John Calvin and the Executions of Heretics

Benjamin and Abigail fly in to Oklahoma City tomorrow. I can't wait to pick them up and bring them to Amarillo!
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The last post mentions that John Calvin is most-often remembered for advancing the doctrine of double predestination. The one other thing people typically remember about Calvin is that, like most every other leader of his day, he gave his consent to the executions of public heretics, most notably Michael Servetus.

Here's my take on that. I think it reveals not so much a fault in Calvin. Instead, it points to the difference in values between modern America and sixteenth-century Europe.

In recent history, our country has used atomic bombs to annihilate two Japanese cities. Why? Because we feared the specter of a conventional invasion and viewed our actions as the lesser of two evils. People of the Middle Ages had different fears. As historian T. H. L. Parker explains, they were terrified at the thought of souls destroyed by false doctrine, of churches torn apart into factions, and of the vengeance of God brought against them in war, pestilence, and famine. They believed it was the government’s duty to establish and maintain true religion, and that the execution of a heretic was therefore justified. The Reformation was born into that world.

Am I'm going too easy on Calvin?

Article on John Calvin

I'll wind up revising the following article a hundred times between now and this weekend when I finally send it to the paper.

I actually came in well under the maximum word count. So there's still space for me to add a paragraph if I want. I've thought about putting in a section about Calvin's consent to the executions of convicted heretics, most notably Michael Servetus. Besides predestination, that's the other big thing Calvin is often remembered for. How do I include that and give it the context it deserves? Anyway, give this a read if you want and make any suggestions that come to mind. Thanks!

John Calvin (1509-2009)

“I have lived amidst extraordinary struggles. I have been saluted in mockery at night, before my door, by fifty or sixty shots from guns. Think how that would terrify a poor timid scholar such as I am.”

John Calvin never set out to live a hectic life in the spotlight. “I always longed for repose and quiet,” he said. Much less did he imagine he would change the world. Yet historian E. G. Leonard was hardly exaggerating when he concluded his book History of Protestantism with a chapter entitled, “Calvin: The Founder of a Civilization.”

Born in Noyon, France on July 10, 1509—five hundred years ago this Friday—Calvin was learning to read and speak Latin at the University of Paris by the time he was twelve. At first his father encouraged him to study for the priesthood. But when he had a falling out with the church and recognized the religious turmoil of the day, he insisted that his son pursue a legal career instead. Throughout his teens and early twenties, Calvin studied law and classical literature, solid preparation for the future that lay ahead of him.

In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenburg’s Castle Church, launching what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. Calvin wasn’t among its early leaders. He was still just a boy. By the time he converted to the new movement in the early 1530s, the term “protestant” had already been coined. Nonetheless, Calvin would eventually contribute to the movement two things it didn’t have before. First, he took the most basic principles of the Reformation—grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone—and organized them into a system which he clearly expressed in his most famous book, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Second, through his tremendous influence as a writer, preacher, and church statesman in his adopted hometown of Geneva, Calvin left behind a model of how his version of theology could penetrate and shape a society.

From around 1533 until his death thirty-one years later, Calvin lived as a religious exile from Catholic-dominated France. Most of that time he spent in Geneva. Many other Protestants who had fled their homelands for fear of persecution discovered the city to be a haven. There they found both refuge and a flourishing religious community led by Calvin and his associates. Once they returned to the places they came from, the future growth of the Calvinist branch of the Reformation was certain.

Most people remember Calvin for having advanced the doctrine of double predestination which says that God in his sovereignty has decreed that certain individuals will be saved and that all others will be lost. Americans, big on freedom and a person’s ability to determine his own course, have typically rejected this teaching. But don’t count Calvin out. In March of this year, Time magazine listed “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.” Number 3 was “The New Calvinism,” a movement that has taken hold in large segments of conservative Protestantism in the U.S., especially among young people. The new Calvinists even have a representative Bible, the English Standard Version which was released last October and immediately sold out its first printing of 100,000 copies.

