John Calvin will survive the test of time better than Calvin Klein

ALLOW me as the Presbyterian minister in Cork to make some comments on Steven King’s stimulating account of John Calvin (August 19).

Calvin may have been argumentative, but he was also self-effacing. By his instruction he was buried in an unmarked grave.

In highlighting the difficult issues of the execution of Servetus and of predestination, King does not make it completely clear that Roman Catholic authorities would also have regarded Servetus as a heretic and treated him in the same way. There is also a Catholic aspect to predestination – it was not invented by Calvin, he drew on the thought of Augustine.

I would dispute that most Protestant denominations reject the notion of predestination. As well as teaching the sovereign electing power of God, the Bible also makes it clear that the gospel is to be preached to all nations. A truly Biblical perspective reminds us that God chooses people from every sort of race and grouping, often those despised and marginalised in society. Another important aspect to predestination is its purpose: people are chosen in Christ not to be smug and elitist but to be a holy people, saved to serve. That any are chosen by God is not of their deserving, it is all because of God’s mercy and for his glory.

The New Dictionary of Theology comments that Calvin “made predestination an integral element of Christian experience, insisting that believers should be assured that they are elect because they are in Christ. Since they are elect their lives should be characterised by a joyous, confident service of God and others. For Calvin, predestination was a doctrine of comfort and assurance and should liberate the Christian from morbid introspection or debilitating insecurity”. King rightly highlights Calvin’s severe communal regulations as unpalatable in our time. There are obvious dangers in being a “brother’s keeper” – self righteousness, selective condemnation of some sins (usually sexual) over others and trying to impose Christian standards on those who make no claim to be Christian. But in our “anything goes” age we need to consider if we have lost something in the other direction. Our society’s pursuit of “fun” is not very Calvinistic but it is not very joyful either.

Yes, Calvin Klein is more well known in this century but I suggest that in another 500 years, unless the Lord returns, it shall be John Calvin who shall have had the greater impact.

There is an open invitation to readers to visit any of the Presbyterian churches around the country to see how we seek to live out Calvin’s principles. Do let us know if we deserve the popular caricature.

Rev John Faris

Trinity Presbyterian Church

Little William Street

Cork