“They [Luther and the other Reformers] did not make the Reformation. The Reformation made them” (J. W. Nevin, History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism (Chambersburg, 1847), 10).

John Hick has died (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012). For those unfamiliar with his work, influence, and reputation, Hick was a philosopher of religion and liberal theologian, a prolific and compelling author, who will unarguably go down in the history books as one of if not the most influential philosophers of religion in the twentieth century. He will be remembered, on the one hand, for his contribution to theodicy (the study of God and evil), and, on the other hand, his contribution to religious pluralism (general acceptance of a variety of religions).

I studied John Hick’s work at length with Professor Steve Horst for an independent study on theodicy while I was an undergraduate student of Philosophy and Religion at Indiana Wesleyan University. After that study I reached a similar conclusion as Gavin D’Costa (who was an undergraduate pupil of John Hick), who recently wrote Remembering John Hick in the May 2012 publication of First Things:

Even if we disagree with his answers, he pushed Christians to look at the difficult questions as he provided answers that compel and challenge. For that we should be deeply grateful to him.

Also, John Hick released an autobiography in 2005. I highly recommend it; those who read it will witness, in Hick’s own phrasing, his intellectual and emotive drift into liberalism from the moorings of Christianity.

In his Introduction, Davis provides just the right amount of up-front information regarding both the history of and the current state of affairs for Calvin’s influence and reputation in America . The result: the reader is well-informed, and is so without being over-whelmed or buried in editorial waxing-eloquent. The book’s aim is threefold, a straightforward examination of Calvin’s influence on (1) American society, (2) American theology, and (3) American letters (both fiction and nonfiction). These categories are broad, however, they are not exhaustive, and this prompts one to wonder: why does this volume limit the study of the breadth of Calvin’s influence to these three denoted spheres? It is unfortunate, but Davis does not provide the rationale for demarcation. The absence of which is the only shortcoming of the Introduction.

“While it is funny that Garrison Keillor can declare in one of his standard mock commercials for A Prairie Home Companion–”Mournful Oatmeal! The breakfast cereal of Calvinists”–it is also interesting that the people in the audience get the joke and laugh” (11).

In March, I preached a sermon on Deuteronomy 14:3-8 and it is now online.

“The Reformation may be regarded, in one view, as an entirely new life in the history of Christianity. More deeply considered however, it will be found to stand in the closest living connection with this same history, as it had been regularly developed in the bosom of the Catholic Church for centuries before. It formed no absolute rupture with the old life of the body bearing this title; on the contrary, it was only its true and legitimate continuation, through the vast convulsive crisis which threatened at the same time its total dissolution. In no other light can it be vindicated as the work of God” (J. W. Nevin, History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism (Chambersburg, 1847), 2).

I have picked up a new book and I plan on blogging through it. This will be my first blog-through-review of a book.

The Hoosier academic, Thomas J. Davis, is the editor of John Calvin’s American Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2010), and in his Introduction he notes that Calvin is used as a “stand-in for ideologies with which one either agrees or disagrees (usually vehemently.” Davis is absolutely correct. Calvin and Calvinism are, in the American public square, without doubt, controversial.

But the value of this work edited by Davis is demonstrated by what could have been a succinct (if it lacked parenthetical thoughts) statement-of-intent near the end of the Introduction. Davis says:

The point of this book is that, despite all of the changes and challenges; despite Calvinism’s ultimate failure to hold the American consciousness; and despite an especially fervent effort to dismiss the Calvinist outlook from American culture by sermon ([William Ellery] Channing and, after him, religious movements that numerically overwhelmed the old Puritan faith, such as Methodism) or by the art of letters and the novel ([Catharine] Sedgwick and others, yes, but also those deep within the tradition of Calvinism who brought their most anguished complaints against it to the light of day through their written work; one thinks of the Beecher children here) or by the sardonic newspaper column (H. L. Mencken), the fact remains that Calvinism in American has had an impact on American society and culture in every century, even if at times it has gone unrecognized. And behind Calvinism stands Calvin.

If this work achieves its aim, an honest yet irenic exploration of Calvin’s and Calvinism’s influence on American society and culture, and if the articles by the contributing authors work towards that aim without caricatured oversimplifications, then this should be an enjoyable read. I am looking forward to learning not only more about Calvin and Calvinism, being a point of interest since I am, in fact, a Calvinist, but also about the influence of Calvin’s thought and legacy on America. Which is another point of interest, since I am also an American.

Here are a couple resources I stumbled upon quite by accident.

http://www.biblewebapp.com – Designed well and the “Version 2” has some excellent features (e.g, morphology highlighting for word studies, etc.).

http://bestcommentaries.com – Draws from multiple sources for aggregate ranking of Bible commentaries. I imagine this would be useful for somebody embarking on Thesis research.

I have been listening to a collection of lectures from the 1990s on worship by James B. Jordan. Lots of excellent quips, here are a few:

“The Church creates civilization.”

“The Church is the nursery of culture.”

“The Church also is the pioneer of the Kingdom of God.”

“The Church controls the world through the liturgy of the Church.”

“So I point out that the Bible does contain a theory of reality. And this theory of reality is that of two levels of being, first, of God as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable and, second, of the universe that is derivative, finite, temporal and changeable. A position is best known by its most basic differentiation. The meanings of all words in the Christian theory of being depend upon the differentiation between the self-contained God and the created universe” (Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (4th Edition by P&R Publishing, 2008), 237).

“Let us ride the eruption of Easter” (N. D. Wilson, Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl, 197).