Calvin once called himself “merely a man from among the common people.” On his 500th birthday, he isn’t finished yet.

Considering Calvin

Over the next few days, I'll have a few things to say about John Calvin. That's because I'm supposed to write something about him for our local paper, the Amarillo Globe-News.

July 10th of this year will mark the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. So I called the paper and asked the editor of the op-ed page if they'd like to have something about Calvin's life and legacy. He said yes, and that they'd like to publish it in the Sunday paper for July 5th, since Sunday's paper gives a lot more room for opinion pieces.

So now I'm going back to the Institutes of the Christian Religion (I'd forgotten it was so long!) and T. H. L. Parker's wonderful biography. Now for my questions to you:

1. What absolutely, positively has to be a part of any 700-word biography of Calvin?

2. When it comes to sources, besides what I've mentioned here, what else should I be sure to read?

South by Southwest

After spending last night in Dallas, I flew back to Amarillo just a few hours ago. After a week away, I was looking forward to seeing my wife and step-daughters here. But it was so hard saying "So long" to my son and my daughters there. More than I can say, we miss each other when we're apart. Just two more weeks, though, and we get to start spending the summer together. I can't wait.

It was a good, full week in Connecticut. My in-laws were such wonderful hosts, as usual. Because of them, anytime I'm there I have a house, a car, home-cooked meals, etc. My mother-in-law is not a coffee drinker. But she sets up the coffee maker every morning I'm staying at her place. When I get up, all I have to do is plug it in. My father-in-law gives up his car while I'm there. The only time I have a new car is when I'm staying at his place!

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Last week's Romans class with Harold Attridge was like a return trip to the Grand Canyon. Always breath-taking, but leaving you knowing that there's so much more there than you've actually seen and appreciated. And what about the history of that place? The Canyon is big and deep. It's been there for a long time and has meant different things to different people. All along, it's simply been what it is with all its power and beauty and mystery. What you take away has something to do with who you are, what you brought and expected. That's Romans.

Turns out, I learned as much from Attridge's teaching method as I did about the content of Paul's letter. Sometimes we preacher-and-teacher types need to focus on form. Most of us already know a good bit about the basic content, what we want to communicate. But do we have a parable? Have we figured out the best way to say it, helping others to learn and to see what we see?

Regarding the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," as many of you readers already know, its most-basic observation is that Paul was a complete Jew, and that he never thought of himself as the founder (or main proponent) of a new religion called Christianity. Connected to this, the New Perspective also emphasizes that the challenge of the early Christian movement was not some tension between a works-righteousness religion called Judaism versus a grace-by-faith religion called Christianity. When the letters of Paul are read not through the lenses of Augustine and Luther but rather in their first-century contexts, what we see over and over again is that the real questions revolve around how one understands the inclusion of Gentiles in the Israel of God and what it means for them, in Christ, to obey the Law of God. There's much more, of course. But those are a couple of the basics.

Is it right? I'm confident that its basic convictions are correct. However, one thing to keep in mind when trying to evaluate the New Perspective is the when of its development. Krister Stendahl, E. P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright. What do they all have in common? Their coming to the New Perspective is a completely post-Holocaust and Christian thing.

That's is not to say their observations are wrong. Again, for what it's worth, my sense is that the basic outline of the New Perspective is correct. At the same time, it seems clear that the social, cultural and political atmosphere of the last 60 years has been favorable to its development. I think it's certain that, say, one hundred years from now our scholarly descendants will have problems with the "New" Perspective much like I might have problems with interpretations of Paul written one hundred years ago. So stay tuned. By the way, very little of what I'm saying here is original. The observation I'm making was inspired by a short essay by New Testament scholar Diana Swancutt. The essay appeared in a fine little journal called "Reflections" published by Yale Divinity School. You can order back issues, at no charge, or sign up for a free subscription here.

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Last Friday, I got to be the proud Dad as Abigail received three honors: the President's Award for Academic Excellence, Outstanding Student in Arts and Music, and the President's Physical Fitness Award (pictures to follow, I hope). Almost casually, she tells me she plans to go to Yale. I'll be saving a little more this year.

