A new malady: "le Calvinite"

There is undoubtedly a rash of conferences on John Calvin this year (we had our own one at Southern in April), as it is the quincentenary of his birth. The eminent French evangelical theologian and historian Sébastien Fath has noted that there is a term for this passionate interest in Calvin: “Calvinite,” which he identifies as a masculine noun in French and of which the definition runs as follows: “maladie commémorative focalisé sur tout ce qui touche à Jean Calvin. Pic épidémiologique en 2009.”

Well, there is no doubt that 2009 is the crucial year for this "illness"! Though, what a joyous illness it is!

See post here.

But how to translate the word into English? Any suggestions? Calvinomania?

HT: Jeff Walters

As Calvin did, pray for France!

During the French Reformation, around 10% of the population embraced Evangelical Protestantism—this entailed close to 50% of the upper and middle classes. These two million flooded into the church during a time of a great outpouring of the Spirit between the 1520s and the 1560s. Those stirring days will be remembered frequently this year when many celebrate the qunicentennial of the birth of John Calvin (born 1509). As an historian I am thrilled to read of those days and very thankful for the life and ministry of Calvin (though not without some reservations about certain aspects of his ministry).

But as a Christian, living in the early twenty-first century, what stares me in the face is the enormous spiritual need of France. I just got this statement sent to me today in an e-mail from a dear brother and sister, both of whom I taught in the 1980s at Central Baptist Seminary, Toronto, and who have served in France for nearly twenty years. They wrote:

“We have seen very few French people turn to the Lord and remain attached to Him over the past 19 years.”

Should this not be a matter for great prayer? Especially by those who honour Calvinistic theology? Calvin gave much of his life to see the gospel planted in France. If we honour his memory, should we not share something of his concern and desire?

Brothers and sisters, those of you love the doctrines of grace—yea, all who love the Lord Jesus and long for his appearing, pray for France and her people!

Being a Christian according to Calvin

The Christian is not his own man or woman. The Christian cannot say to those in her or his life, “Leave me alone; I just want to live my life as I please.”

The French Reformer John Calvin well expressed the sum of the Christian life in the following prayer, when he prayed this:

“Grant, almighty God, since you have won us by the precious blood of your Son, that we may not be our own masters but devoted to you in steadfast obedience, so that we may set our minds on consecrating ourselves entirely to you and so to offer body and soul in sacrifice that we are prepared to encounter a hundred deaths rather than defect from the true and sincere worship of your Godhead…”

[Daniel I (Chapters 1-6), trans. T. H. L. Parker [Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 20; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co./Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1993], 252].

Why Are Cats Not Mentioned in Holy Writ?

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), one of the greatest of Renaissance artists, has a painting entitled Adam and Eve (1504) in which there is the most curious of things: a cat (for the painting, see http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/ho/08/euwc/ho_19.73.1.htm)! The cat, experts in artistic metaphor tell us, represents the choleric temperament in man. In Dürer’s rendition, the cat seems to be sleeping, while very close to it is a mouse, utterly unconcerned for its safety. The scene is pre-fall, and thus the fact that there is no danger for the mouse. Now, what I find most curious is this: cats are never mentioned in Scripture. How strange in that case to find one at the feet of Dürer’s Adam and Eve. That other prolific western pet, dogs, are mentioned in the Bible, though they rarely come off well. But cats make no showing at all. It is a good reminder that Scripture is not to meant to give us an exhaustive encyclopedia of all human knowledge nor is it designed as a comprehensive guide to every conceivable human decision.

Should I buy a cat? Well, cats are not even mentioned! So, no way. If God had wanted me to have a cat, he would have told me in his Word.

No, this is a misuse of Scripture. There are principles of guidance about buying and selling—which, we must say, are utterly sufficient—but as to the specifics of the question above in relation to cats, no details. This, it seems, has convinced some in the western tradition that cats are evil. Otherwise, why no mention of them? No, cats are not inherently evil—our flame-point Siamese Chai is rambunctious, but hardly evil—they are part of the goodness of God’s creation which our Maker has given us to enjoy.

