The Discernment Process 5

In their book, Discerning God’s Will Together: A Spiritual Practice for the Church (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1997), Danny Morris and Charles Olsen lay out ten movements in the discernment process.  Their approach diverges from a strict use of parliamentary procedures and other models that function in the business world.  “To discern” is to see or hear God’s will as it is revealed by the Holy Spirit.  This means that group discernment is a spiritual exercise and Christian leaders need to use a process that honors this reality.

Morris and Olsen employ a few different visual images to illustrate their approach to the process.  The visual image that we chose was that of a reflection pool with many different stepping-stones.  Each stone represents a movement in the discernment process as we go from stone to stone across the pool.  This is not a strictly linear process because one may skip stones or revisit stones.  As a Session, trying to discern God’s dream for First Presbyterian Church, we spent time on each of these stones.  I will briefly define the stepping-stones and then in the next blog start to share the result of the process.

Framing.  The primary objective here is to state the subject for discernment.  Because we were seeking guidance, the question is: “God, what are you guiding us to do?” 

Grounding.  We ask the question: “What is the guiding principle?”  This helps us define the boundaries of what we will discuss and the aim of our effort.  For us, the guiding principle was centered on the question:  “What is God’s will for teaching and serving people in need?”

Shedding.  This involves naming and setting aside our own egos, pre-judgments, assumptions and preferences.  The “test for indifference” is critical.  Each member of the group is asked to consider in their own hearts whether they are indifferent to anything but God’s will.

Rooting.  Participants are asked to root their discernment in biblical images and church tradition.  We were already working with the “dream” image because of Lucia’s question.  This is an image well-represented in scripture, church and society.

Listening.  We ask the question: “What voices do we need to hear?”  We heard from the congregation, from the neighborhood association, from various non-profits in our community.  We engaged in silent prayer to listen to what the Spirit of God was saying to us.

Exploring.  We listed on a large sheet of paper the possible options suggested to us.  We then reduced the list to a manageable number of options through a process of combination, elimination, and re-arrangement.

Improving.  We sought to make each option the best that it could be. 

Weighing.  We began the process of moving toward a preference(s).    The question was asked:  “Upon which option does the Spirit rest?”  The book suggests several different means for arriving at a preference.  I originally suggested that we use the means of “biblically launched imagination,” but later discovered that this worked neither for me nor for others in the group.   We ended up with a combination of two means:  1) the practice of allowing the Spirit to “lure” us to a particular path and 2) thinking about the likely fruits that would be produced.   

Closing.  The process begins to move toward a conclusion.  We test for consensus.  Some members of the group may have concerns or uneasiness, but the process can still move forward.  Only if someone cannot support the consensus does it present a red flag and signal that more work needs to be done or the matter dropped altogether.   We did move forward.

Resting.  Here we ask the question: “How does it feel?”  We rest the decision near our hearts and look for consolation or desolation.  Do we have a sense of peace about the decision?  Or, does it cause discomfort?  A true discernment of God’s will draws the group closer to God and to each other.  We should not feel distress or alienation.

The process outlined above is an ongoing one.  We seek to know how God is at work in the world and how we can be a part of God’s work.  The process of discernment needs to be re-visited again and again!

The Discernment Process 4

I return now to the process the Session used to discern God’s dream for First Presbyterian Church.  As I mentioned earlier, we began with three open forums in June, July and August of 2008.  Members of the congregation were invited to share their dreams for the church.  As you might imagine, the result was a long list of different possibilities.  We have a good group of dreamers!  But what to do with this long list?

We held a series of special Session retreats in November of 2008 and January and February of 2009.   Enough progress was made that we could then set aside time for spiritual discernment in our regular monthly Session meetings.

The book we were using at our special retreats, Discerning God’s Will Together by Danny Morris and Charles Olsen (Nashville, Upper Room Books, 1997), has an intriguing  introduction.  The authors make the point that the discernment process is not a tug-of-war between two competing groups, each wanting to go their own way.  That process produces winners and losers.  Spiritual discernment is more like a group dance with everyone moving in and out, circling and weaving.  At the end of the dance, the group reaches a point of stillness and silence, and discovers a new path that had previously gone unobserved.  The authors describe their book as laying out a process like a dance.