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As planned, Ben and I got to travel up to Kent, CT to join over 300 others for the Northeastern States Men's Retreat last weekend. The speaker, Howard Wright, did a superb job with the lessons on leadership and mentoring. Wright explains and illustrates his thoughts so very well. He's easy to listen to, and got quite a compliment when my 17-year-old son gave him two thumbs up.

I started attending this retreat back in 1994 and have missed only a few times since then. There's nothing else quite like it in the Churches of Christ. Men from places like Harlem and the suburbs of Boston gather in a scenic spot tucked away in the top left corner of Connecticut, and spend two days and one night there focused on their opportunities and responsibilities as Christian men. If you ever have the chance to go, you should try it out.

Like any other retreat, one of the best parts is getting to meet and reconnect with people you wouldn't otherwise know. Having bumped into each other for the first time last year, the Brian Nicklaus and I decided to spend some time together this year during one of the longer breaks. So on Saturday morning, we met up at the Kent Public Library book sale (it's always going on during the retreat). Then we walked down the street to one of the little coffee-and-pastry shops where we compared our latest acquisitions and talked about all things Church of Christ. What a pleasure. What a blessing.

Questions about Romans

Next week I get to spend the mornings walking through Paul's Letter to the Romans. The teacher will be Harold Attridge, a fine New Testament scholar. This presents me with a bit of a problem though. Whenever I'm in a class like this, the preacher side and the student side of me conspire to turn me into Mr. Talks-all-the-Time. You know, the guy who's always speaking up in the class. I've been him a few times.

I sometimes get annoyed at students like that in my own classes. I guess being the teacher makes me think that I've finally earned the right to be Mr. Talks-all-the-Time. At any rate, both as a teacher and especially as a student, I have to make a conscious effort to remember that there is a time to speak, and a time to keep your trap shut.

Consequently, I'm trying to identify the one or two things that I really want to ask about, assuming they've not already been covered by the teacher. So what do you think? Name a question or two about Romans that deserve to be raised in class.

Rock Around the Block

I did it again last night. Before I drove home, I circled around my neighborhood for a few minutes. Why? Because just before I made it home, I was flipping through the local radio stations and heard the very beginning of Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits.

Now, if you're one of those people who can turn off a car and just get out midway through a song like that, I will never be able to understand you. However, I will acknowledge that this sort of behavior demands a little explanation.

For example, why didn't I just go home and sit in the car while listening to the end of the song? How can one possibly justify the wasted gas, extra miles on the old car, etc.? At least three reasons come to mind:

1. If you come home to someone, and they realize you're there, they don't always appreciate what's happening at that point. This is especially true if they don't care that much for the song or the kind of music you happen to be listening to. "But, Honey, it was Sultans of Swing!" I don't even like to think about where that one would go.

2. What if you're, say, a Bible Chair director, . . . and you're sitting in the garage or driveway with the volume turned all the way up . . . and your neighbors happen to be outside? "Okay, lemme me get this straight. You're a holy man and a headbanger?" All such cognitive dissonance can be easily avoided by finishing the song before going home.

3. I believe that there's some sort of left-brain, right-brain link between our enjoyment of a song on the car radio and our experience of driving. Do you sense this too? I mean, isn't it a lot better when you're on the open road, with room to, . . . well, . . . accelerate, when that special song comes on? Compare that to being stuck in traffic and hearing the same song. It's just not the same. At that point, you need to drive. I know, National Public Radio has coined the expression "Driveway Moments." But they're talking about documentary-type radio, not Led Zeppelin.

Anyway, are you also one of those take-the-long-way-home people? Oh, and what are some of the songs that will delay you every single time?

Starting Summer, Useful URLs

The spring semester at Amarillo College is long gone. Students were taking their final exams two weeks ago, and Commencement ceremonies were held on Friday, May 15th.