All of this is a good reminder that we must ask questions of God’s Holy Word it is designed to answer. And the most critical of those is how can a Holy God deal with the sin of us post-fall human beings and yet still love the creation he has made and do it good? This is a weighty question indeed (and we heard some good answers at this year’s T4G this past week).

David F. Wright

Dr. Ligon Duncan has a notice about the death of one of the great Reformed Patristic Scholars of our day, Dr. David F. Wright, Professor of Patristic & Reformed Christianity at the School of Divinity, the University of Edinburgh. I read Dr Wright’s article on Mat 28 just this past week, a superb piece as was the case with all the work he did. I have deeply admired him and his work. Praise to the Lord who gave him to the church. Thank you Ligon for this note. HT: Justin Taylor.

What If the English Reformation Had Never Happened?

In a recent review of Bill Griffeth’s By Faith Alone: One Family’s Journey Through 400 Years of American Protestantism (Harmony, 2007), Chris Scott notes Griffeth’s assertion that his family roots, which are among the New England Puritans and their journey from England to America, would “never have happened if Henry VIII’s request for a divorce had been granted’ [“Religion: Faiths of the Forefathers”, Bookpage (January 2008), 30]. In other words, if Henry VIII had been able to coax Pope Clement VII (Pope, 1523-1534), the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, into giving him a divorce then the English Reformation would not have taken place. This is an intriguing thought—one of those that delight those who enjoy the pastime of reading of alternative histories. It is like the question: What if JFK had never been assassinated? Or this one: What if Hitler had invaded England in 1940? This Reformation alternate history then is this: Was the English Reformation so dependent on state support that if Henry had not gone into schism over his desire for a new wife, then the Reformation would have been stillborn?

Any close study of the period I think would reveal that men like William Tyndale would have pursued their programme for Reform—could the Reformation have succeeded, though, without state support? And if Henry had stayed within the orbit of Rome, would his children have done the same? It might be the case, that what might have been produced would have been the Reformed Church the Puritans longed for—in which case there would have been no need for the Puritans to venture overseas.

But this is not what happened. Clement stalled for time, not wanting to alienate either Henry or the nephew of Catherine of Aragon—Henry’s wife—who was Charles V, before whom Luther stood at Worms and who genuinely scared the Pope. And in the providence of God there was a Reformation in England—and how thankful we are to God for such. Whatever England may be now, her sons and daughters were once at the cutting edge of the advance of the Kingdom of God in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And their American evangelical cousins performed a similar service in the twentieth century and are still, by God’s grace, at the heart of the expansion of that Kingdom. Long may it be so!

The Perversity of the Human Heart

So perverse is the human heart that even when a person grows up under the constant sound of the gospel and hears the Word preached regularly, and has surrounding him or her godly models of the Christian life, unless God acts in sovereign grace, there will be no saving faith in the heart. Well did John Calvin put it in his Treatise on Eternal Election (1562): ‘It is not within our power to convert ourselves from our evil life, unless God changes us and cleanses us by his Holy Spirit.’[1]

[1] CO 8:113.

Calvin & Loving Unity

One of the great griefs here in this vale of tears is that God’s people—those blood-bought brothers and sisters who will spend eternity with the Saints and with their heavenly Lord with whom they have union—cannot get along. Sometimes, the issues are major—the nature of gospel preaching, for instance. Sometimes, they are minor—I think some of the divisions over worship today fall into this category. I dare not say all, for worship is an important matter. What shall be our attitude to all of this? I can recommend none better than that of John Calvin, that lover of church unity, who feared to leave Rome lest he was engaging in schism! When Martin Luther was “flaming against the Zurichers,” Calvin said the division between Luther and the Zwinglians of Zurich caused him “no little grief” and he “lamented in [his] own breast in silence.”[1]

Sometimes separation must take place—but it must be deeply lamented and all done to secure unity before such a step taken.

