What is Calvinism?

Some people seem to think that what is known as Calvinism, that is, the structures and doctrines of Protestant theology, which were in large part shaped by the French Reformer Jean Cauvin, is an artificial construction on Christianity, dreamed up in authoritarian Geneva.

Today is the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth.

It was John Calvin who in large part helped to sum up the teachings of the Reformed faith, which Luther and others, in departing from Rome, had begun to preach, but had not quite brought together in harmony. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion became the new standard for doctrine that is founded directly on Scripture, not speculation or philosophy. Calvin’s primary concern was the glory of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; in the work of redemption, which is to say, the Gospel.

C.H. Spurgeon, the English Baptist preacher, had this to say about his Calvinist doctrine:

It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are truly and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make my pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me . . . Taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethren; I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God’s own church.

Elsewhere Spurgeon summarized what doctrines this true religion consists of:

I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing unchangeable eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross.

Protestants of all stripes, and probably Catholics as well, owe much to the labors of Calvin and the other Reformers in making the Word once more preeminent in Christian theology.

The Vow [poem]

THE VOW

“Forsaking all others”—
Not a hope, or a dream
This promise won’t sever
In payment for love.

Determining statement!
It closes behind it
Loves loved and remembered,
In darkness complete.

But think of the freedom
In bonds freely chosen:
No slavery of passion,
No canting regret:

For memories forgiven
Have lost all their power
To hurt, or to hinder
This promise we meant.

PCS 06/08/2009

The Wisdom of Solomon

The California Supreme Court ruled today on an omnibus challenge to the validity of the California constitutional amendment that was introduced by referendum and ratified in November, restricting the legal definition of marriage in that state. The Court affirmed the constitutionality of the measure.

Traffic Cameras: Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Impartiality; promotes adherence to traffic laws.
• Possibility for institutionalized lenience.
• May have effect of reducing penalties for traffic violations.
• Ought to necessitate anonymity.
• Could boost local revenue.
• Can relieve inappropriate role of police as revenue agents.

Cons:

• Justice depends on how they are implemented.
• If not regulated, potential for intolerable strictness.
• Police enforcement allows for common-sense lenience.
• Information-sharing practices raise significant privacy issues.

St. Paul on the Lord’s Table

1 Corinthians 10:1-22

10:1 For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Dutiful Dissent: To my fellow students

Dissent is important to us, both as students at Patrick Henry College, and as conservatives in the political sphere. The world is becoming ever more politicized. Government and politicians feel they have a mandate to do more and more—and they welcome the opportunity to expand and consolidate their own personal political power. Conservatives who oppose this expansion are always accused of being uncritical of the status quo because they think it should not be changed. Conservatives may often be riled into a defense of the status quo, but the fact is they see the problems as clearly as progressives, or more clearly. They do not, however, think that positive change is as easy, or that the solutions are as clear or politically-achievable as progressives would lead people to believe, and they are in fact critical of the politicized mindset that turns every problem into a ballot or legislative issue. They recognize that the progressive agenda will create more problems than it solves. The conservative person, to borrow from William F. Buckley, “stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” If history is indeed moving in a certain direction, the conservative recognizes the pain this path will lead to if pursued hastily, seeks to slow it down and directs it toward a less reckless course.

Wendell Berry on marriage

From his essay “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine.”

Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate “relationship” involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the “married” couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.

Iowa judge’s protest: No more marriages

Today the Des Moines Register is running a story about an Iowa judge who, rather than adhere to the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that marriage licenses were to be granted to same-sex applicants, has decided not to perform any marriages at all.

The judge, Francis Honrath, reveals that although his decision to stop marrying people was made after the ruling, he has had doubts about this role for a while.

“The Supreme Court ruling had something to do with it, but the truth is it’s not just same-sex marriage I had problems with,” said Honrath, a Creighton University law school graduate who is married and has seven children.

Evangelical disintegration on the frontier: Niebuhr’s exposition

It is always interesting to hear wise men tell stories of “how this came to be.” We observe the way evangelicalism at times praises, at times condemns the political sphere; historians of theology and political theory attempt to explain how this came to be.

I’ve been reading also about Frederick Jackson Turner’s idea of the frontier as a shaping influence in American life (including religion) and politics. Carle F. Zimmerman (Family and Civilization) also mentions the impact that frontier conditions in the Southern Piedmont had in destabilizing the established religious order in favor of one marked by subjectivity and excitement, one he goes so far as to call ‘pantheistic,’ in which, if I may expand his enigmatic use of the term, each person’s own religious experience becomes his guide.

Reinhold Niebuhr also mentions the transformation of American evangelicalism in Pious and Secular America. As churches become fragmented and self-sufficient, they appear to begin to concern themselves more with worldly ends than with eternal ones, leading to a theology of civic perfectionism.

The more things ‘change,’ the more they stay the same.

Exhibit A: This political cartoon from the Chicago Tribune protests the spending frenzy of the Roosevelt administration. It is interesting to note that both Nazism and Italian Fascism were being established during this year.