The week after that, I'd been preparing to teach a summer section of Introduction to World Religions. It was to have started yesterday. But hardly anyone had signed up for the class and it wound up being canceled late last week.

It's not like I don't have anything to do, though. Here's a bit of what's going on in my world:

• Last Sunday, I visited the little Church of Christ at Adrian, Texas. What a great group of people. When you go to Adrian, you teach the Sunday morning adult class and preach during the morning worship. Then, you go home for lunch with one of church families and, then, preach again at 4:00. It's a full day in the country.
• Tonight, at The Colonies Church of Christ, I'll finish out a series of lessons on the Psalms. We'll close with Psalm 137.
• Of course, a few projects around the Bible Chair are waiting to be done.
• Next Monday, we start a nightly Vacation Bible School at San Jacinto. As usual, I get to lead the opening and closing assemblies.
• At the end of next week it's off to Connecticut where I'll get to spend a little over a week.

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Every once in a while, I spend some time searching (not surfing) the Web for sites that I can use and recommend to my students and people who show up at this blog. Here's some of the better stuff I've recently seen for the first time:

1. A complete, searchable Greek New Testament edited by Westcott and Hort. Yes, that's an old edition of the Greek text. But most of the differences between this and newer editions are few and insignificant. What I really like about this on-line edition is that you can click on any Greek word and get a ton of grammatical information about it. One odd thing about this page is that the NT books are listed alphabetically.

2. Here's the English version of the official website of the Vatican. Want to look around? The homepage has a search window. I typed in celibacy and, later, Vatican II and came up with dozens of hits for each. Interesting stuff.

3. You might also check out the searchable Yale Divinity Digital Image and Text Library. By going to this site, you get both the image database for biblical studies plus the image and text database for Christian history. Thinking about biblical studies, I searched for Crete and came up with several photos (along with descriptions). Predictably, searching under Ephesus gave me even more hits. Turning to Christian history, Campbell brought up nothing (ironic for some Church of Christ people), but Geneva rendered several hits, and Luther dozens.

What are some of the more interesting or useful websites you've recently discovered?

The Instrumental Music of Ministry

Most people are right-handed. So when most people begin playing the guitar, they strum or pick with the right hand, and press the strings to the fretboard with the left. That's the right-handed way. Seems a little ironic, doesn't it? But, really, it isn't.

Right-handed beginners naturally focus on the left hand because it's the one that has to figure out the frets. Once the fingers of the left hand are in position to play a chord, the right hand then has a relatively-easy job. One stroke and the strings make a sound.

But at first, it's hardly ever a good sound. The fingers of the left hand aren't quite strong enough. The finger tips don't yet have their callouses. So the strings buzz. Or maybe one of the fingers is out of position and the chord is just off. The first few attempts at playing are rarely, if ever, good.

These less-than-pleasant sounds bring out the determination in some beginners. Like Bryan Adams in the Summer of '69, they play 'til their fingers bleed. That is, the fingers on the left hand. All along, the right hand is almost entirely ignored.

Some beginners eventually give up, the objects of their old affection now hanging in a pawn shop, or gathering dust in the corner of a closet. The others finally make a break through, the awkwardness of the early days all but forgotten.

Of those who make it, there is at least one thing that distinguishes guitar players who are mediocre-to-good from those who go on to become truly great. All of the great ones learn to develop not only the left hand, but also the right. Some of them repeat this mantra: The left hand plays the notes, but the right hand plays the music.

To say that is to repeat something every true musician knows: the vital element in music is rhythm. Nothing else is so important, so very basic. Many sounds have a definite pitch. But not all of those sounds, even in a sequence, add up to music.

The left hand plays the notes, but the right hand plays the music.

I've thought about that as an analogy to Christian ministry. Aspiring church leaders almost always give attention to what you might call the left hand. I know I did.

When I was very young I memorized many verses of Scripture in that beautiful language of the King James Bible. Most of what I memorized were the passages used to prove the points that the tradition I grew up in thought were essential. Those texts stood at the center of our religion. They were our "Bible within the Bible."