[1] Second Defence of the Pious and Orthodox Faith Concerning the Sacraments, in answer to the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal [Tracts, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1859), 2:253].

Escape: A Book Review

James R. Hughes, Escape (Xulon Press, 2006); 436 pages; ISBN: 1-60034-423-2; contact information: www.xulonpress.com. Historical fiction is a tricky genre. The danger—one that faces all students of the past to some extent—is the import of present-day attitudes and ideas into the past and thus the production of a work rife with anachronism. This new work by James Hughes, an elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Canada congregation in Toronto, appears to avoid this problem and gives the reader a genuine feel for what it must have been like to have been a Protestant in Spain during the Reformation. Apart from the use of the word “wow!” on one occasion, nothing in the dialogue or descriptive content struck me as overtly anachronistic.

In some respects, is a classic love story about the triumph of true love. In other resects, the story is a depiction of the triumph of biblical truth over the forces of repression and ignorant superstition. Set against the backdrop of the Reformation in Spain and France and the attempts of the Roman Church, especially in Spain via the Inquisition, to exercise damage control, Escape relates the way that a young Spanish believer Bartolomé Garcia wins the love of his life, Catalina Mendoza, and at the same time—despite imprisonment and the martyrdom of his father, Juan Garcia (an actual historical figure who died for his faith in May, 1559—perseveres in his Christian faith.For Anglophone Evangelicals familiar with the story of the Reformation in the British Isles, Hughes’ book is a good reminder that other parts of Europe were impacted by Reformation truth, in this case, Spain and France. For a Calvinist like myself interested in the French Reformed cause, it was great to see depicted the way Calvinist doctrine and piety made great headway in France during this era.

I rarely read fiction these days, but this was a good read that I found hard to put down.

Students of the French Reformation

One of the deep joys of my life has been involvement with other scholars seeking to grow in their understanding of God’s ways in the history of his Church. This past week I spent three and a half days with Stéphane Gagné, the assistant pastor of a French Baptist Church in St-Georges-de-Beauce, Quebec. He is working on a M.A. in Church History from SEMBEQ in Montreal (for Stéphane’s blog, see Yanick Éthier, Stéphane Gagné, & François Turcotte). We normally meet twice a year like this and spend time working through an historical period. This time we spent our days at St. Paul’s marvelous library in Ottawa, working through the French Reformation, the relationship of Calvin and Pierre Viret, the origins and course of the French Reformed cause in France, Huguenot history between the death of Théodore de Bézè and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and some of the key figures of this era—Pierre du Moulin, Jean Claude, Moïse Amyraut, and Claude Brousson. Last night and this morning we studied the English Reformation—its causes and course—and the emergence of Puritanism.

Looking at the French Reformation and the English Reformation in such close proximity reminded me afresh of the links between the two. For instance, I cannot help but think that it is possible that Jean-Baptiste Morelli’s working out a Congregationalist perspective in Paris in the 1560s before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day had an influence on the position of Browne, Barrow and Greenwood in the 1580s and 1590s.

Or again, to be Reformed between 1660 and the 1680s was a harrowing experience. In both France and England the Reformed cause was a house under siege and it was on the defensive. From a pessimistic perspective, much seemed lost. But our ways are not God’s ways, nor are our time his times. His timing is always perfect.

