Mercersburg is a borough in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States. The borough is 72 miles (116 km) southwest of Harrisburg, the state capital.
The Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB) was a North American Protestant denomination from 1946 to 1968 with Arminian theology, roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communities, and close ties to Methodism. It was formed by the merger of a majority of the congregations of the Evangelical Church founded by Jacob Albright and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The United Brethren and the Evangelical Association had considered merging off and on since the early 19th century because of their common emphasis on holiness and evangelism and their common German heritage.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,600 churches and 712,000 members. The UCC is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Puritanism. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. Notably, its modern members' theological and socio-political stances are often very different from those of its predecessors.
Eden Theological Seminary is a Christian seminary based in Webster Groves, Missouri. It is one of the six official seminaries of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
Mercersburg theology was a German-American theological movement that began in the mid-19th century. It draws its name from Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, home of Marshall College from 1836 until its merger with Franklin College in 1853, and also home to the seminary of the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) from 1837 until its relocation to Lancaster in 1871.
The Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) is a Christian ecumenical American seminary located in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of several seminaries historically affiliated with the United Church of Christ. It is the oldest institution of higher education in Chicago, originally established in 1855 under the direction of the abolitionist Stephen Peet and the Congregational Church by charter of the Illinois legislature.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States was a small Presbyterian denomination based in the United States that merged into the Vanguard Presbytery. The RPCUS was established in 1983, subscribes to the unrevised Westminster Confession and upholds biblical inerrancy. The denomination self-identified as theonomic. It dissolved in 2020.
Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1787 as Franklin College and later merged with Marshall College in 1853, it is one of the oldest colleges in the United States. F&M is named after Benjamin Franklin, who gave the college its first endowment, and John Marshall.
John Williamson Nevin, was an American theologian and educator. He was born in the Cumberland Valley, near Shippensburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He was the father of noted sculptor and poet Blanche Nevin.
The Evangelical and Reformed Church (E&R) was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. It was formed in 1934 by the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) with the Evangelical Synod of North America (ESNA). A minority within the RCUS remained out of the merger in order to continue the name Reformed Church in the United States. In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the majority of the Congregational Christian Churches (CC) to form the United Church of Christ (UCC).
Lexington Theological Seminary is a private Christian seminary in Lexington, Kentucky. Although it is related to the Christian Church, it is intentionally ecumenical with almost 50 percent of its enrollment coming from other denominations. Lexington Theological Seminary is accredited by Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada to award Master of Divinity, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Pastoral Studies, and Doctor of Ministry degrees.
Mercersburg Academy is an independent college-preparatory boarding and day high school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Founded in 1893, the school enrolls approximately 444 students in grades 9–12, including postgraduates, on a campus about 90 miles northwest by north of Washington, D.C.
Henry Harbaugh Apple was an American clergyman and educator born in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in 1889 and from the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in 1892. Ordained to the ministry of his denomination, he became pastor of St. John's Church in Philadelphia (1892) and of Trinity Church in York, Pennsylvania. In 1905 he was president of the Potomac Synod of the Reformed Church. In 1909 he was chosen president of Franklin and Marshall College.
Emanuel Vogel Gerhart was an American minister of the German Reformed Church and first president of Franklin and Marshall College. Some consider Gerhart the systematizer of Mercersburg Theology. He wrote the first complete Christocentric theology in nineteenth century America.
The Evangelical Association of Reformed and Congregational Christian Churches is an evangelical protestant denomination in the United States. It began as a fellowship of churches disaffected from the United Church of Christ due to that denomination's liberal theology. Churches of the Evangelical Association are free to hold dual affiliation with another denomination, as local churches observe congregational polity.
Gabriel Joseph Fackre (1926–2018) was an American theologian and Abbot Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts. He was on the school's faculty for 25 years before retiring in 1996. Previous to that he was Professor of Theology and Culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, teaching there from 1961 through 1970. Fackre has also served as visiting professor or held lectureships at 40 universities, colleges, and seminaries. His papers are housed in Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Princeton, New Jersey.
Frederick Augustus Rauch [in Germany, Friedrich August Rauch] was an educator and the founding president of Marshall College. He was a professor of systematic theology and is often credited as the originator of Mercersburg Theology, although Philip Schaff and John Williamson Nevin were more integral in the development of its views.
Henry Harbaugh was a Pennsylvania Dutch clergyman of the German Reformed Church.
William Mann Irvine was an American academic and founding headmaster of Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.
Richard Druckenbrod was a 20th century Pennsylvania German language teacher, historian, pastor, and writer.