Sometime later, I attended a Christian college affiliated with my group and majored in (what else?) Bible. There I studied the Scriptures in English, learned a little bit of Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, and read some church history. I was told about the tenets of Higher Criticism. In the larger religious world where such theories held an honored position, I needed to know what they were and why they were mostly wrong. It was left-handed stuff, exactly the sort of thing that beginners dream about.

During that time, there was one command I was sure to keep: don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. My right hand--my self, the inner man--just wasn't getting much practice.

Of course, I was nice to other people. I made friends. I was even voted a class favorite. But I wasn't doing much to develop the person out of whom I might carry on an authentic ministry of the Word. In time, my neglect of the right hand resulted in me hitting some truly sour notes.

Like a lot of guitar players, some ministers never get over this tendency to emphasize only the left hand. To them Christianity is all about facts and figures, plans and patterns, Greek and Hebrew, books and (dare I say it?) blogs. If they're not careful, because of the lure of the world, the ABCs of their ministry become Attendance, Buildings, and Cash. Their teaching can become no more than the right responses to a carefully-selected set of questions.

To be specific, left-handed-only ministry shows up in a number of ways. Here are a few:

• Bible reading only for the sake of preparing lessons, never for simply feeding on the Word and hearing the voice of God.
• Prayer occasioned by the latest emergency or public event, but not by the need to commune with the Almighty.
• Non-Christian acquaintances thought of as "contacts," not as fellow beggars hungry for the Bread of Life.
• Sunday-morning centrality, with times like Tuesday night and Thursday afternoon being completely up for grabs.
• A glaring lack of self-discipline.

How different that is from the ministerial pattern left for us by Jesus. Mind you, he didn't neglect the left hand. Jesus knew the Scriptures and the traditions of Israel. He understood the times in which he lived and the enduring questions of life. But above all, Jesus developed and lived out a passion for doing the will of his Father, being the man God had called him to be.

I have to confess, I've spent a good bit of my life as a Christian minister focused on left-handed stuff. I know I'm not alone. Even as I write and publish this, it feels like I'm exposing my own shallowness. At the same time, it's something I want and need to say.

Here and there, I've spent some time trying to develop the right hand. I hope it results in a better sound.

The left hand plays the notes, but the right hand plays the music.

Evangelicals and the Use of Torture

Okay, so you've probably heard by now: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released the findings of a survey that began with this statement:

The use of torture against suspected terrorists . . .

Turns out, white evangelical Protestants are most likely to say that torture can often (18%) or sometimes (44%) be justified. They're also the least likely to say that torture can never (16%) be justified.

On the other hand, the religiously unaffiliated are some of the most likely to say that torture can never (26%) be justified. The only group with a higher percentage of this response are white mainline Protestants (31%)--that is, most Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, etc.

For what it's worth, the Pew Forum people say that because the responses from other religious groupings were too few for statistical significance, the responses of only white religious groupings were reported.

At any rate, ever since the report was published news outlets have cited the statistics and offered analysis. A CNN story, for example, begins by saying that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists. The story goes on to specifically point out that white evangelical Protestants are the group most likely to say that torture is often or sometimes justifiable (62%).

The sorts of blog posts and comments that I've seen so far are more less united; people both inside and outside of the evangelical camp are denouncing the group for their hypocrisy, an apparent allegiance to Republicanism rather than to the ethics of the Kingdom of Christ.

My questions: Is this a fair criticism? Can anything reconcile the avowed Christian faith of evangelicals with their greater support for torture under some circumstances?

What do you think?

A Lamp Unto My Feet, and a Light Unto My Path

The year 2011 will mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. That would be a good time, I think, for preachers and teachers to tell the story of the Scriptures in English.

People like to hear about "How We Got the Bible." Lessons like that remind us of the incredible distance between the biblical world and our own. Folks come to appreciate that none of the Bible was written in English, that all of the Scriptures were hand-copied for centuries on end, and that people who had first dedicated themselves to the glory of God spent a lifetime learning the biblical languages and translating the Word of God into words that the ordinary person could read and understand.

