The name John Calvin conjures up images of puritanical repression for many, but is his reputation deserved? On the eve of his 500th birthday, Amanda Wells asks theologians about Calvin’s complex legacy.
John Calvin was born 500 years ago, in the city of Noyon, France, though it’s with Geneva that he is most strongly associated. Calvin died the same year that William Shakespeare was born, and has exerted a similarly strong influence on the development of Western thought.
Reformed Churches around the world are being encouraged to mark the occasion during 2009 and to reflect on Calvin’s legacy. The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is a member of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which represents 75 million Reformed Protestants in 214 Churches in 107 countries. WARC is calling on member Churches to plan special events for the weekend of 10 July, which is Calvin’s birthday.
In New Zealand, the University of Otago and the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership are planning a conference for 23-25 August. The keynotes speakers will be major names in Calvin scholarship: Elsie McKee from Princeton Theological Seminary and Randall Zachman from Notre Dame University.
One of the conference organisers is Professor Ivor Davidson, of Otago’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
Ivor describes Calvin’s legacy as complex and up for debate.
“Calvin and Calvinism are often seen as synonymous with doom and gloom, dour religion and moral repression. The poet James K Baxter famously described Dunedin as ‘Calvin’s town’ - a place where Calvin’s Presbyterian heirs had held oppressive sway over people’s freedoms. Such images die hard. But there’s a huge amount more to Calvin and his influences than popular notions often assume.”
Aspects of today’s education, science and industry owe a debt to Calvin and this will be explored at the multidisciplinary conference, which will draw on history, theology and literature.
“There’s a huge amount of ignorance of Calvin as a man and as a thinker. It’s startling to me how little read Calvin is,” Ivor says.
“Calvin is much more readable than many people imagine.
“Calvin’s theology is rich in many of the major themes of the Christian faith: the freedom of God’s love and grace, the primacy of divine action in salvation, the centrality of Jesus Christ, the privileges of faith, the essential connection between knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.”
To paraphrase, we are God’s creatures, so studying God tells us about ourselves as human beings. And because we know God through Jesus, who is known through Scripture, Biblical study plays a crucial role.
Calvin was primarily a Biblical scholar and wrote huge amounts of exegesis, which is one reason why summarising his thought is difficult. As part of a second generation of Reformed thinkers, Calvin’s thinking also builds a synthesis of earlier thought.
Calvin might have some sharp questions about expressions of worship today, Ivor says.
“He would remind us of the centrality of God in our worship, and ask us to consider its implications for what we are doing. To what extent is our approach informed by the logic of the Gospel? Or to what extent is it driven by pragmatic and personal concerns? What are your primary preoccupations when you’re worshipping?
“There needs to be an acknowledgement of who we are in light of God.”
And Calvin might not be a huge fan of modern forms of worship, Ivor says. “He would say that the Christian Gospel has massively relevant implications for our contemporary society.”
But while he placed a strong emphasis on human sinfulness, “Calvin was not a kill joy.”
“I’d like the Church in New Zealand to begin to take Calvin seriously again.”
“He has positive things to say about human experience, along with a rich conception of Christian life and Christian ethics as an expression of freedom.”
Church historian the Rev Dr Peter Matheson has spent his career studying the Reformation of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Peter describes Calvin’s big contribution as recognising the need for effective Church organisation. “He had a blueprint for the organisation of the Church, with a huge shift of power to lay people. Our Presbyterian system still largely goes back to that time.”
Calvin also wanted ordinary people to be able to understand Church thinking, Peter says.
“A huge amount of his work went into commentaries and catechisms, which were a teaching tool well suited to people without literacy.”
Calvin saw religion as being relevant to the whole of life. “It wasn’t just a Sunday party: it was every aspect of life should somehow become a reflection of God’s will.”
“That’s one of the hall marks of Calvinism; an optimism that we can change for the better the structure of society. Calvinism had this confidence that we can bring society closer to God’s will.”
Peter says Calvin wasn’t willing to confine his teaching to spiritual messages but saw it as an obligation for Christians to provide a critique of tyrannical rule.
“I think in our structure we still retain something of the Calvinist tradition. I think we also have quite a strong tradition of prophetic critique of government.”
In the 17th century, many of Calvin’s ideas were formalised in documents like the Westminster Confession.
Peter says New Zealand in the 19th century saw a reformation against what people perceived as the “intellectual terrorism” of Calvinism, which meant the rigidity of things like predestination, which refers to the idea that whether you are saved or not saved is preordained by God.
But Peter says that this perception of Calvinism would not necessarily be realised by the people of Calvin’s day.
“Why were the lively progressive people of the 16th century so taken by Calvinism, if all it was about was predestination? For countless Christians across Europe, Calvin opened up the Bible to lay people, proposed an effective, less top-heavy way of running the Church, and encouraged an ongoing dialogue with the best of scholarship, and a passionate commitment to education and social justice.”
Ivor says, “Calvin certainly had an account of predestination that many people would find problematic these days.”
But while predestination might be an idea strongly associated with Calvinism, it was not Calvin’s main concern, nor were his views considered innovative by contemporaries.
And predestination did not mean that people were not free. Ivor says that Calvin saw all of life as lived under the sovereignty of God, “but it’s in recognising this that we find real fulfillment”.
“History demonstrates the liberating potential of this message.”