Well, I am back to blogging after a very large break. The topic for this post is, obviously, John Calvin who seems to me to be one of the most mischaracterized people of the reformation. He really is. Here are a few examples of that mischaracterization that I constantly run into.
First, John Calvin is most unduly credited with the doctrines of predestination and God’s sovereignty. People attack TULIP, but Calvin did not create this. TULIP itself is not particularly accurate when it comes to justly expressing Calvinistic doctrine, even the doctrines of people who identify themselves as Calvinists. (We can go into that another time.) All the major reformers believed in predestination and God’s sovereignty. Luther based his entire movement on it. He called it the “hinge on which all turns” and the “vital spot.” He believed that it was worth the world being turned upside down and pushed into chaos over this issue. Without it, the reformation would not have taken place and we would all still, probably, be catholic.
Secondly, Calvin is said to have “ruled Geneva with an iron fist.” This is obviously so far from the truth, it is hard to choose where to begin. The one example I like the most is the one about Communion. Calvin wanted it served every Sunday, but the council in the city disagreed and decided that it would be done four times a year. Calvin then thought that he could get the churches to order it in such a way that it was served somewhere in Geneva every Sunday, but the council saw through this too and struck it down, ordering that it be served in all the churches on the same Sundays. Calvin was so far from being a ruler in Geneva that he even refused to become a citizen of the city until close to the end of his life so that he would have no political authority whatsoever. Everything he influenced was through the council’s authority by his own arguments.
On to burnings in Geneva, there was only one man put to death by burning when people were being burned by the hundreds of thousands elsewhere. Calvin even petitioned the council three times to have the man beheaded instead of burned, but because he ultimately had no authority to control such matters, the council burned the man anyway.
So, John Calvin is really criticized unjustly when it comes to most modern Christians’ understanding of him. I would like to rectify this and I encourage all readers of this blog to learn their church history and especially the history of the reformers by reading their works. Calvin has so much to offer us and some great advice to give us for our Christian lives, but we need to get past our prejudices of him and actually read what the man wrote rather than getting hung up on something that is hardly his main focus.
This of course leads me into something else that I have to address briefly, but unfortunately will have to delve into later, and that is that we, in the modern Christian church, have adopted a new system of theology and doctrine (some of you may not call it this) concerning feelings and relationships rather than the nature and character of God. We have ignored the great works of the church’s past and decided to develop our own works born of personal and worldly reasoning. Even in my own Calvinistic reformed church, I see these things pop up in what people casually say. Don’t get me wrong, unfortunately, I even see it in myself. I have picked up many bad habits and beliefs from the many different churches and denominations I have been in. The more I read from the reformers and the more I read from the Bible, the more I can correct these doctrines and my system of thinking about myself, my relationships, and my walk through life, focusing more on who God is and what truth is rather than focusing on a false sense of unity and love in the world. It is a long and strenuous path, but I feel I must take it and I hope that you will take it with me. Please feel free to comment on this as these are just some thoughts I have been developing recently and hope will bear some fruit later on in my life.