When that saga is told well (and there are so many fantastic episodes!) people develop a greater respect for those who have gone before them. This is a natural and normally-effective cure for sectarian tendencies.

We also develop a greater humility. When people know the history of the Bible, they never regard that TNIV newly purchased at the local bookstore as a new product. Instead, they see it as a recently-added link in a chain that is very, very long. When we know what it really cost for us to have a Bible in English, we can only give thanks to God.

Okay, so as you might have guessed by now, one of my current reads is a book about English translation of the Bible: In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, by Alister McGrath (Doubleday, 2001).

What a fine book. My copy is a first edition hardcover (without, alas, the dust jacket). I got it at an Amarillo Public Library book sale. I had seen and heard McGrath's name many times and knew he had a great reputation. (He's a scientist and theologian who taught for many years at the University of Oxford. Here's his homepage). So as I was going through the stacks at the sale, upon seeing his name and the title, I instantly put the book in my paper grocery bag that, when completely full, cost me a whopping three dollars. (The one thing that makes a great book even better is getting your own copy dirt cheap). Anyway, on the influence and significance of our best-known English translation, here's McGrath:

The King James Bible was a landmark in the history of the English language, and an inspiration to poets, dramatists, artists, and politicians. The influence of this work has been incalculable. For many years, it was the only English translation of the Bible available. Many families could afford only one book--a Bible, in whose pages parents recorded the births of their children, and found solace at their deaths. Countless youngsters learned to read by mouthing the words they found in the only book their family possessed--the King James Bible. Many learned biblical passages by heart, and found that their written and spoken English was shaped by the language and imagery of this Bible. Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim's Progress, no Handel's Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address. These, and innumerable other works, were inspired by the language of the Bible. Without this Bible, the culture of the English-speaking world would have been immeasurably impoverished (pp. 1-2).

Now I'm curious, what would you recommend as the best resources and ideas for teaching about the history of the English Bible? The transmission and preservation of the biblical text? Biographies of people like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale? The history of and different approaches to the task of translation?

Thoughts?

New Testament in New England

I'm excited about this summer. In early June, I'll make another one of my trips to Connecticut.

My employers provide me a week's worth of professional development. So next month, on a Monday through Friday, I'll be taking a course at Yale Divinity School. This year, it's "Romans" with Harold Attridge, a first-rate New Testament scholar and the Dean of YDS. Should be good.

Then, that weekend, I'll get to take Ben back to Kent, Connecticut, for this year's Northeastern States Men's Retreat. If you guys have the opportunity to make this one, it's well worth it.

Why Read Old Commentaries?

Every period of church history exhibits a different set of strengths and weaknesses. Human nature being what it is, we tend to prize what we have going for us while remaining ignorant of our deficiencies.

This is the great value of old commentaries for today's Bible students. Although the old books reveal the weaknesses of their time, they also contain its strengths. That's why I love these words from David Steinmetz:

The principle value of precritical exegesis is that it is not modern exegesis; it is alien, strange, sometimes even, from our perspective, comic and fantastical. Precisely because it is strange, it provides a constant stimulus to modern interpreters, offering exegetical suggestions they would never think of themselves or find in any recent book, forcing them again and again to a rereading and re-evaluation of the text. Interpreters who immerse themselves, however, not only in the text but in these alien approaches to the text may find in time that they have learned to see, with eyes not their own, sights they could scarcely have imagined and to hear, with ears not their own, voices too soft for their own ears to detect.

--in "John Calvin on Isaiah 6," Interpretation 36 (1982), p. 170.

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Speaking of old books, I got to go to the noon meeting of the Downtown Lion's Club yesterday. One of my friends, Trent Sisemore, was the keynote speaker. He talked about the history of the English Bible and brought along several examples from his personal collection, including a 1611 copy of the King James Version. Trent gave a really good speech. Afterwards, I got the chance to look through some of those Bibles. Fascinating.