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

give a simple example: some writers who have not been sympathetic to Calvin have wished to portray him as no more than a Stoic in ethics. But as John Hesselink has properly pointed out, while Cicero and Calvin speak in a similar way about natural law, Calvin’s ‘concept of depravity makes an all-important difference.’6 My way of putting it is to say that if we uproot propositions from their intellectual contexts we are in danger of committing the logical howler of supposing that because Cicero and Calvin use the same words they mean the same things.

A further temptation is to consider the Church’s current preoccupations or fads and then plunder Calvin’s writings for anything of relevance he may have had to say about them. This would be to cast Calvin in the role of solver of our puzzles, or to annex him as the supporter of our agenda; we might even be inclined to read back into Calvin’s writings what we wished to find; and in the process we might overlook many things he had to say that we should prefer not to hear. In this connection it is interesting to see what the representative body of the international Reformed family thought worthy of reflection in 1909 and 2009. In 1909 the World Presbyterian Alliance heard, in addition to Stevenson’s biographical paper on Calvin, addresses on Calvin and the Reformation in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe, and in the British Isles; on Calvin’s biblical expositions, his doctrinal system, and his views on Church government and the Christian ministry; on his ethics, on Servetus, on his theology; as well as on Calvinism and liberty, Calvinism’s influence in the contemporary world, and its world-wide mission. In 2009 the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is inviting us to consider various interpretations of Calvin, his humanism, his view of the Bible as God’s Word, his ecclesiol- ogy and his ethics;7 and Calvin on the unity of the Church, on social justice, respect for God’s creation, the environment, and war.8 As we compare these two lists of addresses it seems clear that the 1909 list is more traditional and concerned with historical and systematic theology9 whereas the 2009 list is more moved by the cur6 I. John Hesselink, Calvin’s Concept of the Taw, Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1992, 69.

7 See the papers in The Reformed World, LVII no. 4, December 2007.

8 See Setri Nyomi, ed., The Tegaty ofJohn Calvin. Some Actions for the Church in the 21st Century,

Geneva: World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the John Knox International Reformed Centre, 2008. This book follows in the wake of the Alliance’s Accra Confession of 2004, for which, with follow-up papers, see Reformed World, LV no. 3, September 2005. The Confession has commanded widespread interest, though some have found its approach to economic questions unduly simplistic.

9 So, too, was the series of articles published during 1909 in the Princeton Theological Review.

Emile Doumergoue, ‘Calvin: epigone or creator?’, August Lang, ‘The Reformation and natural law’, Herman Bavinck, ‘Calvin and common grace’, and B. B. Warfield, ‘Calvin’s doctrine of the knowledge of God.’ The articles are reprinted in William Park Armstrong, ed., Calvin and the Reformation, (1909), Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980. Also in 1909 there appeared a collection of Calvin Memorial Addresses delivered before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., reprinted Vestavia Hills, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2007. These papers were somewhat broader in scope: Richard C. Reed, ‘Calvin's contribution to the Reformation’, Henry Collin Minton, ‘Calvin the theologian’, Thomas Cary Johnson, ‘Calvin’s contribution to church polity’, James Orr, ‘Calvin’s attitude towards and exegesis of Scripture’, R. A. Webb, ‘Calvin’s doctrine of infant salvation’, S. L. Morris, ‘The relation of Calvin and Calvinism to missions’, George

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