What to do with the long list of dreams?  Dance with it!  We stayed with the dance metaphor early in our retreat time.  I introduced three other voices urging us to dance.

First, I shared the following submission to a church newsletter (author unknown).

“When I meditated on the word GUIDANCE, I kept seeing ‘dance’ at the end of the word.  I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.  When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.  The movement doesn’t flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.  When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music.  One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.  It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully.  The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

“Next, my eyes drew back to the word GUIDANCE.  When I saw ‘G,’ I thought of God, followed by ‘u’ and ‘i’.  ‘God,’ ‘u’ and ‘i’ dance.  God, you and I dance.  As I lowered by head, I became willing to trust that I would get guidance about my life.  Once again, I became willing to let God lead.”

The dance that Morris and Olsen describe may seem “chaotic” at times, but we can trust that God is leading the dance.

Second, I read some of the poetry of Ann Weems  in Reaching for Rainbows (Philadelphia, Westminster, 1980).  The first selection occurs in reading titled “Lord of the Dance,” and the second is from “A Litany of Creation and Faith.”

 “When they ask what happened here,
We’ll simply say
Christ came by and we learned his dance.”   

“What would it take to snap you awake?
What would it take to make you alive and free to react,
            to respond, to live to God’s music?
Once there was a time when you danced.  Remember?  You
            weren’t afraid to dance then.
Once you could cry and laugh and dance and sing.”

For many of us dancing is a discipline we need to recover from our past.  When Christ is present among us, he does engage us in a dance of sorts.  We must be willing to become children again!

Third, because we were meditating on dance, it seemed appropriate to turn to music.  We stood in a circle and listened to a song by Ken Medema, “Dance in the Cross Roads” (on the Little Pictures album).  The chorus goes like this:

“Come and dance here at the cross roads . . .
Holy ground and sacred land.
Come and dance here with your best friend
Or maybe take a stranger’s hand.
Come surrender to the rhythm
Though it means you take a chance.
Take the step, take the risk, come and dance!”

Ken’s music has been a positive influence on us at many of our meetings.  In fact, we have now invited Ken to lead worship and host a concert at First Presbyterian Church.  He will be here on Sunday, December 6, 2009 (check our church website for ticket information).  Ken will help us all to dance and encourage us to dream.

More from the Morris and Olsen book next time.

The Discernment Process 3

Before I return to the Session’s work of discernment, I want to share a column I wrote in the Green Bay Press Gazette on March 13, 2009.  It was my attempt to share the dream concept with a wider audience.  What follows is the unedited version of my column.

God has a dream for our world.  God’s dream is conveyed through various biblical characters, from Jacob at Bethel to John on the island of Patmos.  Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven (Gen 28:12).  John dreamed of heaven coming down upon the earth (Rev 21:2).  While God’s dream is revealed through various characters from Genesis to Revelation, the central character is Jesus.  The Spirit anointed Jesus to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free (Lu 4:18).  The same Spirit awakens us to God’s dream.  When the Spirit is poured out upon the church, young people see visions and the elderly dream dreams (Acts 2:17).  To follow Jesus and be illumined by the Spirit is to be a dreamer!

Some of our most admired leaders have used the biblical imagery of the dream to convey their hopes for our world.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech eloquently expressed his hope for racial equality and social justice.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his book God Has A Dream, wrote of a world whose poverty, war, greed and alienation would be changed into their glorious counterparts of compassion, peace, sharing and love.  It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said that the future belongs to those with beautiful dreams.

We see God’s dream when we read the Scripture, hear the preaching of the Word, and experience the Spirit’s work in our hearts and minds.  The Spirit teaches us and equips us to follow Jesus, who, more than anyone else, embodied God’s dream for the world.  The spiritual disciplines of study, reflection, worship, and prayer are essential for tracing the contours of God’s dream.  The season of Lent is an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to the practice of these disciplines so that we can view the world with new eyes.

