Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)
2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sell, Alan P. F.: Milyen megoldásra váró feladatok elé állítja Kálvin a 21. századi egyházat?
of Christ, and his doctrines of the Christian life, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.’14 For our present purposes, we see clearly that in Calvin's view, to be united with Christ is to be united with all who are his; it is to be of his body, the Church. Gospel and Church are integrally related to one another. On the one hand, believers cannot be united to Christ the Vine and separate from one another; on the other hand, ‘Christ will not and cannot be torn from his Church with which he is joined in an indissoluble knot, as the head to the body. Hence unless we cultivate unity with the faithful, we see that we are cut off from Christ.’15 By holding Gospel and Church together in this way Calvin implicidy rebuts any who, under the influence of latter-day individualism, say that they can be a Christian in isolation from the Church, or that Christianity is a private matter. It is personal, certainly, but private? Never. It is life in union with Christ and in fellowship with those who have heard, and have been enabled by grace to answer, his call. Still less would Calvin agree with those who claim to have received the Gospel, but who regard the Church as a voluntary association which they may, or may not, join as they feel inclined. He would not understand those who have been baptized as infants who do not go on to profess their faith but who still claim the Christian name; nor would he understand those who are baptized as believers and then decline to join the church's roll of members. Nor is it difficult to guess what Calvin's reaction would have been to Professor Patricia Killen’s characterization of the current state of religion in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. She explains that From 1648 to 1970, we had essentially one idea of what it means to be religious in the Western world. To be religious was to be engaged with a religious institution. Now, and especially in the Pacific Northwest, people are seeking different, more individualistic and more fluid ways of being religious.16 To Calvin the Church is a divine institution comprising those who, on the ground of Christ’s mediatorial work, are saints by calling. You do not have the Gospel and afterwards tack the Church onto it. The Gospel is not simply about my soul. It is about that union with Christ as Saviour and Lord which is at the same time union with all who are his. Into the bosom of the Church, Calvin declares, ‘God is pleased to gather his sons, not only that they may be nourished by her help and ministry as long as they are infants and children, but also that they may be guided by her motherly care until they mature and at last reach the goal of faith ... [F]or Piere echoing Cyprian, Augustine and others] those to whom [God] is Father the church may also be Mother.’17 Precisely because there is one Head of the Church there is but one Church: Calvin’s challenges to the twenty-first-century church 14 T. F. Torrance, ‘Our witness through doctrine,’ Proceedings of the 17,h General Coundl of the Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout the World holding the Presbyterian Order, Geneva: Office of the Alliance, 1954, 134 (author’s italics). 15 J. Calvin, Commentary on Ezekiel 13: 9, trans. Thomas Myers, 1850,1,18. 16 Quoted by Amy Frykholm, ‘In the none zone,’ The Christian Century, 2 December 2008, 22. 17 Idem, Institutes, IV.i.l SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 83
