A Visceral Perspective on the

It seems as though we are always celebrating anniversaries. Seven years ago, throughout the Protestant churches at least, there were world-wide celebrations of the 500th anniversary of ’s birth. Two years ago I was involved in a project celebrating 200 years of Methodism in Australia. Later in June this year, in June, the Uniting Church in Australia will be celebrating its 40th anniversary. Where did this habit of celebrating anniversaries begin? If you have been to see the exhibition at the National Museum in Canberra depicting ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’, one of those objects, a ‘Reformation Centenary Broadsheet’, offers an answer to this question: Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, tells us in a book accompanying the exhibition, that the broadsheet was part of the first modern centenary celebration, organised in , , in 1617, just before the devastating Thirty Years’ War,1 to commemorate and propagandise the declaration of ’s ’95 Theses’. Almost certainly, you will all know how that story goes: On 31 1517 (the eve of All Saints Day), an Augustinian , Martin Luther, took his hammer and nailed what was effectively his religious manifesto—his Ninety-five Theses against —to the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church. That event and that date in the ensuing century came to be regarded as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and celebrated annually in many Protestant Churches as Reformation Day. When the organisers of today’s program requested a “visceral” response to the Reformation or, more accurately, to the (because there are at least four identified by scholars), I was tempted to take Luther as my starting point. After all it would be difficult to find anyone more visceral and earthy than Luther. We know from Luther’s Table Talk that he enjoyed sitting at the table, joking with his students and drinking good wine and beer. His scatological humour was merciless, both at his own expense, the Pope’s and the Devil’s. Luther would express his disdain for the Devil by turning his back on him and farting in the Devil’s direction to chase him away. Sometimes, Luther’s propensity for toilet humour reminds me of the Fart Book series for kids aged 6–12. With two grandsons in this age bracket, I have become somewhat familiar with this literary genre. It is not difficult to imagine Luther reading to his grandchildren David Hamilton’s book The Boy Who Farted and Flew to the Moon. As much as I appreciate Luther’s earthiness, I’m going to focus my comments today on the second-generation reformer, John Calvin (1509–1564), a more elusive figure than the rambunctious Luther. It would be difficult to describe Calvin as visceral. Unlike his Scottish contemporary, , Calvin was far more cautious theologically and socially. He stressed sobriety, thriftiness and the responsibility of individuals to live good, productive and moral lives. Calvin also recognised the Christian’s social responsibility to provide relief for the poor, hospitals, proper sanitation, and care for refugees. Calvin has a reputation for being morally strict but he was also humane. To some it may come as a surprise to learn that he is recognised as a saint in the Church of England.

1 Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, London, Penguin Books, 2012, 467–68.

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My reasons for selecting Calvin as my starting point for today’s reflections on the Reformation are threefold. First, I am listed in the program as a representative of the Uniting Church, and Calvin, more than Luther and almost any other theologian with the possible exception of Karl Barth, has had a huge impact, either directly or indirectly, on the theology and government of the Uniting Church. The basic document of the Uniting Church, the Basis of Union, has Calvin’s fingerprints all over it. The Uniting Church is grounded squarely in the Reformed tradition that stems largely from Calvin. The Rev. Professor Davis McCaughey, first President of the Uniting Church, never ceased to remind the Uniting Church of its Reformed roots and especially Calvin’s understanding of the ministry. Similarly, the Rev. Professor Rollie Busch, Moderator of the Queensland Synod and later third President of the Uniting Church, appealed to the Church’s Reformed roots during the Aurukun and Mornington Island controversy with the Belke-Petersen Government in late 1970s and refused to be bullied into submission in the matter of Christian liberty. The second reason for selecting Calvin as my starting point is that has had a profound impact upon other Australian churches besides the Uniting Church. There are deep Calvinist influences in Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, the Baptists Churches, and some Methodist and Dutch Reform Churches. One of the most vital areas of Church growth in the Australia is among the Korean Churches which has strong Reformed Presbyterian roots. In 2009 the Faculty of Moore College in Sydney published a collection of essays titled Engaging with Calvin. The essay by Archbishop Peter Jensen in that collection reminds the reader of the “shaping” influence of Calvin’s Institutes upon a generation of students at Moore College and of the Sydney Diocese. Archbishop Jensen wrote: “The nub of the matter is this: John Calvin expounded the Bible in such a clear way that virtually no one else has matched him in showing us what God is like and therefore what we are like…He is the apostle of the majesty of God.”2 Although Calvin and Calvinism have received a generally negative press in Australia— historians like Manning Clarke dismiss Calvinism as being hyper moralistic—the emerging concern for public theology at the beginning of the twenty-first century offers a third reason for selecting Calvin. In 2009 I organised a conference at United Theological College celebrating the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth. The title of the conference was ‘Calvin 500: Calvin Goes Public’ and its theme focussed on Calvin as a public theologian. Peter Matheson, who was then Principal of the Uniting Church’s theological college in Melbourne, later wrote in a collection of essays celebrating Calvin and his legacy, “Perhaps the emergent concern for public theology, contextual theology, and for a theology of exile…will lead to a renewed interest in the exegetical, socio- political and ecclesiological initiatives of Calvin and his immediate followers.”3

