Even though I no longer identify with the term “Calvinist” and haven’t for a few years now I still can appreciate many of the contributions he made to modern day Christianity—all his faults aside. I consider myself a “hopeful Protestant” (as my bio says). More than that, I identify with the following label over any other bar none—“Jesus-follower by the grace of God”. That being said, I’d still pick John Calvin for my team if I were a captain and he was somehow available when I got to pick.Without the gospel everything is useless and vain; without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God. But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinner justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free. It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe.
~John Calvin, from the preface of Pierre Robert Olivétan’s French translation of the New Testament in 1534
Thoughts?
Nullus Extra Cruem 
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October 23, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Nathan
You know I’m really having a tough time with Calvin’s role in the execution of Michael Servetus. It is difficult for these modern eyes to see how a man (Servetus) who dismissed the doctrine of the trinity, in favor of the Divinity of Christ (a switch from most heretical ideas) was deserving of death, indeed his last words are recorded as “Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have mercy on me.” He was burnt at the stake near Geneva.
I am not of the opinion that the works of the church fathers should be honored on the level of Scripture, so I really don’t need Calvin’s shoulders to stand on. Nor Augustine for that matter, though I find his works interesting. I should say that I owe more in a spiritual sense to Erasmus who compiled the first generally available Greek New Testament, the “Textus Receptus”. From which Luther rendered his translation, Tyndale and the King James translations used it as a source too.
Of course I must own up to hard feelings, for I was raised by calvinists who beat me with the Bible instead of sharing it with me. Jesus was there with me, He saw me through the abuse, Calvin was somehow nowhere to be seen.