/karen/

In which you share my pain

Thursday, 15 September, 2005

I have an essay due on Monday.

It has to be 2,000 words (with 10% variation).

I could knock it over today or tomorrow but it's a Moore College essay and I think I'm getting sick and our car came back with a new alternator and a $285 bill and AFES say they probably can't offer me the kind of work I want next year and the Registrar says I can't audit Doctrine 2 next year and that package I got in the post wasn't what I was expecting (too small) and my husband is mentally wrestling with Chrysostom for Church History 1 only he's sick now too and can't even get up to make me a cup of tea and I'm tired and not sleeping well and all I want to do is to be on holidays, however, before I can, I have to finish this essay.

Unfortunately, as you all know, trying to whip your brain into shape—even trying to placate it with cups of Elsie's fine green tea (out of Elsie's fine cups and teapot)—does not always do the trick when your brain is in a rebellious state and just wants to go away and read more Diana Wynne Jones or watch last night's episode of House. So I am reduced to my final resort: tactical plan blog.

So let me tell you a bit about John Calvin.

My essay question is:

“The Reformers were not mission-minded”. With reference to the ministry and works of either Martin Luther or John Calvin assess the validity of this statement.

I think it's a bit strange, accusing the Reformers of not being mission-minded, considering everything else they had to deal with. It's a bit like asking Dr. Catherine Hamlin at the Fistula Hospital why she hasn't done anything about the thousands of homeless boys in Ethiopia. As Mike Raiter said in his lecture on the Reformation in History of Christian Mission, quoting David Bosch, there were plenty of reasons why they didn't get hardcore into world evangelisation:

1. They reforming the church of their time and they saw that as their main job. Taking on the Holy Roman Catholic church is a big job!
2. At the time, there were no Protestant empires; the great colonial powers were all Catholic. (Though a team from Geneva went to Brazil; unfortunately the official who invited them over later betrayed them and executed their leaders, forcing the rest of the team to flee back home.)
3. The Protestants were battling for survival—both on the physical front (wars and the like) and on the spiritual front (heretics and the like).
4. There were a lot of internal disputes—Protestants arguing with one another (Anabaptists vs. the Calvinists, etc.)
5. They had no missionary agencies (unlike the Catholics who operated primarily out of monastic orders, e.g. the Jesuits, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, etc.).

Still, people say some pretty negative things about the Reformers and what they thought about mission. For example, Cardinal Bellamine:

Heretics are never said to have converted either pagans or Jews to the faith, but only to have perverted Christians. But in this one century the Catholics have converted many thousands of heathens in the new world ... the Lutherans compare themselves to the apostles and yet they have hardly converted even so much as a handful.

And some vitriolic things have been said about Calvin too:

It would not be difficult to draw up a catalogue of slanders against Calvin, but two or three examples from recent publications must suffice. According to the Roman Catholic author Erich Fromm, Luther and Calvin “belonged to the ranks of the greatest haters in history” (The Fear of Freedom, p. 80). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F.L. Cross, speaks of the “vindictiveness” of Calvin and describes him as “the unopposed dictator of Geneva” (1957, p. 229). Roland H. Bainton has written that “if Calvin ever wrote anything in favor of religious liberty, it was a typographical error” (preface to his translation of Castellio's Concerning Heretics, 1935, p. 74). That even so admirable a historian as A. G. Dickens has his blind spots is apparent when he says that Calvin “trampled down one opponent after another in his steady march toward the triumphant theocracy of his later years” (The English Reformer, 1964, p. 198)—though there is reason to hjope that these blind spots of his are being eliminated. It follows axiomatically that one who had such hatred for his fellow men and was guilty of such ruthless tyranny could not possibly have felt the compassion for others characteristic of the missionary-hearted Christian, and could not even have understood, let alone promoted, the gospel of divine love and grace.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, “John Calvin: director of missions”, The Heritage of John Calvin, John H. Bratt (ed.), Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1973, pp. 41-42.

(I am sure people will say nasty things about me after I'm dead too. Though, why wait 'til I'm dead ...)

But I am getting off-topic and I'm not answering the question. Was Calvin mission-minded?

Answer 1 (summary): Yes.

Answer 2: Yes and if you want to know why, go read

• Edwards, Charles Eugene. “Calvin and missions”. Evangelical Quarterly 8/1 Ja (1936): 47-51.
• Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. “John Calvin: director of missions”. Pages 40-54 in The Heritage of John Calvin. Edited by John H. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973.
• Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. “The Geneva of John Calvin”. The Churchman 78 (1964): 257-275.
• Ramirez, Alonzo. “Missiological Perspectives of Calvin's Old Testament Interpretation: Implications for Theology of Mission”. Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) Conference Papers (1998): 1-24.
• Reid, W Stanford. “Calvin's Geneva: a missionary centre”. Reformed Theological Review 42 S-D (1983): 65-74.
• Van den Berg, J. “Calvin and Missions”. Pages 167-183 in John Calvin: Contemporary Prophet. Edited by Jacob T. Hoogstra. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959.
• Van den Berg, J. “Calvin's missionary message: some remarks about the relation between Calvinism and missions”. Evangelical Quarterly 22 Jl (1950): 174-187.
• Wilcox, Peter. “Evangelisation in the Thought and Practice of John Calvin”. Anvil 12 no 3 (1995): 201-217.
• Zwemer, Samuel Marinus. “Calvinism and the missionary enterprise”. Theology Today 7 Jl (1950): 206-216.

because they all answer the question and they do it better than I could (I mean, they've actually read Calvin; I haven't.

What? Why are you still here? All right, all right, I'll answer the question properly. See the next post.

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