& the Calvinists

There are lots of problems with building a house on sand. Beyond the obvious — that it's a really dumb idea because it is going to fall over the moment the winds and the rain come — it might convince other people it's a good idea to build their own house in the same place. ​ ​

All it takes is for one person to do something stupid, and all the others are sure to join in.

And that's a good introduction to the man we're talking about today, John Calvin. He's one of the three main pillars of the Protestant revolution. But he was only seven years old when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door in Wittenburg. By the time Calvin joined the revolution, it was already raging: Henry VIII was on his third wife, Luther was up to his nose in heresy and Zwingli was already dead.

Even though they never met, Zwingli is an important character in Calvin's tale. By the 1520s Zwingli's unique theological fondue he'd mixed from the teachings of Luther, Erasmus and other guys in the mountains of Switzerland had boiled over and covered everything in cheese — I mean, caused a huge civil war. Most of the cantons (that is, provinces) of Switzerland were now Protestant, with only a few Catholic holdouts. And the unholy cheesy mess had spread all over Europe, too, the five Catholic cantons allied with Austria while the Protestants allied with anyone they could. The continent was rife with peasant revolts, with chaos and disorder ruling the day.

In Switzerland, the tide of battle swung back and forth. The Catholics won the two wars of Kappel between 1528 and 1531; the first was where Zwingli died. The Faith was restored in some areas, and the churches and monasteries were rebuilt. Protestant pillaging and murdering slowed down for a while — but that ended when was captured in 1535.

And that is where John Calvin comes on the scene.

If Martin Luther represents the happy, oom­pa­pa oom­pa­pa, beer­drinking, sausage­eating version of ​ ​ , then John Calvin represents the dour, surly version, sitting in a plain, bleak room with no music, beer or sausages. He probably didn't even like fondue.

He was born in Picardy, France, in 1509, to middle­class parents. His father Gerard was a severe, hard­nosed guy. He was apostolic secretary to the bishop of Noyon and also served in various administrative roles we might describe as “treasurer” or “accountant” in local government. He was an important man and hobnobbed with the best families of the neighborhood.

Calvin's mother Jeanne was very beautiful indeed, both physically and spiritually. She was noted for her piety, and took her children on pilgrimages. John Calvin was her second son. She taught him the Faith, but he didn't make it his own and never seemed to fall in love with it. She died when he was a child and his father remarried.

Maybe it's not fair to say he didn't love the Faith. I mean, if we were teasing someone about a girl or a boy they had a crush on, we might say, “Would you shave your head for them?” Well, Calvin did shave ​ ​ his head for the Faith! He “took the tonsure”; the tonsure is the technical name for the shaved space on a monk's head. Calvin became a clerk for the local bishop — and he was only 12!

Now, most of us, when we were 12, got a job delivering papers or cutting lawns. Not Calvin! He was able to get this job because of his father's connections and importance. This practice of giving jobs to friends and family is called nepotism. It is a problem today. How many people do we work with whom 1 we think only got the job because their uncle owns the business? But back in the Renaissance, when the Church was corrupt, it was a huge problem.

Men were given a benefice; these were payments for doing jobs for the Church. In the case of a young boy like Calvin, he would be expected to pay that back in the future. And, believe me, he did pay the ​ ​ Church back — just not in the way the bishop might have expected!

Because of his father's connections, he got into an excellent university: the College de la March in . There, he learned Latin from a famous tutor called Corderius. Corderius was well known for being a whiz at Latin, but also a humanist — and perhaps Calvin learned more from him than how to decline verbs.

Once he had Latin under his belt, Calvin went to the College de Montaigu to learn philosophy, but his father wasn't convinced that would be a good career move for Calvin. I mean, after all, how many philosophy factories are there in your hometown?

Instead, Gerard sent him to the University of Orleans to study law (everyone knows being a lawyer is where the money is, right?).

Calvin studied quietly for some years, and then in 1529 went to the University of Bourges, interested by the humanist teachings there. Here, he learned Greek, essential for studying the New Testament.

So, we can see all the bricks are in place to build some kind of house — a solid education, a connection to the Church, knowledge of biblical languages. But what he had for the foundation — a lack of passion for the faith, an attraction to humanism — looked more like sand than rock.

And so it was. His father was excommunicated, probably for heresy, although we aren't sure. He died in 1531 of cancer. Two years later, in 1533, Calvin experienced a religious “conversion.” In his own words:

God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, yet I pursued them with less ardor.

Later on, he wrote about the same experience a little differently, describing how he suffered anguish and turmoil.

Being exceedingly alarmed at the misery into which I had fallen, and much more at that which threatened me in view of eternal death, I, duty bound, made it my first business to betake myself to your way, condemning my past life, not without groans and tears. And now, O Lord, what remains to a wretch like me, but instead of defense, earnestly to supplicate you not to judge that fearful abandonment of your Word according to its deserts, from which in your wondrous goodness you have at last delivered me.

