Man of His Time for All Times: W. Robert Godfrey paints portrait of Calvin as pilgrim and pastor

Why did you organize your biography around the themes of "pilgrim" and "pastor"?

Many approach Calvin first of all as a theologian, and he certainly was a great theologian. But his theology emerged out of his own spiritual journey and struggles. In the first part of the book I focus on that spiritual pilgrimage of Calvin, because his experience and his reading of the Bible are critical to understanding his vision of Christianity. In the second part of the book, I follow his pastoral career because he regarded his calling as primarily that of pastor. His work as theologian and biblical commentator really served his work as pastor. Organizing the book as I did also allowed me to try to integrate Calvin's life with his thought more than most books do. We have biographies of Calvin that contain little theology and we have introductions to his theology that have little of his life. I have tried to provide an introduction to both and to show how interrelated they are.

To what do you attribute the disparity between how most people remember Calvin and how historians view him?

Most people do not know Calvin's life or work. He has become a symbol or perhaps an epithet for what is narrow, judgmental, joyless, and intolerant. Calvin inspired a great and vital movement that led to the founding of Reformed churches in many parts of the world. Those churches were disciplined and serious in their pursuit of the Christian life. In some countries those churches or their members had a great influence on the life and laws of their lands. For those outside the Reformed churches, some of that life and culture did feel restrictive and intolerant. But the modern, often liberal, aversion to Calvinism has often been simply transferred to Calvin as a

Calvin did not live and work to make followers of himself, but to make followers of Christ as he is presented in the Scriptures. He worked hard to reform the whole church according to the Word of God and especially labored to unite Protestants. Today I fear that Christianity is so divided that it is very hard to maintain a vision of the church as a whole. Also Calvin was good at seeing priorities in the life of the church. He knew where compromise was appropriate and where it was not. Too often today we fall to squabbling about things in the church because we do not have a sense of priorities.

....For many, Servetus is the ultimate example of the intolerance and cruelty of Calvin. I have no desire to try to justify the persecution or execution of heretics, but in fairness to Calvin the Servetus episode must be seen in historical context. Servetus denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and that was a capital crime almost everywhere in Europe. When Servetus came to Geneva, he had already been sentenced to death in France. Calvin had warned Servetus by letter not to come to Geneva because of his views. After Servetus was arrested, Calvin and other ministers tried to convince him that his views of the Trinity were unbiblical. Servetus was put on trial before a civil court in Geneva. Calvin was the prosecutor in the trial, but was not one of the judges. Calvin agreed that Servetus should be executed, but unsuccessfully asked that he be beheaded instead of burned alive.

Almost all Europeans in Calvin's day believed that heresy was as dangerous as the plague and that civil governments had the obligation to eradicate it. Calvin was a man of his time on this matter. He is not to be excused for this reason, but he must be seen as holding views that most others of his time held. The case of Servetus provides no evidence that Calvin was unusually cruel or intolerant. Rather he like most others believed the civil government had a responsibility to protect the public from false religion, even by using its coercive powers.

for a group that disparages “works,” they sure do admire work

Indeed we do, but for different reasons. In Calvinism, work is what you do after you are saved. In Arminianism, work is what you do in order to be saved.

And how exactly did Calvin “make” followers of Christ?

By teaching people, from the Scriptures, how and why to follow Christ.

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