Calvin500 Recognizes Young Scholars in Geneva
Posted: July 8, 2009 Filed under: Calvin 500 1 Comment(Geneva, Switzerland) – July 8, 2009 – Calvin 500, the international Quincentenary celebration of the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth (July 10, 1509), recognized several promising prize-winning Young Scholars as part of its commemoration of John Calvin.
As its own symposium within the Quincentenary of John Calvin’s birth, Calvin500 is pleased to announce that the following will be recognized at the Young Calvin Scholars Symposium at the Auditoire in Geneva on July 8 at 15h00. The public is cordially invited to hear synopses of these award-winning papers below.
The Calvin Prize will be awarded to Michael Habets of New Zealand for his essay, “Calvin’s Reformed Doctrine of Theosis,” at 15h10.
The Beza Prize will be awarded to Sebastian Heck of Heidelberg, Germany for his essay, “Elements of Innatism in the Thought of John Calvin,” at 15h30
The Viret Prize will be awarded to Matthew Burton of Atlanta, Georgia for his essay, “The Spirit of Calvinism in Business,” at 15h50.
The Zwingli Prize will be awarded to Michael Dewalt & Maarten Kuivenhoven of Grand Rapids, Michigan for his essay, “Calvin’s Practical View of Adoption,” at 16h10.
The Bucer Prize will be awarded to Timothy Gwin of Atlanta, Georgia for his essay, “Piety in Calvin and Erasmus, at 16h30.
The Farel Prize will be awarded to Joseph Fleener of New Zealand for his essay, “Exploring, with John Calvin, Our Adoption as Sons,” at 16h50.
Moderators for the Symposium will be Drs. David Hall, Darryl Hart, and Jon Payne.
Throughout the week, scholars and ministers are presenting lectures and sermons in these historic environs to celebrate the contributions of the Genevan reformer.
For more information and updates, visit http://www.Calvin500blog.org. Live blogging information will also be available from that page. (288)
Calvin 500 – Day Three
Posted: July 8, 2009 Filed under: Calvin 500 Leave a comment(Post by Ray Pennings)
Once again we gathered in the cathedral at 7 for a time of worship which included singing, a communal confession of sin, pastoral prayer, and the reading of the creed from John Calvin’s 1545 Catechism of the Church of Geneva. We also listened to three sermons. The first was by Dr. Stephen Lawson on Galatians 1:6-10 entitled “Guarding the Gospel.” He expounded the text with four points: Paul’s amazement, Paul’s adversaries, Paul’s anathemas, and Paul’s anger. The final sermon was by Dr. J. Ligon Duncan on Philippians 2:13-14 which he expounded under three points: A Challenge for the Indolent; A cure for pride; and a Comfort for the discouraged.
The middle sermon way by Dr. Ian Campbell on Romans 8:26,27, and 34 and was entitled “Three Great Intercessions.” In his first point “The Intercession within the veil”, Rev. Campbell used the two altars in the Old Testament as illustrative of Christ’s work of intercession. There was the altar of sacrafice and the altar of incense, the first which pointed to Christ’s work of atonement and the second which pointed to His intercession. Paul can ask rhetorically “Who is he that condemns?”, speaking of the security of the believer, not only because of what Christ has done in the atonement but what He is doing in intercession. The two are closely linked. “The atonement is real because in its very nature, it is an intercession. the intercession is real because in its very nature it is an atonement.” Christ’s very presence in heaven is an intercession — a reminder of the work he finished on earth. But although His work on earth was finished, His work itself is not finished. Although the sacrafice on the cross no longer needs to be offered, it is being continually presented.
In his second point, “The intercession within the church”, Rev. Campbell quoted Calvin noting that Christ’s interceding for us does not prevent us from interceding for each other within the church. In fact, Christ’s intercession provides every reason for believers to be bold in their prayers for each other as “the intercession of Christ has changed the throne of dread for glory into a throne of grace.” He challenged the audience with the question not did you pray, but who did you intercede for?
In his final point, “The intercession within our hearts”, Rev. Campbell focused on the words “groanings which cannot be uttered.” He used the illustration of a personal care health worker who needs to take care of our most intimate needs, and some do it with a grace and respect that we hardly realize what has happened. So the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, turning our incoherence whose meaning is lost even to ourselves into something that is perfectly heard as eloquence in heaven. He notes the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts is coordinated with the work of the Son in heaven, and so “heaven is brought to earth before the believer is ever brought to heaven.” He urged his hearers to be active in using “the inconceivable preciousness of the throne of grace.”
