CHURCH: History and Today Feb. 10

Over the past few weeks, we have taken a look at two of the key leaders of the reformation in its first few years: Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli. And here I want to read a block quote from Gonzalez’s chapter on Calvin. (I will try to remember my book this time!)

Before we go any further, Let’s play a little game. What is your first response to the name ‘John Calvin’?

What is your first response to ‘Calvinism’?

Intro

John Calvin (1509-1564) was born in Noyon, France, in 1509, to parents who were part of the rising middle class. His father held a few minor positions at the local church (such as secretary). At the time of Calvin’s birth, Luther had just started teaching at the University of Wittenberg in Germany, and Zwingli was in his position as priest and continuing his studies of Scripture on the side.

With his connections with the church, Calvin’s father helped to pay for his education, and Calvin wanted a Church-related career. He studied in Paris, where he too (as Zwingli had) became familiar with the Renaissance and humanism movements. In 1528 he received his Master of Arts degree. After this, he actually left church and theology studies to pursue a career in law, under pressure (and/or encouragement) from his father. But after his father passed away, he continued his theological studies, and would eventually join the Protestant movement.

Now Calvin was quite different compared to the other two major reformation figures. Where Luther was known as a loud and blunt person, enjoying his drinks and laughing, Calvin was quiet and seemed timid, preferring the company of his books. He was usually polite, compared to Luther’s brash and straightforwardness (which often turned to being downright rude). While Zwingli was a strong patriot and ready to face conflict, Calvin was withdrawn and called himself a “timid scholar.”

Little is known about his inner thoughts, since he actually didn’t write much about himself. With Luther we have a detailed journal about his inner state of being, but with Calvin, we don’t even actually know the exact time that he came to a personal relationship with Christ!

Involved Against His Will

In 1534 (about 17 years after Luther officially started the Reformation) the reformation in France was facing severe difficulty. The King at the time, Francis I, had at first been quite tolerant of this new group of Christians showing up, and was supportive of those who talked about bringing much-needed change within the Church. But when some overzealous protestants decapitated a statue of the Virgin Mary and and the baby Jesus, things changed quickly. This and a few other events brought about his wrath, and he changed his policy of tolerance to one of persecution.

This made for a sticky situation for Calvin. He was getting more involved with the Protestant movement, and felt that he had to leave France to find safety and continue his writings in peace and quiet. So one day he slipped over the border and headed to Basel, Switzerland to live a life of exile from his homeland. (Remember that Basel is home to one of the schools that Zwingli had attended, and had now become known as a safe-haven for reform-minded people).

It was in Basel that his writings took off. While there, Calvin wrote and published the first edition of his work Institutes of the Christian Religion. He had found that most of the writings available from Protestant perspective only talked about the hot topics at the time, such as the Lord’s Supper, indulgences, relics, and so on, but didn’t really touch on the main points of Christian faith like the Trinity, the Incarnation, and other topics like it. He hoped that with his new 6-chapter book he could circulate these basics of the Protestant faith and show that not all Protestants were statue-smashing rascals bent on vandalism and arson. He dedicated the first edition to King Francis I, and remember that he was considered a thoughtful man, truly interested in reform of the church. This new book, though written in Switzerland, spread quickly throughout France, and was sold out in 9 months! Over his lifetime he kept revising these Institutes until it became a four volume, 1500+ page edition of Christian theology, considered the greatest theological work of the Reformation, and Calvin’s greatest work as well.

Many writings at the time only dealt with controversial topics, rather than Christianity as a whole. How likely are we today to forget the basics of our faith and jump on new issues as they come up?

Over time, Calvin thought it best to move on to the city of Strasbourg (which was at the time a free imperial city), which had become strongly supportive of the reformation. However, because of military action on the main road leading there, Calvin had to take a detour route through the Swiss city of Geneva. He was determined to only stay there overnight, and then keep going on to Strasbourg the next day. But someone told one of the reformation leaders there - William Farel (not the actor!) - that the author of the now-famous Institutes was in town. Farel wanted to bring about change, but didn’t really have the personnel needed to lead a large city in such massive changes. Farel decided to ask Calvin to help him, but Calvin was not interested. After failing to convince him, Farel threatened him! He said, “May God condemn your repose, and the calm you seek for study, if before such a great need you withdraw, and refuse your succor and help.” Calvin was “stricken with terror” with this threat, and became convinced to stay in Geneva and help lead the reformation there.

Calvin didn’t consider himself a leader in the Reformation movement, but rather a writer and author. He admired these leaders but didn’t think he had those gifts, but rather those of a scholar and author. Even so, he put his plans aside to help out in the church that needed help. Are we willing to put aside our plans - as good as they may be! - to help out in an area that we don’t even think we’re good at?

However, things went south quickly. Over the next two years, Farel and Calvin got into disputes with the city council. See, the council wanted change, but not that much change. Lots of their desire for change seemed to revolve around political advances rather than faithfulness to God and the Scripture. So when Farel and Calvin started advocating for some more intense reform, the city council didn’t like it. they were expelled from the city. So after only two years, Calvin leaves the city and continues on to Strasbourg!

But even there, his hopes for a quiet place to keep writing were dashed. Martin Bucer, one of the leaders of reform in Strasbourg, thought that Calvin should become the pastor of the many French Protestant refugees who had left France to avoid persecution. He took on this role for the next three years, and also married his wife Idelette de Bure, a widow with two children. They had a happy marriage until her death in 1549, at which Calvin stated that “I struggle as best I can to overcome my grief…I have lost the best companion of my life.” (Reeves, 107). Their marriage was happy and healthy, but their son passed away two weeks after birth.

