Posted on 07/04/2009 12:12:44 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
KALAMAZOO -- For the Rev. Margaret "Meg" Jenista, of Third Christian Reformed Church, a self-confessed "theology nerd," this weekend promises to be a happy, fulfilling time.
"I'm nerdy enough to be excited about John Calvin's 500th birthday," said Jenista about an event being celebrated worldwide -- the birth on July 10, 1509, of a pillar of Protestant faith and one of the founders of the Reformed church movement.
Calvin's influence on Christianity and on society in general endures for a variety of reasons, said Kalamazoo-area pastors who serve denominations that trace their roots back to his teachings.
For Jenista, the descendant of fundamentalist Baptist ministers on both sides of her family, the discovery of Calvin and his work came from a hunger to learn more about church history.
"In college, we learned about the early church in Acts. Then we jumped ahead to talk about the split that created our particular denomination. Everything from the second century to the 19th century was a complete blank," she said.
Jenista began to explore those missing years and there discovered Calvin, along with a more developed sense of history and tradition that she said should be carried forward to provide meaning today.
"The church matters," she said. "We are a community of faith and not just people floating in space. We belong to a people and to a place and to a tradition."
For the Rev. Jacques Nel of Trinity Reformed Church, Calvin's teachings can be expressed in one simple thought: grace all the way. Calvin's view of salvation comes to this, he said: "That Jesus came to the world is grace. What God did for us in Christ is grace all the way. The fact that I believe and have faith in this is also grace. That faith is not something I can fabricate myself. God gives it to us. It's not 50 percent God's grace and 50 percent me. It's 100 percent God."
The process of God choosing people to have faith, known as election or predestination, is part of the crystallization of Reformed doctrine called "the five points of Calvinism," often encapsulated in an acronym known as TULIP: total depravity, uconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints.
The concept of predestination has been a sticking point for opponents of Calvinism, who claim it downplays human free will and presents God as someone who elects some people for heaven and others for eternal damnation.
Jenista noted that the five points of Calvinism came about 100 years after Calvin's time and are best understood in the context of God's grace. She prefers to quote from another stalwart expression of Reformed faith -- the Heidelberg Catechism.
"When I talk to disgruntled evangelicals who boil Calvinism down to TULIP and the five points, I want to say, 'What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own but I belong body and soul, in life and death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.' If you want a CliffNotes to Calvinism, that's it," Jenista said.
For the Rev. John Best, Calvin's contributions can also be seen in how Best's denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and other Calvinist denominations govern themselves. After the Protestant Reformation took its followers away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, Calvin provided a different manner of church governance.
"Calvin gave us a middle way between the governance of bishops and congregational polity," said Best, who is general presbyter of the Presbytery of Lake Michigan. "Calvin's understanding of human nature led to that polity. He followed the line of the apostle Paul and St. Augustine in that all of us fall short of the glory of God. Following from that tendency to error, Calvin designed a church polity which has clergy and elders governing together at every level of the church."
Calvin influenced the entire society of his day, and not just the church, particularly in his role as intellectual and political leader of Geneva, Switzerland. Americans would not be able to duplicate the theocracy Calvin established in Geneva, Nel said, but that still leaves plenty of room for Christians to influence politics in a prophetic way.
"Calvin's understanding was that to be a Christian means to be just and righteous in every sphere of life," Nel said. "One cannot be a Calvinist if you think Christians should withdraw from the political sphere or from society. You can only be called a Calvinist when you say in every sphere of life that you must be a Christian."
"....Calvin's understanding was that to be a Christian means to be just and righteous in every sphere of life," Nel said. "One cannot be a Calvinist if you think Christians should withdraw from the political sphere or from society. You can only be called a Calvinist when you say in every sphere of life that you must be a Christian."
You don't have to be a Calvinist to have that.
Between the Mormons and the Calvinists all the other fringe religious groups posting here it’s hard to recognize Freerepublic any more.
Ummmm, Calvinists are hardly a fringe group. Among those espousing Calvinism are: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Reformed, many Baptists and Bible churches, and many more. The Massachusetts Bay colony was founded by Calvinists as was much of the early United States. Most of the Founding Fathers were Calvinists and much of the political theory they espoused were born of Calvinist thinkers.
Some Episcopalians.
It is most unfortunate that “Calvinism” has been used as a label for the Christian gospel of God’s unilateral salvation. I don’t agree with all elements of what theologians call “Calvinism,” but, with respect to God’s grace, Calvinism is just another word for Christianity.
The problem is that these are listed with all the other articles on the section, “recent articles.” I’m annoyed as much as you are by all the religious postings, especially the Roman Catholic ones. Maybe FR will find a way for many of its readers to avoid all the religious topics, or maybe it already has and I just don’t know about it.
For the Rev. Margaret "Meg" Jenista, of Third Christian Reformed Church,
Things have changed since we were in the CRCNA.
"When I talk to disgruntled evangelicals who boil Calvinism down to TULIP and the five points, I want to say, 'What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own but I belong body and soul, in life and death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.' If you want a CliffNotes to Calvinism, that's it," Jenista said....You don't have to be a Calvinist to have that.
Question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism is one that hits you between the eyes like a sledge hammer.
Read the whole thing
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*Sigh* I know exactly what you mean!
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