Exactly what Calvin experienced — a genuine spiritual revelation he misinterpreted, something induced by stress or grief or other psychological issues, maybe even some darker supernatural influence — we don't know. All we know is what he said about it, and the fact this seems to coincide with his break from Rome.

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By late 1533, Calvin had returned to Paris and was at the College Royal, which was wracked with divisions between humanist “reformers” and the senior faculty who were loyal to Christ and His Church. In November of that year, Nicolas Cop, the rector of the university, used his inaugural address to call for reform and renewal in the Catholic Church.

Of course, this R&R were codewords for Protestant rebellion, and the university faculty rightly denounced it as heretical. Cop fled to Switzerland and Calvin, who was his close friend, was also forced to run away. He spent the next year and a half on the lam in France, perhaps being involved in various anti­Catholic activities. Eventually, in early 1535 he wound up with his buddy Cop in Basel, a city firmly in the hands of the Protestant revolt.

It was here Calvin really got down to business. In March 1536 he published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, a statement on his doctrinal position. Throughout his life he added to ​ it and published more editions as his unique and heretical theology developed.

Shortly after the book's publication, he went to Italy and then back to France to help his brother sort out his father's estate. But the Eldest Daughter of the Church didn't much like wandering sons who spit on their Mother. The rebellious blasphemers who hadn't run away like Calvin and Cop had been arrested, imprisoned or even executed. King Francis of France ...

(Really? King Francis of France? Isn't that like King Jerry of Germany or King Scott of Scotland?)

Anyway, King Francis of France had issued the Edict of Coucy which extended pardon to them, but only gave them six months to take advantage of it. Calvin realized there wasn't a future for him in France and planned to go to Strasbourg, which was a refuge for Protestant rebels.

Unfortunately for him, war forced him to make a detour south into the Swiss Alps, and he found himself in Geneva.

Now, Calvin didn't much want to stay in Switzerland. I guess he really didn’t like fondue! But a ​ ​ Protestant rebel called called him a coward and told him to stay and fight to “reform” the Church there, telling him it was his duty.

And so Calvin stayed there, preaching his own brand of theology and writing rules for the churches in Geneva to follow. Initially, the churches and council fell in line, but after a while disagreements between the various cities of Switzerland appeared. Go figure! Protestants disagreeing with one another — who could have seen that coming? ​ ​

After a riot over the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist (Calvin didn't want to use unleavened bread and so simply didn't distribute communion), the council threw Calvin and Farel out of Geneva. An appeal in Zurich went nowhere, and so Calvin looked for somewhere else to move.

He settled on Strasbourg. This time, he managed to get there without a problem and spent three years preaching, lecturing and working on his doctrinal thesis. Also, his friends urged him to get married; after all, it was horrible and unnatural for anybody to be unmarried. People might mistake him for a monk or something.

3 Calvin said he didn't want to get married; he didn't want to be distracted from serving the Lord. (Well, perhaps if you weren't serving yourself, John, you might be able to work for Christ and have a wife …) ​ ​ ​ ​

Anyway, they eventually persuaded him. He said he'd get married to a woman they found for him, provided she learned French — because even heretics have standards, I guess? I've got nothing …

Calvin's heart wasn't in it, though, and he never went through with the wedding. He later wrote he would never think of marrying “unless the Lord had entirely bereft me of my wits.” Five months later he surprised everyone and got married.

The jokes just write themselves, don't they?

By this time, the climate in Geneva had changed. Attendance at church was down, and they regretted throwing Calvin out. They asked for him to return and take charge, which he did. He remained in Geneva for the rest of his life, working and preaching tirelessly to “reform” the church there in his own image. Even with the rebellious character of Switzerland, he encountered great resistance to his efforts, and it was only when he presided over the trial of a notorious heretic too heretical even for the Protestants that his position was secured. The sentence for the heretic was to be burned alive — and Calvin demanded he be burnt using green, or wet, wood, so his suffering would be prolonged.

For the rest of his life, Calvin's dominance in Geneva was complete. He ruled the church there, enforcing his own vision of Christianity until he fell sick with a fever and, after bursting a blood vessel in his lungs from a coughing fit, died in 1564. Because of his great reputation among Protestants, his body was first lain in state, but was then buried in an unmarked grave, because the Protestants were afraid people would start to worship or venerate him as a saint!

Calvin's influence really cannot be underestimated. He is one of the “big three” men of the Protestant revolt along with Luther and Zwingli. Calvin's theology is similar to general Protestant theology in many ways: It rejects the authority of the Pope, of course, and challenges the sacraments and the notion of the priesthood. And, of course, it allows for the private, personal interpretation of the Bible by individual believers — provided they agree with the guy in charge, of course.