The Dynamism of Calvin’s Teaching

A frequent theme in Calvin’s writings and sermons is that of the victorious advance of Christ’s kingdom in the world. God the Father, Calvin says in his prefatory address to Francis I in his theological masterpiece, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, has appointed Christ to “rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth.” In a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Calvin notes that Jesus came, not simply to save a few, but “to extend his grace over all the world.” Similarly, Calvin declares in a sermon on Acts 2 that the reason for the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost was in order for the gospel to “reach all the ends and extremities of the world.” It was this global perspective on the significance of the gospel that also gave Calvin’s theology a genuine dynamism and forward movement. It has been said that if it had not been for the so-called Calvinist wing of the Reformation many of the great gains of that era would have died on the vine. While this may be an exaggeration to some degree, it does illustrate the importance of the Reformed perspective. [Jean-Marc Berthoud, “John Calvin and the Spread of the Gospel in France” in Fulfilling the Great Commission (Westminster Conference Papers; [London]: Westminster Conference, 1992), 44-46].

Calvin, moreover, was not satisfied to be involved in simply reforming the church. He was tireless in seeking to make the influence of the church felt in the affairs of the surrounding society and thus make God’s rule a reality in that area of human life as well. It was this conviction that led Calvin to be critical of the Anabaptists, the radical left-wing of the Reformation. From his perspective, the Anabaptist creation of communities that were totally separate from the surrounding culture was really a misguided attempt to flee the world. Their spiritual forbears were medieval monks, not the early Christians who had been obedient to Christ’s words in Matthew 28:19-20. In Calvin’s view, they should be seeking positive ways in which they could be used by the indwelling Spirit to impact society in general and reform it, and so advance the kingdom of Christ.

John Calvin on His 497th Birthday

I had forgotten that today is John Calvin’s birthday—July 10, 1509. Glad I stopped by Darrin Brooker’s blog to be reminded of this (see his Commemorating John Calvin’s Birth and The Person of John Calvin). Like all great men and women in the history of the Church he had his faults, but oh the strengths of his teaching and walk with Christ that need to be remembered. His self-sacrificial life for the Church and his willingness to give up the pursuit of an academic career to benefit the people of God needs to be highlighted. The piety so evident in his Institutes needs to be recalled—not for nothing is he remembered as the theologian of the Holy Spirit. And then his understanding of biblical theology in terms of the glory of God and his sovereignty needs to be re-highlighted in our day.

To be honest, if it had not been for the Reformed wing of the Reformation, of which Calvin is a prominent figure, the gains of the Reformation would have been far less. Of course, the attention that has been paid to Calvin over the centuries would not have been to his liking. His request to be buried in an unmarked grave was honoured by his friends and co-workers, but the spirit behind the wish—that he be forgotten—has not been. And may I say, rightly so. His life and teaching sparkles with the glory of Christ and that should be seen afresh in every generation.

At the Cradle of the Reformation

I went with Nigel Pibworth today to Cambridge, England, one of my favourite cities. Saw a number of things that I hope to blog about: most deeply impressed with seeing Hugh Latimer’s pulpit in the church where Thomas Bilney and Robert Barnes began to proclaim Reformation truth. According to the website of this church, St Edward King and Martyr: “The church played a unique role in the early days of the Reformation. A group of evangelicals in Cambridge, of whom Thomas Bilney was the first, had been meeting regularly in the early 1520s. They were influenced by a fresh translation of the New Testament by Erasmus and by the ideas of Luther, and believed passionately in the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ.”

“At the Christmas Midnight Mass at St Edward’s in 1525 one of them, Robert Barnes, preached what was probably the first openly evangelical sermon to be preached in any church in the country, proclaiming the Christian gospel and accusing the Church of its heresies. St Edward's can thus claim to be ‘the cradle of the Reformation’ in England. Other reformers preached regularly at St Edward’s, including Hugh Latimer until he left Cambridge in 1531. Some of his sermons preached here have been preserved, and the pulpit from which the reformers preached is still in use.”

