Sectarianism and the Search for Visible Catholicity: Lessons from John Nevin and Richard Hooker

Abstract

Although from its outset, Protestantism has defined the essence of the church primarily by its invisible attributes (for example, its hidden identity in Christ, to whom it is united by faith, Protestants have often felt compelled to give clearer visible definition to the church) to distinguish it from sects or false churches. Unfortunately, such a quest for visible criteria of catholicity has often tended to reproduce a sectarian mentality, in which these visible boundary markers become not signs, but grounds, of the church’s union with Christ. In this article, I analyze how this process unfolded in the thought of nineteenth-century Mercersburg theologian John Williamson Nevin. Beginning with a sharp critique of sectarianism, he sought more and more for visible criteria of church unity that would exclude sects, and ended by rejecting Protestant ecclesiology altogether. I then turn to sixteenth-century English theologian Richard Hooker for resources that might help us avoid this impasse: namely, a critique of sectarianism that maintains a clear distinction between the church’s justification and its sanctification. The church’s hidden unity with Christ falls under the former heading; its quest for historic forms of visible unity under the latter.