Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Humor of John Calvin

by CWK


No one has more bad press as a grim theologian than John Calvin. 


However, when we turn to the actual man, he said things like this, commenting on John 14.12, “All that (Jesus) had hitherto told his disciples about himself, so far as it regarded them, was temporal; and therefore, if he had not added this clause, the consolation would not have been complete; particularly since our memory is so short, when we are called to consider the gifts of God. On this subject it is unnecessary to go to others for examples; for, when God has loaded us with every kind of blessings, if he pause for fourteen days, we fancy that he is no longer alive.” 


And this,


Bishops who think they imitate Christ by breathing on their ordinands are not "like actors whose gestures have some art and meaning," he jeered, "but like apes, which imitate everything wantonly and without any discrimination" (Institutes 4.19.29).

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