Christian Freedom

"We must now discuss Christian freedom." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1536 edition, pg. 176.

You don't know how happy I was to read those words the other day.

As part of my year long celebration of John Calvin's 500th birthday on July 19th I have been reading from and about John Calvin. I had previously read the 1559 Institutes but wanted to compare Calvin's thought as a young man. What is remarkable is the fact that the Calvin of 1536 is very much the same man in 1559. I know that I have changed greatly, especially in theological matters, in the past 23 years, and especially since I was age 27, the age that Calvin was when the Institutes was first published.

The happiness that I express above was due to the fact that I have come to what I consider to be the most important part of Calvin's work, his treatise on Christian freedom. Truthfully, the past several weeks reading left me cold. Not that Calvin's argument against the errors of Roman Catholic sacramental system wasn't both excellent and important, it just wasn't that important to me. Having never been subject to that system as a Baptist, and possibly because we live in a post-counter-reformation, post-Vatican II world, I haven't lost much sleep worrying about sacramentalism.

Yet, it is because of the above that Calvin's material on Christian freedom is so important. The world he lived in was very much different, both politically and religiously than ours today. Men are still the same now as then, but the majority of Calvin's readers had no experience with the political and religious freedom that we have come to know today. Calvin's writings opened up new possibilities, leading to new ways of thinking and eventually to new forms of government. It is no exaggeration to call Calvin the "spiritual father" of America, so radical was his thought.

Maybe it is time, once again, for us to seriously discuss Christian freedom.

Looks like your average Christian bookstore

HT: The Sacred Sandwich

Time Magazine Article

Time magazine has rated the "new Calvinism" as #3 in their series on 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.

The article is fairly balanced, but I picked up a bit of a "sneer" in the tone of the opening paragraphs.

#3? Who would have thought?

Update: It appears that this is not the first time that Time Magazine has written on Calvinism, as shown in this article on a "Calvinist Comeback" from February 1947. I also detect a bit of a "sneer" in this one as well.

2009 Reading

As I am almost done with the 2008 Puritan Reading Challenge, I am beginning to plan my reading schedule for 2009. Since next year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, I want to include him prominently in my plans.

For many years I have been in possession of the two volume 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion. J. R. Harris has a fairly ambitious reading plan to cover all of this material in one year, but following this plan might prove a bit much and still allow me to pursue other devotional reading and devote myself properly to sermon/Bible study preparation.

I also have a copy of the hard cover 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion on my bookshelf. This might be a bit easier to manage in one year, since it would require only one page per day, and I could supplement it with selections from the 1559 edition as needed.

Another reason not to tackle the 1559 version is due to my recent acquisition of two "Calvin 500" works that I would like to read next year. They are:

A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis, and
The Legacy of John Calvin: His Influence on the Modern World.

Additionally, I am in possession of Ford Lewis Battles' An Analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion of John Calvin.

I think that I could manage the 1536 Institutes, the two "Calvin 500" volumes, and Battles' Analysis, and that these would require only a small portion of my daily reading schedule. This would still allow me plenty of time for my other reading and study.

This plan is not set in stone, and I would entertain other suggestions.

UPDATE 12/30/2008: As I have considered several other Calvin reading plans that have been posted on the internet, and revisited my suggested plan shown above, I am more convinced than ever that my original plan is the one that will work for me.

As a result, in 2009 I will be reading:

1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion
A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis
The Legacy of John Calvin: His Influence on the Modern World (completed)
An Analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion of John Calvin
I will supplement, as needed to understand "An Analysis" and the other works, with selections from 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Update 7/3/2009:

At the half-way point of the year I find that I am reading the 1536 Institutes slower than I anticipated, due to having to think hard on just about every page. I should be done before the end of the year. I am still planning to complete the other books listed, and have also already competed john Piper's John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God. I have also obtained two other volumes from the Calvin500 series:

The Piety of John Calvin: A Collection of His Spiritual Prose, Poems, and Hymns, translated and edited by Ford Lewis Battles

Calvin in the Public Square: Liberal Democracies, Rights, and Civil Liberties by David W. Hall