Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)
2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sell, Alan P. F.: Milyen megoldásra váró feladatok elé állítja Kálvin a 21. századi egyházat?
Calvin’s challenges to the twenty-first-century church the end no substitution for this one essential ministry of the Church, the shepherding of souls, in the time of their wealth and of their tribulation, at moments of birth and marriage and in the article of death.80 VI Finally, Calvin held doctrine and ethics, together. This is a very large subject, and it will suffice to illustrate the doctrine-ethics link in Calvin’s mind if I refer only to altruism, the economic order and ecology.81 The Gospel, Calvin declares, ‘is a doctrine not of the tongue but of life ... [I]t must enter our heart and pass into our daily living, and so transform us into itself that it may not be unfruitful for us.’82 This comes out clearly, for example, in his discussion of the Lord’s Supper. Among other things, he says, the Supper was ordained in order that participants might ‘nourish mutual love, and among themselves give witness to this love.’ But lest this seem a love restricted to the household of faith he commends the early Church, in which the ‘unvarying rule’ was that ‘no meeting of the church should take place without the Word, prayers, partaking of the Supper and almsgiving.’83 Elsie McKee is thus justified in claiming that Calvinist Reformed Christians understood ‘the parallel duties of worship (pietas) and love (caritas) as inseparable.’84 Calvin desired the Church not only to proclaim the truth, but to practise holy living. Christ ‘unites himself to us by the Spirit alone’,85 and apart from thus union Christian living and service would be impossible. The motivation of that life and service is gratitude to the Father for the salvation wrought by the Son, brought home to believers by the Spirit. Why, asks the Heidelberg Catechism, should we do good works? It answers, Because since Christ has redeemed us by His blood, He renews us also by His Holy Spirit according to His own image, that with our whole life we may show ourselves thankful to God for His goodness, and that He may be glorified through us; and further, that we ourselves on our part may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and by our godly life may win our neighbours also to Christ.86 80 G. Rupp, The Old Reformation and the New, London: Epworth, 1967, 55. With this quotation I salute the late Professor Rupp, whose BD paper on the Continental Reformation (with texts in Latin, French and German) I managed to pass fifty years ago. (There are anniversaries other than Calvin's). For further reflections on pastoral care see Alan P. F. Sell, Aspects of Christian Integrity, (1990), Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998, ch. 6. 81 I shall not, therefore, discuss culture in general or the political order. 82 Institutes, III.vi.4. 83 Institutes, IV.xvii.44. See further J. Alton Templin, “The individual and society in the thought of Calvin,’ Calvin Theological journal, XXIII no. 2, November 1988, 161-177. 84 E. A. McKee, Diakonia in the Classical Reformed Tradition and Today, Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 1989, 41. 85 Institutes, III.i.3. 86 The Heidelberg Catechism, Q. and A. 86. In T. F. Torrance, The School of Faith, 86. SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 95
