This is a week overdue (I didn’t exactly have constant internet access nor time to post — except for being snowed in that one evening in southern Kentucky!), but I thought I would begin posting information from last week’s Calvin Conference in Greenville, SC. I am working from my own notes, so some of the quotations I give may not be exact, but if not, they are very, very close.
The first session by presented by Dr. James McGoldrick. I have a couple of Dr. McGoldrick’s books, and he was even the guest lecturer for a session in a class I took on Scottish Reformation History while at Erskine Seminary. His lecture was entitled “John Calvin: Theologian of Head, Heart, and Hands.” Basically, Dr. McGolderick sought to show the great humanity of John Calvin. At the beginning of the lecture, he said, “Perhaps no one in church history has endured as much abuse as John Calvin.” Most of these assaults against Calvin came about from very dubious men who sought to malign the man rather than report actual history. Some biographers of Calvin have presented him as a tyrant. G.K. Chesterton even went so far as to accuse Calvin of Manichaeism! Yet not all were this critical of Calvin. The New Catholic Encyclopedia (believe it or not) actually has a fairly favorable entry on him, and one biographer even describes Calvin as the “most Christian man of his century.”
After giving an account of Calvin’s early life and conversion to Christianity, Dr. McGoldrick discussed Calvin as a Theologian of the Heart. Calvin was a man who had a love of God and love for God (McGoldrick’s words and emphasis). Calvin expressed the need to love one’s neighbor as indicative of one’s love for God — to abuse human beings is to attack the dignity of God, in whose image they have been made. And Calvin personally demonstrated care for others: when the bubonic plague threatened the Swiss cities, Calvin offered to serve as a chaplain for those affected by the plague. Calvin also showed enormous care for the refugees who constantly came into Geneva. Calvin was even kind to those with whom he did not always agree: he dedicated a work to Philip Melanchthon, for instance.
Much of history has painted John Calvin as a great ogre, which is hardly the truth. At the conference bookstore I purchased a copy of Richard Stauffer’s The Humanness of John Calvin, which I plan to read over the next few days. The blurb on the back puts much of this in perspective:
Through the nearly 450 years since his death, John Calvin has been portrayed by his critics — Protestant and Catholic — as a cold, ruthless fanatic. This distorted characterization, for the most part, remains today. What was this man really like? An unfeeling, gloomy monster or a saint untouched by the common problems which beset lesser men? The author examines Calvin’s personal correspondence and reveals him as a man capable of human mistakes and weaknesses, and yet, a deeply dedicated, sensitive individual undeserving of the years of vilification. This book … considers John Calvin from a personal standpoint.
While he was not perfect (and none of us are), Calvin was a great man who left his mark on history and by God’s grace and providence helped to change the world for the better.
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