The irony here — that the “reformers” refused to be told what the Bible means by the Pope, but then insisted on it themselves — is to think you could stick bread in it and use it as fondue. But, by this stage in the series, you should be used to this.

But Calvin's theology differed from Luther and Zwingli's in many ways. Calvinism insists on a particular interpretation of the Bible which doesn't seem to allow for Sunday funday, and the three branches of Protestant thought differ greatly on their understanding of the Eucharist; but the major point of contention is salvation and grace.

We're all familiar with the debate about salvation through faith versus salvation through works. Luther held to a position of salvation through faith alone — in Latin, sola fides, “faith alone.” Luther, sticking ​ ​ to his policy of Scripture alone (sola scriptura) supports this from the Bible. ​ ​

And by “supports this from” I mean “adds words into Romans and ignores the one time in the Bible ​ ​ where the words ‘faith alone’ appear which is as part of the phrase ‘man is not saved by faith alone.’” ​ ​

You might be thinking Calvin would be following a Catholic position, which states that while we cannot earn or merit Heaven, our works are important and necessary.

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Oh, you don't know Johnny C.

Calvin said people were predestined for Heaven or Hell. That's right — you can be as bad as you like, but if you're on the list, you're getting in! And, conversely, you can be as good and holy as you like but if your name's not there, then it's Hell for you.

To be fair, he didn't exactly say that, but that is both the logical conclusion and makes more sense than what he did say. He said people who are destined for Hell live wicked lives here on earth while those ​ ​ destined for Heaven live righteous lives.

Calvinism denies free will, and not just in some big, overarching sense. As Catholics, we know every single action we take is done either for Christ or in opposition to Him. Even just working at our jobs — either we do it for joyful love of Christ, or we do it reluctantly and miserably against Christ. We choose to do good or we choose to do evil. We choose to avoid sin or we choose to give in to temptation. It's all our choice.

But Calvin says that's a load of rubbish. He actually teaches that God chooses to actively condemn people with a sinful nature, forcing them to commit sins and avoid virtue. Calvin denies not just free will, but also temptation and the strength to overcome it, as well as any idea of forgiveness; how can you be forgiven something if you had no choice in doing it?

If Calvin is right, then none of us have any choice in what we do. We have no free will. We are just puppets, or perhaps little paper cutouts being animated on a whiteboard according to a script written by …

Am I just a … ? I think I'm ... I'm having an existential crisis here!

All right, so it's obvious Calvin's theology is whackadoodle. Clearly, we have free will. We can choose good or evil, Christ or Satan, Heaven or Hell.

But there are lots of people who believe Calvin's theology today. Europe and North America are full of communities following his ideas, and pretty much every single country in the world has some Calvinists there. And, even in non­Calvinist communities — even in the Catholic Church! — you'll find people thinking some kind of Calvinist predestination mumbo­jumbo — because it's appealing. It takes the responsibility off the person.

Calvinist theology is often connected to the idea of “once saved, always saved.” That is, you make a single profession of faith and you are done like a bun. That's it. You are saved and done and nothing can snatch you out of God's hand! It doesn't matter what you do: murder, adultery, lying, double­dipping in the fondue, nothing! You are going to Heaven!

And even if people don't think something quite that silly, people still act as if merely being a Christian — being baptized when you were a child, or having been an altar boy, or going to Catholic school, or going to Church at Easter and Christmas — is some kind of “Get out of Hell free” card.

Here's a newsflash for you: It's not! Christianity is really, really tough; you've got to avoid sin and seek after virtue, every single day. One mortal sin is enough to land you in Hell, and even the smallest sin damages your relationship with God and wears away at your strength and resilience.

5 But being a Christian is also really, really easy, because God knows we are weak. And so He gives us the sacraments, especially confession, to come back to Him. He pours His mercy out on us and all we have to do is ask for it.

So, that's the lesson from Calvin: Don't act, and don't let others act, as if being a Christian once, or having some vague connection to Christianity years before or in just some parts of your life, is enough to save you. It's not. Be Christian, all the time.

But, equally, don't see sin as a sign you are predestined for Hell and there's nothing that can be done about it. Sin is a rebellion against God, and confession is where we surrender and say sorry, and we are welcomed back into the fold of His love.

That's all for this time. Next time, we are going to bonny Scotland, but we aren't going to be talking about King Scott of Scottish Scotland. No; we're talking about John Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism. Until then, I'm Charlie Hornbacher, and you and I both make our own choice about Heaven or Hell.

Choose Heaven, and stay holy, my friends. This has been Houses Built On Sand. ​ ​

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