John Calvin

JOHN CALVIN = JEAN CHAVIN
1509 – 1564
John Calvin was born in Noyon, 1509. He was trained as a lawyer in the humanistic school of Scripture interpretation.
The house of Savoy had ruled over Geneva for years. When the local populace overthrew that government locals invited John Calvin, a lawyer, in to help reform the local church and government.
The citizens soon found themselves under an even more tyrannical leader than the Pope had been. They rebelled and drove Calvin out of town.
In 1540 a new group of city rulers invited him back and soon he was the dominate force in the area.
In Strasbourg in 1538 Calvin wrote his “Institutes of the Christian Church.”  Calvin’s writings were declared to be an exposition of Scripture. Instead they became a defense of his personal theology. They were used as a defense of his theology, social and political philosophy.
The system of theology he devised came to be known as Calvinism or Reform Theology.
In the mid-1550s Protestants from France, England, Germany and the Netherlands fled persecution in their countries and came to Geneva. They joined Calvin’s efforts to establish the more radical Calvinistic doctrines. They believed all policies should be based on a literal reading of the Scripture. Not only should this be the standard in the church but in civil government and society in general.
Calvin instituted four primary categories of offices in the church.
Pastors: They exercised authority over all religious affairs in Geneva.
Teachers: They were to teach theology to the populace.
Elders: They were older individuals elected by the city council. Their job was to oversee everything everyone did. This formed a bond between church and state.
Deacons: They were appointed to look after the elderly, sick, poor, and needy.
Servantus of Spain was one who strongly opposed Calvin. Of the possibility of Servantus coming to Geneva Calvin said:
“…if he comes here, if my authority is worth anything, I will never permit him to depart alive.”
He did come, was arrested, and his property confiscated.
The theocratic government Calvin had helped establish desired to have him burned alive. Calvin belatedly appealed for him to be decapitated. He was burned alive with Calvin’s consent.
Calvin wrote, “Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in crime and is as guilty as they are.”
Followers of Servantus, known as Libertines, were targeted by Calvin. In 1555 the Libertines attempted to displace Calvin. When their efforts failed Calvin had their leaders rounded up and executed.
Calvin used the Consistory, a court presided over by an ecclesiastical hierocracy, to aid his political aims and to maintain control over civil and religious life in Geneva.
Jaques Gruet was an opponent who sided with some old Genevans in opposing Calvin. Gruet was tortured into confessing he had issued writings opposing Calvin and was beheaded for doing so.
Pierre Ameaux complained about Calvin bringing in inordinate numbers of French priests to support him in Geneva. Calvin said this constituted an attack on his divinely ordered authority by Ameaux. Calvin persuaded the city council to require Ameaux to wear a hair shirt and march through the city streets to the city square where he was to beg mercy.
Calvin’s theocratic government believed every sin was a crime and practiced excommunication. Such applied even to persons who wore what was considered inappropriate clothes or engaged in work or pleasure on Sunday. Persons guilty of “wild dancing” or “bawdy singing” were severely punished. The latter ones had their tongues pierced.
Such actions resulted in excommunication and many persons being banished from the city.
Calvin’s reprehensible approval of torture is an issue most modern day Calvinists do not deny but do disavow.
Calvin professed to believe in separation of church and government. However members of the consistory and church formed judicial boards that imposed theocratic law. They closed taverns and replaced them with “evangelical refreshment places” where alcohol could be consumed but only with Bible reading. This practice was short lived.
The five points of doctrine identified by the acrostic TULIP that bear his name did not originate with Calvin. They were a product of the Synod of Dort, sessions of which were held in 1618 and 1619. They were issued in response to five special objections that arose after Calvin’s time (1509-1564). They were based on his teachings.
The Synod so strongly reacted to those opposing their positions as to have beheaded four days after the Synod one of the most respected statesmen of the time Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. Additionally the outstanding jurist of the era, Hugo Grotius, was imprisoned for life.
The most controversial teaching of Calvin regarded predestination. The early church and moderate Protestant churches had taught God had not predestined salvation for certain ones while predestining others to hell. It was commonly held that salvation was a gift of God based on man’s free will in responding positively to God’s love initiative. Calvin taught salvation was not a choice but based on God’s pre-determined decision from the beginning of time.
This meant certain people were the “elect” of God and were to populate the church.
In his “Institutes” Calvin defined predestination:
“We call predestination God’s final decree, by which He determined what He willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is ordained for some, eternal damnation for others.”
History has judged Calvin wrong on many issues. Many of his proponents admit this but believe him to be worthy of adulation because of his overall contributions.
His detractors believe he was obsessed with power, could not abide dissent, and is unworthy of praise often afforded him.
He lived in Geneva until his death on May 27, 1564.
Respected historian Will Durant concludes his section on Calvin in his eleven volumes on history by saying: “But we shall always find it hard to love the man who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.”The Story of Civilization, Volume 6, page 490, Will Durant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Dort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin
http://wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/CALVIN.HTM
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03195b.htm