Posted on 07/04/2009 9:26:58 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Be honest, now: As we celebrate America's birth today, who among you will light a special sparkler for John Calvin?
Don't all raise your hands at once. But some say we should celebrate the great Protestant reformer as an honorary Founding Father for his stalwart defense of law, ethics and religious liberty.
Hmm, really? I suspect the sin-monitoring church police of Calvin's 16th-century Geneva strike most of us as more Taliban than American. Yet there is more of Calvin in our national and theological heritage than most of us know, or would care, to admit.
I think it's time to raise a glass -- yes, Calvin enjoyed wine -- to John Calvin upon the occasion of his 500th birthday next Friday.
"Hold on!" you may object. "Celebrate that dour, puritanical killjoy who believed God banished some to hell before they were even born and who burned some guy at the stake?"
Well yes, Calvin was no saint, although some say his predestination views and role in executing dissident Michael Servetus are poorly understood.
But Calvin contributed much that is good to our civic and religious life and deserves better than he generally gets, scholars say.
At the very least, Calvin is the most influential and least understood religious thinker in West Michigan, where he is grandfather of the Reformed churches and namesake of a certain Christian college.
Calvin is hard to sift for modern Christians raised on Rick Warren but still has much to teach us, says Jim Bratt, a Calvin College professor of history.
Like what?
"Religion is about God and not about us," Bratt said. "Everything you do in church and out of church should be guided by a very intelligent reading of Scripture."
Bratt presented a paper at a recent symposium on Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland. Several other West Michigan church leaders attended the event and a related worship service.
Other events honoring the great reformer's legacy include a spring conference at Calvin and an August one at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. A forum at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Baker Book House features scholars Karin Maag, Richard Muller and Michael Wittmer.
Also marking the anniversary is "Pursued by God," a brief, highly readable biography by Christopher Meehan, former religion editor of The Press and the Kalamazoo Gazette. Published by Faith Alive Christian Resources, the book offers pithy details of Calvin's illness-plagued life, tragic marriage and political intrigues.
It also makes a case for Calvin as 21st-century thinker. Time magazine dubbed "the new Calvinism" as a major trend among young Christians.
Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw says Calvin would have supported peace and unity among nations and the need for fair and equitable laws.
For Bratt, Calvin is very much a man of this time in recognizing the need for laws to restrain our worst evils and failings.
"Individuals really can't be trusted. So our salvation is in the structures of control and channeling our energies," Bratt says.
That view can be seen in Geneva's morality laws, which sought to curb wife-beating as well as drunkenness, Bratt notes. In a sense, Calvin's sober image is that of a revolutionary seeking to change society for the better, and his ideas influenced other revolutionaries including James Madison.
Still, Calvin enjoyed life's pleasures even as he battled the tuberculosis that killed him at age 54. Bratt calls his life "a sacrifice of praise to God."
As for predestination, it was not Calvin's original idea, but has been a source of hope to slaves and sinners, Bratt says: "You're not holding onto God, God is holding onto us."
Five hundred years after his birth, many of Calvin's ideas still hold onto us. We need not embrace all of them to honor his worth, human failings and all.
....Calvin is hard to sift for modern Christians raised on Rick Warren but still has much to teach us, says Jim Bratt, a Calvin College professor of history. Like what? "Religion is about God and not about us," Bratt said. "Everything you do in church and out of church should be guided by a very intelligent reading of Scripture."
“I suspect the sin-monitoring church police of Calvin’s 16th-century Geneva strike most of us as more Taliban than American.” My ex called me a Christian Taliban more than two years ago. He is obviously a liberal, and has fallen into the study of what man thinks about God rather than what God thinks about man. :)
Calvin’s theology could very well spark another reformation. Most kids don’t believe in hell, everyone gets a trophy.
what do you expect...they "found" Jesus
Predestination is a Bible concept. The New Testament speaks of it explicitly in several places.
The Bible is of no private interpretation. How one interprets predestination is evidence as to how one feels about the sovereignty of God.
It is self evident that we are universally capable of making a choice and thinking for ourselves.
God has applied to us the freedom our own thoughts. He has granted it to be of a higher precedence in our own temple than his own will. But only for a time.
Unless we eventually submit to the will of our loving and gracious Father in this life, the eternal will of God will take our place.
But oh what a heavenly release it is, to submit to the design of the divine providence of the ancient of days.
Jesus Christ took our place on the Cross - to defend our liberty and save our souls.
“...intelligent reading of Scripture”
That’s the big reason I don’t pay any attention to people who try and use the Bible to attack me for being religious; more often than not, their attack loses wind after some simple research, which means that the attacker didn’t do it, and who among us has time or patience to deal with people who can’t do their own research.
On another note, from what I’ve read of his quotes, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t overly fond of Calvin’s teachings on the Bible.
I was wondering if the change at Campus Crusade for Christ, from reaching out to the lost with emphasis on damnation to today’s emphasis on God’s love hasn’t come to fruition. I think we should evangelize the way God did. If you eat the fruit, you die. And physical death is pleasant relative to spiritual death, no? At least it ends.
And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The sovereignty of God in one’s mind, is also tied to the Biblical concept of the fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom. Without that fear (however you want to define it), coming from God Himself, we would have no reason to listen to Him as sovereign. Hmmm. Maybe that is why my kid and dogs only do what I say after I tell them for the third time. No fear. :)
LOL I just read your post, coincidence? HA!
“And I say to thee. thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18
The mighty Roman Catholic church and the Papacy was founded by Jesus. Heretics such as Calvin and his views will never prevail against us. The rot in the “biblical truths” of Protestantism is seen in the acceptance of contraception in the 1930s. We’ll convert you. Our families will be larger. The future belongs to Catholicism - the one true holy, Catholic, and apostolic church.
////quote//// Who among you will light a special sparkler for John Calvin? /// end quote////
I’m sorry but if I started to light a sparkler it would just remind me of Servetus!
Interesting. Where is this?
Sorry - I don’t know - I found in on images.google.com
Must be a beautiful place... visually and spiritually.
Jesus was saying that he will build his Church on the revelation that Peter had. That Jesus Chirst is the Messiah, the Son of God.
“And they shall build a statue of you Peter, whose toe will be worn away with adoration and admiration”
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