But more than seeing, we also need to live the dream.  We need to wear it every day.  We do this by participating in the life of a Christian community; one that is making the effort to discern what God is doing in the world.  As a member of this community, each of us must take seriously our sense of personal calling.  God calls each of us to be servants of a vision that is larger than ourselves.  In answer to this call, we offer God our worshipful work.

Finally, we are to share God’s dream with others.  We bring it to our neighborhoods, our city, and any place God directs us.  I am a relative newcomer to Green Bay, but I have seen that God’s dream is alive here.  Churches are sharing God’s dream through ministries to the poor, the homeless, the hungry and the sick.  It is especially heartening to see Christians engaged in collaborative efforts and ecumenical partnerships to keep God’s dream alive.  What we cannot do alone, we can do together.  Let us dream of even greater things to the glory of God! 

The Discernment Process 2

In July of 2008, I attended a conference on the Spiritual Life in North Carolina.  I wanted to meet one of the presenters, Rev. Marjorie Thompson.  Our church had used her book Soulfeast for our Lenten study and I wanted to share some of my reactions to her book.  I did have breakfast with Marjorie one morning.  I thoroughly enjoyed her keynote addresses and our conversation over breakfast.

Something else emerged from that conference that I had not anticipated.  One of the workshop leaders was Rev. Stephen Bryant.  Stephen led a three-part workshop titled “Nourishing the Soul of the Congregation.”  He made the point that one of the things vital congregations do is to create pathways for spiritual growth.  Leaders can help people notice God’s presence in their lives, and encourage people in the spiritual practices, by offering them a map of the spiritual journey.  Leaders need to attend to their own spiritual journeys and invite others to come with them.

How do we set a map before ourselves and others?  Stephen suggested that the Scripture itself provides some examples.  One such map comes from the Old Testament:  bondage—liberation—promised land.  We journey with the children of Israel and experience slavery to sin, salvation, the wilderness (murmuring, loss of faith), and the promised land (regaining faith).  Another map might be derived from the Apostle Paul: repentance—faith—good works.   Such maps will increase the participation of people and contribute to their spiritual development.

At the time that I was involved in Stephen’s workshops, I was thinking about Lucia’s question: What are your dreams for the church?  I began to toss around the idea of whether the dream concept might be able to provide us with a spiritual map.  I talked with Stephen about this and he seemed genuinely excited.  He mentioned a number of “dreamers” in the Scripture, beginning with Jacob (Genesis 35). 

But how could the dream function like a map?  I recalled Desmond Tutu’s book: God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time (Doubleday, 2004).   Working with Tutu’s claim that God has a dream, I proposed a spiritual map that would challenge the church to see the dream, live the dream, and share the dream.

• See the dream.  We need a vision of what God wants for the world.  Through the practices of prayer, study of the Scripture, worship, and contemplation, God’s dream is revealed to us.  We can set aside our own broken dreams for something better.
• Live the dream.  We need to participate in a faith community that models God’s dream to the world.  Through practices like the faithful stewardship of creation, and our willingness to forgive one another and care for one another, we demonstrate that God’s dream makes a difference.
• Share the dream.  What we see and live, we share with others.  We practice evangelism, and engage in ministries of hospitality and social justice and peace-making.

When I returned home, I shared this spiritual map with the Session and with a marketing consultant who had been hired by the Evangelism Committee.  We concluded that the dream concept had good potential to move us forward.  It had its roots in Lucia’s question, it had important connections to the practices of the spiritual life, and it was a biblical concept.  We soon decided to “brand” our church as the place “Where God’s Dream Is Alive.”  Our website, our literature, our programs and new initiatives would all be related to God’s dream.

My next task was to write a column for the Green Bay Press-Gazette in which I laid out the dream concept for the larger Christian community.  I will share that with you next time.

