to rely on the goodness and mercy of God through Christ … Sacramentally to eat his body, is, the sacrament being added, with the mind and spirit to feed upon him. ³⁷

Nevin, of course, read the Reformed tradition, and particularly the Heidelberg Catechism, very differently. Christ himself was sacramentally present to the faithful in the fullness of his divine–human unity. The Lord’s Supper involved not merely the remembrance of a past saving event, but also the impartation of the substance of Christ’s life-giving flesh to the faithful. The sacramental signs did not merely point away from themselves to a far-distant occurrence, but also conveyed the reality that they signified to the faithful in the present.

Nevin found all these points confirmed in the Heidelberg Catechism. “Take particularly,” he wrote, “the 76th and the 79th Questions.”

Here are all the Calvinistic or Melanchthonian points in clear and precise enunciation: the memorial of the atonement; our present fruition of Christ’s life as the ground of all interest in his death; the local barrier surmounted by the Holy Ghost; and so a real participation in the very substance of his glorified person. … [I]n the Holy Eucharist by the act of Christ objectively through his wonder-working Spirit and not simply by our act, we are made to participate not orally and outwardly, but mystically, dynamically and substantially through the inmost soul-center of our being, in the divine life that springs up perpetually through the fountain of his humanity as Calvin has it, for the use of our dreary and dying nature … ³⁸

Conclusion

In this article I have tried to present only a snapshot from the history of how the Heidelberg Catechism was received by the North American Reformed Churches. I have focused only on the German Reformed, ⁴¹ and mainly on only one figure, John Williamson Nevin from the nineteenth century. A more comprehensive study would obviously need to take much more into account, most especially how the Catechism was received as well by the Dutch Reformed churches in America.

Nevertheless, it seems that a wider angle of vision would not necessarily have changed the main contours of the picture that emerged. Like the Germans, the Dutch Reformed made the Catechism the regular basis of their catechetical instruction. Like the Germans, they were also beset by revivalistic impulses on the one hand and by doctrinaire scholasticism on the other. ⁴² And like the Germans, they would see their reliance on the Catechism slowly wane over time.

Above all, for the Dutch as well as for the Germans, the Heidelberg Catechism seemed to function mostly as an anchor that helped prevent the head from succumbing completely to the undisciplined impulses of the heart, or the heart from being entirely overwhelmed by the theologically overstocked mind. For neither the Dutch nor the Germans, however, was the Catechism alone ever enough, despite its spiritual depth and wise moderation, to keep those countervailing forces fully in line. The Heidelberg Catechism in America functioned more nearly as a ballast than a bellwether.

Although the Dutch Reformed churches in America greatly revered the Catechism, it seems that they produced no distinguished exemplars of evangelical Calvinism comparable to Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin. As one historian has noted, “The Dutch Reformed Church through its periodicals and professors had almost officially repudiated the Calvinist position that Nevin was urging. And yet the Belgic Confession, as Nevin pointed out, was actually ‘higher than the Anglican in sacramental doctrine.’ ” ⁴³ Schaff and Nevin, the standard-bearers of Mercersburg theology, were almost entirely alone in standing for an evangelical Calvinism that combined a high view of the Catechism with a truly Calvinistic view of the sacraments as focused on mystical union with Christ. It seems fitting therefore to conclude this essay with Schaff’s glowing words about “the Spirit of the Catechism”:

The genius of the [Heidelberg] Catechism is brought out at once in the first question, which contains the central idea, and strikes the key-note. It is unsurpassed for depth, comfort, and beauty, and, once committed to memory, can never be forgotten. It represents Christianity in its evangelical, practical, cheering aspect, not as a commanding law, not as an intellectual scheme, not as a system of outward observances, but as the best gift of God to man, as a source of peace and comfort in life and in death. What can be more comforting, what at the same time more honoring and stimulating to a holy life than the assurance of being owned wholly by Christ our blessed Lord and Savior, who sacrificed his own spotless life for us on the cross? The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism is the whole gospel in a nutshell; blessed is he who can repeat it from the heart and hold it fast to the end. ⁴⁴