248 - Theology of the Reformers         John Calvin & the Church: A Prism of Reform

Theology of the Reformers
By Timothy George
Nashville, Broadman, 1988. 337 pp. $21.95.

John Calvin & the Church: A Prism of Reform
Edited By Timothy George
Louisville, Westminster/John Knox, 1990. 276 pp. $14.95.

The above books are of the essence of scholarship, filled with fresh insight and enthusiasm for the subject. In his Theology of the Reformers, George, Dean of the Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, creates a masterpiece and model of what Christian scholarship is all about. Here we are in the hands of a consummate scholar, who probes the life and thought of his subjects within the context of a desire to be guided by and obedient to the same truth and power that inspired them. Without yielding to hagiography or imposing personal values of his own upon his subject, George presents us with a stirring and incisive review of the Reformers' key insights as well as an analysis of their significance for the church today.

For decades, students of the Reformation have enjoyed access to a plethora of scholarship focusing on the individual Reformers. A welcome stream of competently researched and ably written histories has provided scholars and the church alike with enlightening backgrounds for comprehending the social and political dimensions of the Reformation. But no study in recent times, to my knowledge, has focused on the theology per se of the major Reformers in a manner that (1) illumines their “theological self-understanding,” while (2) evaluating the period as a serious movement of the Spirit of God within the Christian tradition, resplendent with normative value and inspiration for our time. These are the twin interests George explores throughout his useful book.

The author explains that his desire is to present “an in-depth sounding of… formative figures rather than a broad sampling;” hence he concentrates on Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Menno, each of whom stands “at the headwater of a major confessional tradition in the Reformation.”

Following an introductory chapter in which he examines the anxieties and thirst for God characteristic of the Late Middle Ages, George devotes a significantly substantive chapter to each Reformer. Judiciously blending primary and secondary sources, George incorporates the latest contemporary assessments along with the seasoned judgments of the past. George reminds us that all four Reformers were first and foremost servants of the Word of God. In addition to being

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teachers and writers, each was a noted preacher; each understood the role of the church as an institution for the study and dissemination of the Bible and theology.

Luther was both a listener to and doer of the Word. While understanding the primacy of revelation, he knew that “human existence is lived out coram Deo, 'before God,' “ that “concern with God is a life-and-death matter.” His true legacy is not his “saintliness of life,” George claims, but “his spiritual insight into the gracious character of God in Jesus Christ.”

George's coverage of Zwingli is poignant and penetrating. Referring to him as “the most misunderstood” of the reformers, George claims that he “took more literally than Luther the sola of sola scriptura. “ He would contribute much to Calvin's development. Of Zwingli, George surmises: “He was a biblical theologian whose humanistic impulses were tempered by his Christocentrism no less than by his views on providence and predestination.”

It is for Calvin that George reserves the most space. His “great achievement was to take the classic insights of the Reformation … and give them a clear, systematic exposition … and to adapt them to the civic setting of Geneva.” For eighty-eight pages, George probes “the man behind the myth,” a figure “highly esteemed” while “meanly despised.” The Calvin he recovers for us is a man keenly aware of the “contingent character of human life.” While deploring the Genevan's “coercive view of society, his intolerance of dissenters, and his acquiesence in the death of Servetus,” George applauds his stress “on the sovereign initiative of God in salvation” and his “vision of the church as the special creation of the Holy Spirit, a community which can point men and women beyond itself to the transcendent sources of their lives and of life itself.”

Menno, “the odd fellow out,” also receives significant attention. George sees him as a responsible and stable voice amid the more radical left-wing theologians of the time. Yet no other Anabaptist surpassed Menno “in embodying the Anabaptist vision.” Our author reminds us that the Anabaptists are rightfully to be credited with religious toleration, which came at such a cruel and tragic price.

The last chapter is a magnificent statement concerning “The Abiding Validity of Reformation Theology.” For George, it is clearly a “movement of the Spirit of God,” carrying “an enduring significance for the church of Jesus Christ” and our lives today.

All historians of the period, seminarians (both students and professors), pastors, and church leaders should welcome this book, enjoy reading it, and benefit greatly from it.

John Calvin & the Church: A Prism of Reform contains selected papers presented during the first four colloquia on Calvin Studies, sponsored by the Davidson College Presbyterian Church and convened at Davidson College between 1982 and 1988. George provides the collection with a succinct and illuminating introduction in which he

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emphasizes a primary theme of the Theology of the Reformers, that the church indeed is a fitting institution for the study and dissemination of the Bible and theology. Contributors include William Bouwsma, Roland Frye, and Elsie McKee-to name but a few. All the book's fourteen essays are worth reading for their insight into Calvin and Calvinism as well as his and its significance for our time.

BENJAMIN W. FARLEY

Erskine College
Due West, South Carolina