2 Peter Jensen, “Calvin among the Students: Shaping Theological Education”, on Mark D. Thompson, ed., Engaging with Calvin: Aspects of the Reformer’s legacy for today, Nottingham, Apollis, 2009, 19. 3 Peter Matheson, “The Reception of Calvin and Calvinism in New Zealand: A Preliminary Trawl”, Calvin, the Man and the Legacy, Adelaide, ATF Theology, 2014, 188.

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Although Calvin is more commonly thought of as a systematic, biblical, or pastoral theologian, he would have been the first to insist that theology needs to interact with the great public issues of the day. He thought deeply on the important public debates of his time and wrote theology, as he explains in a preface to the final edition of the Institutes, ‘for the public good”. 1. What was daily life like for John Calvin? So, let me turn to the first question that Colin helpfully sent out for our guidance: What did it feel like to be a Calvinist at the beginning of the Reformation? The question is slightly misleading because “Calvinist” was a term of abuse coined in 1553 to describe Protestants who were willing to burn heretics. I have therefore, reworked the question as follows: What was daily life like for John Calvin? Fortunately, recent research by the Princeton Reformation scholar, Elsie McKee, who through a close examination of documents emerging out of Geneva in the mid-1550s, has made it possible to obtain a fairly accurate picture ‘from below’ of the daily work of Calvin as his colleagues, parishioners and neighbours knew him. She takes us through an ordinary week in the life of John Calvin, from Sunday 1 March to Saturday 7 March 1556.4 I will briefly summarise her work: On Sunday, 1 March, Calvin preached at the 8am service on 1 Cor 6:9–10 and at the 3p.m. he was preaching again, taking up where he had stopped off in the morning, so his text 1 Cor 6:11–13. Before the second service he married two couples and after the service gave catechetical instruction. On Monday, 2 March, he attended the 7am service led by a colleagues and for most of the rest of the morning he prepared for his 2 o’clock lecture on Hosea, a book through which he was working his way verse by verse. His hearers included his fellow ministers and any educated residents or visitors (including religious refugees) to Geneva. Then after his lecture Calvin wrote long letters to Lutheran church leaders in Frankfurt dealing with rather delicate issues of potential friction between Lutheran and Reformed Protestants. Tuesday, 3 March, was much like Monday: attending worship, preparing for his 2 o’clock lecture, and writing more letters to Frankfurt dealing with issues facing the French church there. Along with these tasks, Calvin and the rest of the pastors in Geneva, visited their dying colleague Abel Poupin and prayed with him during his last hours. Wednesday, 4 March, was another full day for Calvin. Wednesday was the highpoint of weekday worship, with its own liturgy which included congregational singing of the Psalms. There were two services, one at 5am and another at 8pm, so that it was possible for more people could attend. After 1553 Calvin took one of these services every week. The service focussed on the church’s situation at that particular time and place and had several purposes: one was repentance, one was intercession, and one was thanksgiving. The long prayer after Calvin’s sermon included both general intercessions and the names of specific individuals, especially the sick. Then later in the day, Calvin was back at the Auditoire lecturing on Hosea and then later still, he was at Poupin’s bedside.

4 Elsie McKee, “A Week in the Life of John Calvin”, Calvin, The Man and the Legacy, ed. Murray Rae, Peter Matheson and Brett Knowles, Adelaide: ATF Theology, 2014, pp. 61–78.

