Thursday, June 3, 2010

Recommended Read: How John Calvin Made Me a Catholic

Living in a predominantly Calvinistic city, I found the article, How John Calvin Made Me a Catholic by Dr. David Anders, a very interesting read.  Here are some quotes that struck me:

I discovered that Calvin upset my Evangelical view of history. I had always assumed a perfect continuity between the Early Church, the Reformation and my Church. The more I studied Calvin, however, the more foreign he seemed, the less like Protestants today. This, in turn, caused me to question the whole Evangelical storyline: Early Church – Reformation – Evangelical Christianity, with one seamless thread running straight from one to the other. But what if Evangelicals really weren’t faithful to Calvin and the Reformation? The seamless thread breaks. And if it could break once, between the Reformation and today, why not sooner, between the Early Church and the Reformation? 


Calvin shocked me by rejecting key elements of my Evangelical tradition. Born-again spirituality, private interpretation of Scripture, a broad-minded approach to denominations – Calvin opposed them all. I discovered that his concerns were vastly different, more institutional, even more Catholic. Although he rejected the authority of Rome, there were things about the Catholic faith he never thought about leaving. He took for granted that the Church should have an interpretive authority, a sacramental liturgy and a single, unified faith.


I would highly recommend reading this article.

2 comments:

Madison said...

isnt that then just eastern orthodox church?

Carlus Henry said...

Madison,

How so?