The lighting in the cathedral was sombre as a thunderstorm brought down rain and the stained glass looked very different with the backdrop of a darkened sky. Yet, I was not alone in sensing a particular power in the worship, having been given by the preaching a chance as it were, to stand on our tippy-toes and see something of the glories of the redemption wrought by God in His people. Dr. Duncan concluded his sermon noting that the reason Jesus named Lazarus when he called him from the grave — “Lazarus, come forth” — was that His word is so powerful that had he not named Lazarus but just said “Come forth”, every person would have come from the grave. Such is the power that is at work in the lives of believers! After three verses of build-up with the assistance of the majestic organ, the final verse of the final song was sang acapella with a particular fervour:
Hallelujahs render
To the Lord most tender
Ye who know and love the Saviour.
Hallelujahs sing ye,
Ye redeemed, oh bring ye
Hearts that yield hiim glad behaviour.
Blest are ye
Endlessly;
Sinless there forever,
Ye shall laud him ever.
(from Wondrous King All Glorious, Joachim Neander, 1680)
Calvin500 Day Two
Posted: July 8, 2009 Filed under: Calvin 500 Leave a commentThe Calvin500 Anniversary Conference officially started their events this morning with five papers presented between 9:00am – 1:00pm. This morning was like what we will be seeing for the rest of the week: every morning there are addresses given by a number of well-known Calvin scholars from around the world. The speakers and their papers this morning (July 6th) included:
Dr. Douglas Kelly: “The Catholicity of the Theology of John Calvin”
Dr. Richard Gamble: “Recent Research in Calvin Studies”
Dr. Darryl Hart: “Calvin Among Nineteenth-Century Reformed Protestants in the United States”
Dr. Robert Kingdon: “Calvin and Ecclesiastical Discipline”
Dr. John Witte: “Reading Calvin as a Lawyer”
The papers presented throughout the week include a number of different studies on Calvin and about Calvinism. From dealing with “The Catholicity of the Theology of John Calvin,” all the way to “Calvin and his Children.”
The addresses this week are all given in the The Auditorie de Calvin. For those of you who do not know exactly what that is—it is where John Calvin taught his students during the Reformation. This particular building is one of the many that the Lord has used for His church and it has a very long history of Christian worship since the 15th century. The Auditorie de Calvinbecame a significant center for the development of the new Reformed thinking that was shaking the foundations of medieval Europe. Calvin would hold meetings in the building in 1557, as he and his other theologians would teach, take questions, and allow debates. It was also the church in which John Knox the Scotsman ministered in English between 1556—1559.
For a taste of what is going on, here is a small tidbit of Darryl Hart’s paper:
“Church life in the newly established United States presented an unusual set of circumstances for most Protestants. The disestablishment of religion that the Constitution’s First Amendment codified set most communions on a voluntaristic footing. Unlike previous arrangements where churches received subsidies from the state as part of the official apparatus of the nation, disestablishment in principle leveled all churches, made them dependent on their own followers for financial support, and freed each denomination to regulate its own affairs independent from the oversight of government. To be sure, at the state level ecclesiastical establishments remained in place after 1789, and those legal arrangements lasted the longest in New England thanks to the Standing Order among Congregationalists in Connecticut and Massachusetts. But despite the longevity of state churches in various places, the First Amendment signaled the future of church life; denominations would not receive state subsidies and in turn would be free to pursue their ministries as they deemed best.10
The new political context for the churches gave an advantage to denominations that were either independent of tax support or less particular about a learned ministry. Baptists and Methodists expanded dramatically during the first half of the nineteenth century while Episcopalians and Congregationalists lagged behind. Because Presbyterians had never enjoyed an establishment status in any of the American colonies or states, they had figured out ways to minister without the support their counterparts in places like Scotland possessed. Even so, demands for pastors who knew Greek and Hebrew, not to mention a prior training in the liberal arts, put Presbyterians at a disadvantage in American church life, perhaps not as great as that experienced by Episcopalians and Congregationalists, but sufficiently burdensome to prevent Presbyterians from competing with Baptists and Methodists as the most popular and rapidly growing Protestant denominations in the new nation.”11
For the evening sessions:
Ray Pennings writes:
“This evening, we had a time of worship in the cathedral that included three sermons. Dr. Philip Ryken preached on I Corinthians 16:5-11, “A Wide Door for Spreading the Gospel in which he highlighted (1) the constraints of the call; (2) the openness of the doors; and (3) the strength of the opposition. Dr. Peter Lilliback preached on I Corinthians 1:29-31, “All the Glorious Offices of Christ” in which he described how Christ as a Redeemer functions as prophet, priest and king. In the final message, Dr. Robert Godfrey expounded John 17:3 focusing on (1) the life that is eternal; (2) the God who is true; and (3) the Christ who God has sent.”
10 Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 143-53, provides a helpful overview of the new American environment for church life.
11 See Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd ed., (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005), for a provocative study of Protestants in America’s religious free market.
Gospel-Centered Musings 