Those who, rejecting Scripture, imagine that they have some peculiar way of penetrating to God, are to be deemed not so much under the influence of error as madness. For certain giddy men have lately appeared, who, while they make a great display of the superiority of the Spirit, reject all reading of the Scriptures themselves, and deride the simplicity of those who only delight in what they call the dead and deadly letter. But I wish they would tell me what spirit it is whose inspiration raises them to such a sublime height that they dare despise the doctrine of Scripture as mean and childish. — John Calvin
Posted by: Jim | 10/30/2009
John Calvin On, Mutatis Mutandis, The ‘Emerging Church’ Movement
Posted in Calvin, Church History
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curious what this has to do with emerging church. Is rejecting a modernist approach to scripture for a more coherent one the same as rejecting it?
By: andrew jones (tallskinnykiwi) on 10/31/2009
at 13:37
Yes, I don’t see what this contributes to the discussion. My impression is that the emerging church is as suspicious of pentecostal-charismatic subjectivism as it is of reformed-evangelical dogmatism. No one is really protesting that giddy emerging folk are ‘making a great display of the superiority of the Spirit’, or that they are not reading the Bible. Indeed, the complaint is that they do not have much of a pneumatology and spend a lot of time misreading the Bible. Calvin should be careful not to critique something he clearly doesn’t know very much about. Or is that covered by ‘mutatis mutandis’?
By: Andrew Perriman on 10/31/2009
at 15:04
you’ll have to take your complaint up with calvin. for my part, the emergents i have encountered and discussed things with (not a lot to be sure) have made a big deal about following their own inclinations more than the bible- in order to ‘reach’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean) the masses.
so they sound very much to me like the spiritualists of the 16th century.
By: Jim on 10/31/2009
at 15:17
Mr perriman. Nice to see u here. See u again in Amsterdam next year
jim, if the people u encountered put their own inclinations above the authority of scripture, then u were right to say what u said. Sorry u met them and not the VAST majority of emerging missional practictioners who are using God’s Word and the Great Tradition of the church as the authoratative voice in the methodology of these new churches they r starting.
But plz don’t treat what u encountered as normative
peace
By: Andrew jones on 11/08/2009
at 08:35
And for what it’s worth, I find a lot of us Reading and appreciating Calvin more now than when we were pastoring traditional churches
calvin rocks!!!!!!
By: Andrew jones on 11/08/2009
at 08:38