This study of the life and thought of John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) offers a revised interpretation of an important nineteenth-century religious thinker. Along with the historian Phillip Schaff, Nevin was a leading exponent of what became known as the Mercersburg Movement, named for the college and theological seminary of the German Reformed Church located in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The story is a neglected aspect of American studies.

Wentz provides a kind of post-modern perspective on Nevin, presenting him as a distinctively American thinker, rather than as a reactionary romantic....

Religious pluralism has been a defining characteristic of the American experience since colonial times. In the twentieth century, as American society has become more radically pluralistic, the issue of religious identity is once again in flux.Providing a historical context, Richard Wentz examines the challenges that pluralism presents to denominationalism and civil religion and considers the contributions secularism and the New Age movement have made to the culture of religious pluralism. Finally, Wentz calls for a new pluralism based on civility and respect, a reimmersion into our religious...