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On Thursday, 5 March, Calvin and some of his colleagues, gathered at 7am around Poupin who had died through the night. Before taking Poupin’s funeral later that afternoon (Genevan law required that burials take place within twenty-four hours of death), Calvin had regular business to attend to later in the morning—the weekly consistory meeting, a meeting of all the pastors and twelve laymen whom Calvin called ‘elders’. About a third of the consistory’s business had to do with reconciling quarrels within families or between neighbours. Even after the burial of Pastor Poupin, Calvin’s day was not over. In the evening, tired though he may have been, Calvin pushed himself to complete more correspondence relating to church conflict in Frankfurt. Friday, 6 March, began with worship as usual. The next thing on the schedule was a kind or practice-preaching Bible study held every Friday by the ministers and open to the public. One of the purposes of this gathering was to give the ministers practice in expounding Biblical texts in French because all their theological education had been in . This study- preaching session provided the pastors with a chance to critique each other. One person would explain a chosen text, followed by others who would offer shorter comments. Then Calvin would give his exposition (almost another sermon). After this preaching session, the pastors would meet together to attend to parish business: organising the preaching plan for the eight city churches, proposing and examining candidates for the ministry, attending to matters relating to the schools, mutual correction, and correspondence with church leaders in other places. Normally Saturdays were less hectic. Calvin would spend time in his study reading, dealing with correspondence and doing some visitation. On Saturday, 7 March, however, after worship at 7am, the consistory had an extraordinary meeting to discuss the case of one of their colleagues, Pastor Fabri, who had been accused of sexual impropriety. What was daily life like for John Calvin? Elsie McKee’s ordinary ‘week’ in the life of John Calvin shows us how his colleagues, neighbours and parishioners knew him: preaching sermons on 1 Corinthians on Sundays, weekday sermons on Deuteronomy and/or lectures on Hosea, with regular meetings of the consistory, the preaching class and the Company of Pastors, plus other pastoral duties such as performing marriages and pastoral visitation. It should be remembered that Calvin’s practice was not unique to him and nor did he create it. Calvin’s pastoral ministry was essentially patterned on his first generation predecessors like and Wolfgang Capito in Strasbourg or Ulrich Zwingli and in Zurich or Johannes Oecolampadius in Basel or in Geneva. Preaching and teaching, day in and day out, lectio continua style, through the books of the Old Testament as well as the New, formed a regular rhythm in Calvin’s daily work. By 1556 most long-term residents in Geneva would have become accustomed to the new system of preaching services and their role in ‘life-long’ learning and shaping the spirituality of every member of the church. 2. How did the changes introduced by Calvin and other Reformed pastors impact on ordinary people? Turning now to the second question that Colin asked us to consider: How did the changes introduced by Calvin and other Reformed pastors impact on ordinary people? I will concentrate my attention on three major changes.

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2.1 Education The first has to do with education: We have already seen how preaching and teaching formed a large part of Calvin’s life, so it is not surprising that he emphasised the importance of education in the congregation. Congregations had control over the school curriculum and all of the teachers were required to be active members of the congregation. An important indication of the role that education played for Calvin is the inclusion of the role of “doctor” or professional educator as one of his four ministry offices: pastors, doctors or teachers, elders and deacons. Probably more than any other Christian confession, the Reformed Church sought to make public education available for all children. 2.2 Marriage and Family Life Secondly, Calvin and his fellow reformers transformed Western notions of marriage and family life. Under their inspiration, the Genevan authorities outlawed monasticism and mandatory clerical celibacy, and encouraged marriage for all adults who had the freedom, fitness and capacity to marry. They set clear guidelines for courtship and engagement and firm restrictions on premarital sex. They mandated parental consent, church consecration, and state registration for valid engagement and marriage promises. They made public weddings mandatory and prepared a new marriage liturgy heavy with biblical instruction and congregational participation. They introduced absolute divorce on grounds of adultery and malicious desertion, and allowed innocent husbands and wives to seu for divorce, custody, and alimony. They encouraged the remarriage of divorcees and widows and widowers. They provided sanctuaries and opportunities for illegitimate, abandoned, and abused children. And they created new protections and provisions for abused women and impoverished widows. So many of these changes have found their way into modern civil law that their radical nature at the time might be lost on us today. 2.3 Spirituality or pietas My third example of change centres on spirituality. The stereotype of Calvin as a cold man with no visible emotions is far from the truth. His sermons on the Psalms, for example, were so popular that his parishioner persuaded him to have them published. It is sometimes said that Calvin’s spirituality was a psalm-centred spirituality. Calvin defined spirituality or pietas as “the uniting of reverence with love of God which knowledge of God’s benefits induces” (Inst.1.2.1). A clear grasp of the Bible’s message was essential to Reformed spirituality. A vernacular Bible was an important household possession and the illiterate were expected to ask others to read it to them until they learned how to read for themselves. Individual daily Bible reading later became a mark of the tradition, but for Calvin the key to spiritual edification was public worship. For Calvin public instruction in spirituality was centred in regular worship. The Christian community was where spirituality was learned and visibly lived out. 3. How did the Reformed Church impact on the wider community or culture? Finally, and briefly, let me turn to the third question that Colin suggested to us: How did the Reformed Church impact on the wider community or culture? It is difficult to know where to begin with this question. The Protestant Reformation has been invoked as the cause of so many things: modern liberalism, capitalism, religious wars, tolerance, democracy, individualism, nationalism, pluralism, freedom of conscience, modern science, secularism

5 and so much else. One thing is for certain, that what transpired five centuries ago continues today to profoundly influence people all around the world, whether or not they are Christians or indeed religious believers of any kind. The Reformation touched everything. It altered not just the practice of religion but also the nature of society, economics, politics, education and law. William W. Emilsen 18 February 2017 Holy Family Church, Lindfield

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