Calvin

October 31, 2017, will mark 500 years of the Protestant Reformation. To mark this occasion, we are taking three weeks to explore three major figures in the movement which gave birth to the four traditions that led to the UCC. Today, we’ll talk about John Calvin.

Calvin was born in 1509. His father was steeped in religious life and was the secretary to a bishop. When Calvin was old enough, his father sent him to be theologically trained in Paris in 1528. By this time, Luther and the Reformation was well underway. Calvin was a wordsmith and a scholar. He wasn’t a good preacher nor was he interpersonally skilled. He wrote about himself, “Being of a disposition somewhat unpolished and bashful, which led me always to love the shade and retirement, I then began to see some secluded corner where I might be withdrawn from the public view.”[1]

Given his nature, his father thought he would be better as a lawyer. Calvin was pulled from theological training and placed into law school. There he became a humanist, a scientific movement based on reason and evidence. He wrote his first book on the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger. Seneca was a Stoic, meaning that we should endure pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint. Calvin could not stand illogical or emotional thinking. He liked order and despised ravings and false opinions that over throw religion and civil order.[2]

In 1534, he read the writings of Luther and is converted to Protestantism. He started writing The Institutes of the Christian Religion, explaining what the Reformation and being Protestant are all about. It goes from a short 100 page book to an 80 chapter, four volume set that Calvin would spend the rest of his life writing and revising.

Calvin was a classically trained lawyer, with a background in theology, who believed in the power of reason. He believed that God is in control of everything, and that there are no coincidences. One day, Calvin was in Basel and wanted to go to Strasburg. But there was a war on the road, and the way was blocked so he was detoured to Geneva. Now Geneva was in disarray. Life was completely unorganized. The churches were fighting, pastors were preaching against each other and all services were banned. There was a factional government with no laws. What Geneva really needed was a lawyer who was theologically trained. And there stands John Calvin.

I have spoken about how I felt God has guided me to you. Calvin would call this “The Providence of God.” How my family traveled up to A.I. Root for bee supplies and to your county fair. I have told the story of how within the first ten minutes of walking into your church, I saw the name of a man whose funeral I did back in Sylvania, Steve Oravez, Jr. At my neutral pulpit in a small church in Norton, your former pastor decided to visit, not knowing I’d be there. What are the odds? Often in my life I felt God has guided me exactly where I needed to be.

I grew up thinking I would take the woman I would marry to my senior prom. This is a crazy claim for a kid who has seen nothing but divorce in his life. And I felt like the camp that was down the road would play some big part in my life. I met Kate at that camp and took her to my senior prom. God, it seems to me, thought it was a good idea that Kate and I should meet and keep going together.

In the perceived chaos of our lives and world events, we crave order. We love our routines, they are predictable and safe. Calvin has the reputation of a domineering tyrant, an inflexible moralist, a humorless preacher unshaken by even the slightest self-doubt. But in reading Calvin and spending time with him, church historians discovered a vulnerable, emotional pastor. If you take him as a pastor, you see the care and concern he has for people and how we live together. Often times, a person comes along and does a great thing. Then the followers sometimes mess up by only focusing on a part of the person or a caricature is made in society. Calvinists messed up Calvin for many. They missed the pastoral side of Calvin and become very narrowminded and sometimes cruel theologians; you either fit the system or you’re out. There is no middle ground. The discovery of Calvin as the pastor has been nothing short of a revelation in church history.

Out of his pastoral concern, Calvin saw how mean and corrupt the church of his age was, so he sought to reform it. The marks of a true church are that there are no lies or falsehood spread among the people or from the pulpit. That the scriptures are read, preached, and heard and the sacraments rightly celebrated as Christ taught them.

Calvin set four offices of church life. The first is the pastor who is responsible for the preaching, study, and spiritual life of the church. The pastor speaks in two voices: to call the sheep and to drive away the wolves. Calvin was also one of the few Reformers who was open to women’s ordination, saying that if the local church deems the candidate gifted and chosen by God, then gender doesn’t matter.

The second office of the church is teacher; extension of the pastor and any gifted as well. The educational base of the church is the scriptures. It’s why we have youth group and VBS. It’s why the Basic series is happening on Thursdays. Calvin believed in education.

The third office is the elder- lay people responsible for the discipline of the community. With the respected elders and the pastor, this makes up consistory or church council. They are the governing body of the church, and their decisions are the rule of law for the church.

The fourth office is the deacons who are responsible for the social welfare of the congregation. They take care of the sick, feed the hungry, bring good news to the poor. This is our Caring Circle and our bread makers. You all take good care of one another.

Calvin believed that not everyone was supposed to be in the church. Many are called, but few are chosen for this task. Some mistreat and misunderstand the nature of God and the Gospel. We do it as well. It’s why Calvin was so organized and attended to details. It’s why education featured so prominently with Calvin and the traditions that bear elements of his theology and thinking.

We get Calvin in the UCC from both the German Reformed side as well as the Congregationalist side through the Puritans. I see that our passion for education and educational institutions like helping out the Garfield families and the tutoring that many of you do comes from Calvin. The Congregationalists were convicted, just as Calvin was, that “all individuals should be able to wrestle with Scripture for themselves in order to discern God’s will for them. Such an engagement with Scripture requires literacy, sophistication with interpretive methods, and attention to humanist advancements.”[3] Geneva flourished under Calvin, and many started following his method. In 1559 The Genevan Academy was created by Calvin and became the forerunner to public education. Basically, wherever Calvinism went, schools and Colleges were established. The old saying is, “With Romanism goes the priest; with Calvinism goes the teacher.”[4]

If things were as they appeared, education wouldn’t be needed. Yet we need to continually broaden our view. We must learn and remain open to new information, new teachings. We can get so locked into our systems that we end up so closed in around ourselves, we can’t see another perspective. Calvin called this “curvatus in se” curved into the self. If I am not learning more about God, if I feel like I know everything there is to know about God; then I’m the sole expert on who and what God is, how God should act, who is in, which is always me, and who is out, which is everybody else. Yet if God finds us, if we are converted by God, then we see a wider communion and a fuller picture. We are not the judge. God is.

Calvin stated, “God grabbed me and brought my mind into a teachable frame.” May it be the same for us. Through our life together both in its order and disorder, whether predestined or not, I give thanks for the education that you have been giving me about your lives, our city, and the history of this church. I look forward to learning from you and teaching you what I know. And to that, we can give thanks for our spiritual ancestor, John Calvin.

Bibliography

Barret, Lee. Characteristics of Puritanism. Class handout, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Church History, Spring 2009.

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume 2: The Reformation to Present Day. Harper One, 1985.

Janz, Denis R. A Reformation Reader: Primary Texts with Introductions, Second Edition. Fortress Press, 2008.

MacCuloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation: A History. Penguin Books, 2003.

Thayer, Anne T. “Church History .” Lecture, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster PA, April 17, 2009. Church History Class Notes.

[1] Denis Janz, A Reformation Reader, page 249.
[2] Paraphrased, A Reformation Reader, page 250.
[3] Lee Barrett, Characteristics of Puritanism. Class handout, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Church History, Spring 2008.
[4] David Murry, The Impact of Calvin on Education. http://headhearthand.org/blog/2016/02/08/the-impact-of-calvinism-on-education/

 

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