The Discernment Process 1

It all began on April 26, 2008.  I had been the pastor at First Presbyterian Church for a mere four months.  The session received a letter from Lucia Stanfield telling us that she would be sending a major financial gift.  The last question of her letter was:  “What dreams/hopes for the near future are you wishing for?”

This question set the session on the path of discernment.  How do we answer it?  In our search for an answer, the monetary gift became secondary.  The primary questions were: What is God’s dream for us and how do we discover it?

At a retreat at St. Norbert’s Abbey on May 31, 2008, the session made its first attempt to find answers.  We decided that we needed to get the whole church dreaming.  We shared Lucia’s letter with the congregation.  We held a series of “open forums” in June, July and August at which we invited members to share their dreams for the church.  These dreams were then posted in “dream clouds” in the church hallway for all to see and ponder.

We also invited Lucia to the August “open forum” so that she could hear some of our dreams and participate in the conversation.  It was a wonderful time for her to connect with many old friends.  I told her in a subsequent letter that the session had committed to a process of reflection and prayer about these dreams.  I mentioned that we would use a book by Danny Morris and Charles Olsen titled, Discerning God’s Will Together.

As we began the process of studying that book in a series of session “retreats,” Lucia died in late October.   This saddened us greatly.  She has left a wonderful legacy to the church in her past giving, but most importantly in her stimulating final question to us: What are your dreams?

More about the importance of this metaphor next time.

Calvin and Clapton 2

Calvin and Clapton 2

I have found another interesting connection between John Calvin and Eric Clapton.  It comes from Clapton’s Pilgrim album, and the lead song by that name.  The song contains the following lyrics at a couple of different points:

Standing in the shadows
With my heart right in my hand,
Removed from other people
Who could never understand.

As I recall this was the album Clapton made shortly after his “surrender”/sobriety and he said in various interviews that it was autobiographical.  One of the sources for the image of holding your heart in your hand comes from John Calvin.

In the Institutes, Calvin often refers to the heart.  He wrote that “when we have to deal with God nothing is achieved unless we begin from the inner disposition of the heart” (3.3.16).  Calvin was first and foremost a pastor, and he insisted that what Christ taught “must enter our heart and pass into our daily living, and so transform us into itself that it may not be unfruitful for us” (3.6.4).

So important was this point to Calvin that he reinforced it on his personal seal.  His personal seal was an image of an extended hand holding a heart.

 

The inscription read: My heart, I give you, O God, promptly and sincerely.

I find it very interesting that not only did Clapton have a life-changing experience similar to Calvin’s description of repentance, but that afterwards he wrote a song that drew upon an image that was also important to Calvin.  I do not think this is coincidence.  Rather, both individuals are expressing what are fundamental spiritual truths.  Turns out Calvin is relevant to a modern, hall-of-fame, rock musician!

Calvin and Clapton

Calvin and Clapton

It seems unlikely that anyone has ever mentioned John Calvin and Eric Clapton in the same breath!  The only reason I have been led to do so is that after reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), I chose to read Clapton: The Autobiography (2007).

I had earlier given this book to my son, because, like Clapton, he had taught himself to play the guitar and also, like Clapton, he enjoys all styles of music but especially the R & B, folk genre.  My son recently returned the book to me, knowing that I would enjoy it too.  I thought it would offer a nice diversion after reading Calvin.  What I did not expect was to see a connection between Calvin’s thought and Clapton’s experience of life.  But this was exactly what I saw.

Clapton’s autobiography offers a seemingly endless cycle of his playing in different bands, succumbing to various addictions, including heroin, and failing in his many relationships with women.  During his second stay at a drug treatment center in 1987, he finally hit what he described as complete despair.

 “At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees.  In the privacy of my room I begged for help.  I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, I had nothing left to fight with.  Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my pride just wouldn’t allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn’t going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.

“Within a few days I realized that something had happened for me.  An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that’s true, but there was much more to it than that.  I had found a place to turn to, a place I’d always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in.  From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety” (235-36).

Clapton goes on to say that he has now learned to talk to God.  He has since founded a drug treatment center, and has remained sober for more than twenty years.  He is now married and has four daughters.  His music is superb.

