‘Reformation’ Category

Over the last few days I have been thinking much about Calvin’s legacy: so much theological brilliance and so much to thank God for…but we who embrace his soteriological legacy also must ask forgiveness from our Anabaptist brothers.

And why? Simply because of his advocacy of the sword as a curb on heresy, esp. his support of the repression of Anabaptism in both its heretical and orthodox forms. Reading Eamon Duffy’s recent revisionist history of the reign of Bloody Mary (Fires of Faith)—which I bought in Cork, S. Ireland when there a few weeks ago—has convinced me that some of my Protestant and Calvinist forebears erred greatly when they were willing to use the sword to repress error. Like our 18th c. forebears who were slave owners, they are flawed models. In so far as they followed Christ soteriologically they are safe guides. But with regard to the use of the state to repress error, we need to understand their views of church & state as an outcropping of the medieval Constantinian model.

The bottom line is still this: I am sorry that some of my Calvinist forebears ever used the sword against their—and my—Anabaptist brothers.

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

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!

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].

I appreciated this post over at Pastor James MacDonald’s relatively-new blog Straight Up. It is by Gerald Hiestand on Erasmus and Post-Conservativism. Bottom line: theological reform is essential to ecclesial reform. For the Spirit of Revival is always the Spirit of Reformation.

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).

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.

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!

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.

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].