Catholic Scholar Converts To Evangelical Faith

This is from “The Heidelblog“, I thought it cute and appropriate here as I’m still observing Calvin’s 500th birthday by reading (or doing my best to read) his Institutes this year. Enjoy.

Dateline Paris, 1534.
© Paris News Service
By Guy LaFontaine

Jean Calvin, 25, of Noyon, a leading scholar of the classics and law student in the University of Paris, has reportedly converted to the evangelical cause. A classicist with a bright future before him, Calvin published a promising work on Seneca’s On Clemency just two years ago.

That future has become considerably cloudier of late. Sources tell us that it was likely young Calvin who wrote the provocative sermon given by Nicholas Cop, rector of the University. Since the so-called Affair of the Placards (during which one of the Protestant radicals actually posted a placard on the chamber door of his Majesty!) the authorities are cracking down on the movement and the evangelicals have scattered. Calvin may be living under an assumed name. There are some unconfirmed reports that he has left Paris and may be heading to Basle, a known haven for the Protestant rebels. When contacted, some of the other so-called “humanistas,” led by the Dutch scholar Erasmus and Jacques LeFevre d’Etaples, are reported to have rejected the new movement as too radical. Erasmus expressed the strongest measure of disappointment saying, “It seems that another son of the church has been persuaded by Luther’s De servo (On the Bondage of the Will). I had hoped to moderate that movement but I guess it isn’t happening.” LeFevre was less critical saying only, “Calvin is a bright young man. I have high hopes for him.”

Calvin has apparently joined the so-called Protestant movement begun about 13 years ago at Worms by the German monk Luther. Most of the theology faculty in the University reckon that this movement will be short-lived. Said one of the theologians, “We’ll crush these people just as we did the Cathars. Why do you think we have an inquisition?” The press office of the Holy See said that they were aware of a disturbance in Paris but had little information about Calvin.

Students in the University, however, are said to be excited by the news. Said one of them, “He could be a pain. We call him ‘The Accusative Case’ because he always has his nose in a book. He’s always so serious, but If you need help with a translation, he’s definitely the ‘go-to’ guy. He was really wound up about the new theology. I saw him talking to several groups of students about Luther. I hate to see him go. He’s a little uptight, but he’s a good guy.”

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Calvin Knew About Marx

From the Institutes, Book 1, ch. 3, section 2 – “Therefore it is utterly vain for some men to say that religion was invented by the subtlety and craft of a few to hold the simple folk in thrall by this device and that those very persons who originated the worship of God for others did not in the least believe that any God existed. I confess, indeed, that in order to hold men’s minds in greater subjection, clever men have devised very many things in religion by which to inspire the common folk with reverence and to strike them with terror. But they would never have achieved this if men’s minds had not already been imbued with a firm conviction about God, from which the inclination toward relgion springs as from a seed.”

It was Karl Marx who said that religion, and Christianity in particular, is the “opiate of the people”, designed to keep them in subjection to the economic powers that be. 300 years before Marx, Calvin recognized that objection! His response is that you can’t dupe people into believing there is a God, unless they already in some way are aware that there is a God.

OK, Calvin didn’t know Marx himself. But he knew the ideas – put into different words and in different contexts, but the same ideas. This fortifies my sense that there are very, very few new questions  – rather there are the same questions that come up again and again in very age. Who are we? How did we get here? What are we supposed to do? And yes, who is this God that every age and every culture is aware of, however dimly.

Reading The Institutes

I’ve embarked on the project of reading through the entire Institutes of the Christian Religion this year, in honor of John Calvin’s 500th birthday. It’s thicker reading than I’m used to! But I think just reading it, and not just bits and bites of it, will expand my mind.

I’ll be making comments and observations about the daily readings in this section of my blog. You’re more than welcome to chime in! And if you’d care to join me in reading, you can get the schedule of daily readings here (it’s a PDF file you can download and print out) – and there’s a blog here from Princeton Theological Seminary that invites conversation about the daily readings.

Bon appetit!