Remembering Thomas Cranmer

On “The Reformation21 Blog” the Historian penned the following remarks on March 22, the 450th anniversary of Thomas Cranmer’s death: “Not to derogate from anything Rick [Philips] says about the need for principle, but the situation in the 1550s was a bit more complicated than just clear-sighted Christians being tried for their faith. Arguably both Cranmer and Lady Jane Grey were guilty of treason—Cranmer was tried as such; and their theological views were at best only partial causes of their deaths—deaths which the politics of the time, and their involvement, made inevitable; and many who perished in the flames of the 1540s and 1550s were far from four-square Protestants; while others, who were thoroughly orthodox but not high-profile players in the rather sleazy politics of Edward’s reign, live peaceably during Mary’s time. And many, many others simply flip-flopped with the policy of the time.”

Was amazed by these remarks, coming as they do from The Historian. It was 1555-1558 when the vast majority of the Protestants were martyred for their faith, nearly 300 by recent account. The vast majority of them died for their convictions that the core doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church were unbiblical and abominable to God. While there are some reasons to raise queries about Cranmer, and even here The Historian is far too hard on him, the vast majority of these men and women died for the simple conviction that the Lord Jesus alone is Saviour and that faith alone in him saves.

Edward VI’s reign from 1549 to 1553, while yes highly politicized, was the period in which the Reformed faith took deep hold in England and that through Cranmer’s reforms, especially his 1552 Prayer Book. It is far too important a period to be simply written off as a time of “sleazy politics.”

Finally, when Cranmer was put on trial, yes, undoubtedly there were political reasons, but, in a sense, the English Reformation was being put on trial in his person. Or more accurately in his person and that of Ridley and Latimer, who were martyred in 1555, the English Reformation was being tried. And when God enabled them to endure to the end, the English Reformation was vindicated.

Remembering Another Reformation Figure: Gustavus Adolphus

As any student of the Reformation knows, this powerful gale of spiritual life that blew across western Europe had a major impact on the political realm. In the Scandinavian kingdom of Sweden and its dependency, Finland, for instance, the Reformation occurred against a background of considerable political and social upheaval. It was really not until the 1590s that the Reformation there was securely established. Though Gustavus Vasa (1496-1560), the ruler of Sweden from 1523 till his death, was committed to making Sweden a Protestant nation, the Reformation lacked widespread popular support until well after Gustavus Vasa’s death. Finally in 1593 the Swedish Church adopted the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530) as its statement of faith. In fact, so deeply rooted was the Swedish Reformation in the first decades of the seventeenth century that the key champion of Protestant Europe was none other than Gustavus Adolphus, the grandson of Gustavus Vasa. Gustavus Adolphus (1595-1632)

Gustavus Adolphus was schooled in the classics and various European languages. By the age of sixteen he was not only conversant in Swedish and German, his native languages, but he had also mastered Latin, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Russian and Polish! Due to the fact that he was expected to inherit the throne, his father, Charles IX (r.1604-1611), also introduced him at an early age to the realms of politics and warfare. His reign, which commenced in 1611, dramatically transformed Sweden from a position of political and military insecurity into one of the most powerful nations in Europe. The Swedish king became known as one of the greatest men of his age, a skilled diplomat and a brilliant military commander. Gustavus Adolphus’ personal appearance gave further lustre to his political savvy and martial know-how, for he was a tall, muscular man with blond hair. The Italians called him Il Re d’Oro—the Golden King.

However, Gustvaus Adolphus had inherited an extremely difficult political situation. Sweden was involved in two separate struggles in the Baltic when his father died. A fratricidal war with the Danish was brought to an end in 1613 and one with the Russians was concluded very advantageously for the Swedes in 1617. A series of wars with Poland, though, which began in 1621 dragged on for most of that decade. With the final conclusion of the Polish Wars in 1629, the Swedish King could turn his attention to what was a pressing concern for all Protestants in Europe, the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

The Thirty Years’ War

This war—really a succession of armed conflicts—was essentially religious in nature. It began in May, 1618, when Calvinists in Bohemia revolted against their king, the Jesuit-trained Ferdinand II (1578-1637), by tossing two of his officials out of a palace window in Prague. The two men apparently survived a seventy-foot fall because, some claimed, they landed in a pile of manure! Ferdinand, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Austria, was determined to subdue Bohemia since it supplied a significant amount of his wealth. Moreover, the monarch had dedicated himself to the restoration of Roman Catholic power in central Europe. Ferdinand thus sought to roll back the religious gains of the Reformation in his lands with the power of the sword. He was counting on the support of such Catholic allies as Spain to achieve these goals. The revolt in Bohemia plunged Europe into a series of wars that lasted for thirty years.

