Morning Thanks--a Calvinist heritage

It's an age-old ritual: before worship, the consistory meets to pray for what is about to happen, to pass along whatever news is current--who needs prayer and the Lord's good mercy. My wife is an elder now, so we go to church a bit earlier than we did, maybe five minutes--they don't meet long.  

I could mill around the back of the church, but I take a seat. There's very little solemnity before worship in church these days. Few sit in silence, as most did once upon a time. Friendly chatter fill the air.

A month ago, I grabbed a book from a library outside the sanctuary--books yours for taking. This one looked noble: 365 Days with Calvin, meditations from the theology of a man whose name is baked into my life's heritage. I am a Calvinist--I fully and unequivocally accept that, for better and for worse. I'm Calvinist in predilection, and not necessarily by choice. I think and feel and perceive in ways formed unmistakably by a worldview that is, whether I like it or not, shaped by John Calvin.

I read the Institutes of the Christian Religion when I thought of myself as being as far away from its influence as I could go. In graduate school it became clear to me that I lived in the august Reformer's shadow even though I'd never read a word of his before, heard about him often but never read a page. Even though I hadn't, I came to recognize I couldn't escape the fact that I was somehow "of him."

I read The Institutes as a scholar, not an apologist. I read it to discover what all the fuss was about. I read Calvin when I couldn't help knowing that I understood Jonathan Edwards in ways the other graduate students could not--and wouldn't hope to. That was true of Melville and Dickinson too, of Thoreau and Emerson. 

So a month ago I picked up 365 Days with Calvin before taking my seat in the sanctuary. There's no librarian. The books are free--just bring 'em back when you're finished and add your own. I grabbed 365 and opened it to yet another story.


365 Days with Calvin was once a gift from Cornerstone URC consistory to someone named Kara, who, I'm guessing, "joined the church," made a public profession of faith.

I was thrilled--honestly--to think that somewhere in the neighborhood was a church who thought enough of its kids and its heritage to get Calvin's own words in their hands. 

I couldn't believe it. That Cornerstone church adds URC to its name means it willfully took itself out of the church family I'm a part of, largely for reasons that have to do with my wife being, at that moment, a woman elder in the church consistory. That church wouldn't think of ours as a friend. 

No matter. I thought both book and story wonderful.  I read the first meditation, which argues that God is light; he created light, but he was light before there was any, Calvin says. Loved it. Isn't that a great thought? I was sure we'd love 365. We'd just finished a book of meditations by Eugene Peterson, and finding good stuff isn't particularly easy. I took it home.

It didn't last a week. Listen to this, from Day 7:

Should anyone object that this passage proves that God respects works in saving men, the response is that this is not repugnant to gratuitous acceptance, since God accepts those gifts which he himself has conferred upon his servants. 

Too often the prose is really muddy yet full of sharp object; too often we simply couldn't wade through it. Didn't take a week, and we quit.

The book's binding makes it look read. I'd like to believe Kara, likely a teenager, went all the way through and have no reason to believe she didn't.  And I'm still thrilled there's a church around here who thinks enough of its own theological heritage to suggest to its kids--by way of a gift--that they need to understand something I had to walk away from in order to treasure. 

So I'm still a Calvinist, will always be, for better or worse. One of these Sundays, when my wife is praying with the elders, I'll put 365 back where someone else may pick it up. I wish it weren't so.

But I'm thankful for the book I'm returning, thankful whether or not it was the blessing I thought it would be--and thankful for elders who challenge their children and pray for them. 

This morning and every morning I'm thankful also for a legacy of Calvinist theology that is almost ritually scorned, even by devout fellow believers, a heritage I will honestly hold dear for as long as I live.