After three happy years in Strasbourg, the city of Geneva invited him to come back. Things had changed, and the government there had seen a bit of a turnaround. Here I’ll read another quote from Reeves’ book The Unquenchable Flame.

Calvin comes back to a city that had ‘coldly expelled’ him three years earlier, yet continues where he left off without missing a beat. How do we respond to others that seem two-faced towards us? When someone hurts us, how do we react when they want US to continue on with them?

Calvin continues his work in Geneva as one of the key church leaders. He and the other pastors come up with changes to church structure and practice, and during the next 12 years he and the city council again come to several disagreements. The church under his leadership seemed to be pretty strict, criticizing citizens for going to taverns (imagine Martin Luther’s response to that!) and giving people a verbal lashing for missing church or catechism services! The church was going overboard according to the city government and the city population, and things didn’t look good for Calvin. It seemed entirely possible that in 1553 he would be expelled again.

Michael Servetus

It was at this point that Servetus enters the scene. Now if we talk about John Calvin than we must talk about the biggest controversy that involves him, and that is the matter of a man named Michael Servetus. (Block quote here)

Servetus was a Spanish radical who taught against the basic Christian doctrine of the Trinity, claiming it was only added on later, not actually being taught in the Bible. He was arrested by the Catholic church caught him in Vienne, France, and condemned as a heretic to death. But he escaped and fled to Geneva, where Calvin was still teaching. Servetus was immediately arrested by the Protestants, and also condemned to death by burning. “Servetus’ death was severely criticized, especially by Sebastian Castello, whom Calvin had earlier expelled from Geneva for having interpreted the Song of Songs as a poem of erotic love. Ever since, the burning of Servetus - a noted physician - has become a symbol of the rigid dogmatism of Calvin’s Geneva.” (Gonzalez, 84)

How would a man like Servetus be treated today? Does this incident change the way we think about religious tolerance in Christianity? What does this make us think/feel towards Calvin?

Attitude Shift

After the death of Servetus, Calvin was the chief authority in Geneva. People listened to him, since, even though there were those who opposed his condemnation of Servetus, they had claimed that since the Catholics were after Servetus, Geneva should actually befriend Servetus. But the other Protestant cantons in Switzerland had all agreed that he was a heretic, so now those who opposed Calvin were arguing against not only him, but the Protestant leaders in all of Switzerland!

In 1559, Calvin saw one of his lifelong dreams fulfilled in the opening of the Genevan Academy, a theological seminary. Here students learned the Protestant doctrine that Calvin and the rest of Geneva taught, and took it with them across Europe. Especially in France, many secretly slipped back in and started these reformed churches. Apparently up to 10 percent of the French population came to follow Calvin’s teachings!

Perseverence

In the last few years of his life Calvin went through intense physical pain. He had always battled health issues, but they became worse over time. A few months before he died he wrote that he suffered from colic, arthritis, stones, hemorrhoids, something similar to influenza, severe pains in his legs, a disease that spread from his knees to his legs, so bad that he couldn’t ride horses but had to travel in a litter! He had ulcers, intestinal ascarides (intestinal worms), nephritis (kidney inflammation), and a severe case of gall stones. The last sermon he preached, several people carried him up to the pulpit and he preached from his bed! Through all of this he still traveled out into the country to do pastoral visitations (traveling in his litter) and still preached regularly. During most of his time in Geneva he preached 2 sermons every Sunday, and 5 sermons every 2 weeks on the New Testament, and he did thousands of pastoral visits to homes.

Hearing this about Calvin really challenged me. He was willing to keep preaching in all this pain, and some days I would stay home from school because I had a cough. What are we willing to endure for the sake of sharing God’s Word?

In 1564, Calvin passed away, and his protege Theodore Beza continued his work as pastor and teacher. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the common cemetery, so that he could not be made into a relic or idol.

Calvin and Calvinism

Do we see a difference between the man John Calvin and the Reformed church that is named after him? Why or why not?

This was a big eye-opener for me. My first experience with a Christian who called himself ‘Calvinist’ was an annoying, brash know-it-all, who seemed convinced that he had it right and anyone who didn’t agree with him was wrong. Particularly he kept going on and on about predestination and that the Anabaptist teaching about free will was completely wrong. Almost everyone I knew considered him confrontational, and he would attack even the smallest little mistake you would make. He seemed so intent on arguing people into heaven that anything he did, even actions and practices taught in the Bible, were just used as proof that he had it right. I thought to myself that if Calvinism is all about this dogmatic arguing without really even seeing the fruit of faith, then I wanted nothing to do with it. Calvinism seemed cold and lawful, limiting vs freeing, proud instead of humble.

So you can imagine that when Calvin came up in history class, I was at first unimpressed. But after I started reading him and his Institutes of the Christian Religion (now four whole books instead of 6 chapters), I realized that this Calvinism was not what he practiced or preached. I have since come to know many Christians who agree with Calvin’s theology, and that doesn’t just show up in how they think about faith, but how they live it out as well.

How much do first impressions impact us?

What good is proper theology if it doesn’t lead to a change in our lives? Can theology even change our lives?

2 Corinthians 12:

I want to close with a few verses from 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 12:6–10 NIV

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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