The high point of this struggle for the Roman Catholics was the forcible expulsion by Austrian arms of some 30,000 Protestant families from Bohemia—long a bastion of the Hussite Church and Protestantism. In the words of one historian, Owen Chadwick, this was “the most signal and permanent triumph of the Counter-Reformation.” An edict passed in the same year as this Roman Catholic victory, 1629, stripped all Calvinists in the various German states comprising the Holy Roman Empire of their civil rights. Moreover, the edict required all lands acquired by German Protestants since 1552 to be restored to Roman Catholic powers. All would have been lost for German-speaking Protestantism if had not been for the providential intervention of Gustavus Adolphus and his army.

The warrior

It is important to note that while political reasons were not absent from Sweden’s entry into this war, Gustavus’ religious convictions were a central motivation in his decision to lead an army into the heart of Europe. He rightly believed that he could not sit idly by and watch fellow believers suffer to such a degree and in such large numbers.

The success that attended his campaign in the Thirty Years’ War and other military ventures is usually completely ascribed to his genius as a tactician. He realized, for example, that mobility was critical in battle, and accordingly he had the equipment of his soldiers lightened as well as the artillery pieces. Furthermore, due to the fact that Sweden at this point in history had a population of only 850,000 (with Finland having another 350,000), it was impossible for Gustavus to field a completely Swedish army capable of waging war on the European continent. He thus made skilful use of well-trained soldiers from other nations, of which those from Scotland were the most notable.

The loyalty he inspired among his soldiers was also a key factor in his success as a general. One Scottish officer who served under him wrote: “Such a General [as Gustavus] would I gladly serve; but such a General I shall hardly see, whose custom was to be the first and last in danger in himself, gaining his officers’ love, in being the companion both of their labours and dangers.” Even his enemies recognized the love his army had for him. An Italian by the name of Gualdo Priorato, who had actually fought against Gustavus, stated: “No prince was ever so beloved as he was…no general was obeyed with greater affection and readiness.”

Gustavus would die on the field of battle on November 6, 1632, at the Battle of Lützen.

The Christian

Finally, and most importantly, the fact of Gustavus Adolphus’ deep-seated Christian piety as a factor in the success of his army should not be ignored. Like the piety of another great Christian soldier of the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Gustavus’ evangelical faith shaped his army and gave it purpose and resolve.

No Christian worthy of the name likes war, and in this Gustavus is no exception. There is no evidence that the Swedish monarch engaged in the wars that he did for military glory. The glory, though, that Gustavus Adolphus longed for was the glory of God. This is quite different from many warriors of the early modern era. Lord Nelson, about whom we have been blogging recently, actually sought for glory in war.

Yet, Gustavus also knew himself to be a man called to a huge responsibility: securing the welfare of his nation and succouring the Protestant cause in Europe. He was convinced that God had called him for the hour in which he lived. And if he had not had acted, German Protestantism would have been well nigh annihilated. There is little doubt that Gustavus Adolphus helped change the course of European history.

The kingdom of God is not ushered in through force of military arms, but such wars as Gustavus fought—wars essentially for self-defence—are not ruled out by the Word of God, as a careful reading of passage like Romans 13 shows. The name of Gustavus Adolphus belongs with those of other military commanders like Oliver Cromwell, James Gardiner (1688-1745), Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), and T.J. Jackson (1824-1863)—men who loved the Lord Jesus and who did not feel their calling conflicted with their Christian faith.