So what does this all have to do with John Calvin?  It reminded me of what Calvin wrote about repentance in Book 3, Chapter 3, sections 6-8.  Calvin made three basic points about repentance.

First, Calvin calls repentance a “turning of life to God” that involves a transformation of the soul.  Clapton is right, it is much more than merely a change in attitude.

Second, Calvin describes repentance as proceeding from “an earnest fear of God.”  This might not seem to fit with Clapton’s experience, until we recognize how this manifests itself.  Calvin suggests that it begins with a “dread and hatred of sin.”  God brings us to this point of hating sin by pricking us, by penetrating with His rods, and beating us down with His hammers.  This is necessary, Calvin says, in order for God to overcome our obstinacy.  For Clapton, this showed itself in his despair, and in his finally being willing to set aside his pride and surrender to God.

Third, Calvin argues that repentance includes both mortification of the flesh and vivification of the spirit.  Basically, we put to death our old way of life and live a new life.  Clapton has done so, remaining drug-free and helping others struggling with their addictions.

I do not mean to suggest that Eric Clapton is a Christian, although he may be for all I know.  He is certainly a better human being as a result of having a personal, spiritual experience along the lines of what Calvin described as repentance.   In that respect, Clapton offers a contemporary example of what we all need to do in order to find peace in our lives.

Calvin on Predestination

Calvin on Predestination: the Elephant in the Room

I accomplished my goal of reading through John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion before May 30.  The continuing education event that I led for those in the Commissioned Lay Pastor program was moved to First Presbyterian Church in Neenah because of the size of the group.  Some 15-20 lay pastors registered for the class.  It was a joy for me to be with them on May 30 and to guide them through some of my reflections on the continuing relevance of Calvin’s theology and ministry.

One of the first things I wanted to address with the group was what I described as “the elephant in the room.”  I wanted to politely usher this elephant out of the room so that we could focus on Calvin’s views on church unity, the environment, war, financial stewardship, education and the spiritual practice of contemplation.  If we had had the time, Calvin’s views on immigration and health care would also have been worth investigating given their urgency today.  Before we could consider timely issues such as this, however, we had to face the way that Calvin is usually “branded,” that is, as the theologian of predestination.  Even the new Calvin DVD, which we viewed, did Calvin a disfavor by discussing this topic early in the video under the “Character of God,” rather than waiting to treat it where Calvin puts it in the Institutes, viz. under the Christian Life. 

Predestination is certainly prominent in the culture’s portrayal of Calvin.  TIME magazine, in its March 23, 2009 issue, identified what it called “The New Calvinism” as one of the 10 ideas that are currently changing the world.  The author, David Van Biema, writes that “Calvinism is back . . . John Calvin’s 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism’s buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism’s latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination’s logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time’s dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.”

When I attended the Calvin Studies Society Conference (April 16-18, 2009), I heard Richard Mouw give his response to Van Biema.  His response has since appeared in print in the May 25, 2009 issue of The Presbyterian Outlook.  Mouw states that he is not too happy with Van Biema’s description of Calvin’s ideas; he would prefer a softer, more broad ranging account—which he then seeks to offer.  The elements of this account include references to sacred history, personal experience, and community ethics.  One point with which Mouw says he has no quarrel is with TIME magazine’s emphasis on the centrality of predestination in the Calvinist system.

I am not sure I wish to quarrel with either TIME or Mouw, but I do want to make a few simple points that together might suggest moving the doctrine a bit off center, at least in Calvin’s thought, if not in the later Calvinist system.

First, it is important to note where Calvin places his treatment of predestination in the Institutes. It is not in Book One, where Calvin treats what Van Biema describes as the “sovereign and micromanaging deity.”  Nor is it in Book Two, where Calvin treats the “sinful and puny humanity” and our need for a Redeemer.  It is most certainly not the result of some logical deduction Calvin draws from his views of God and humanity.  Calvin places his treatment of predestination in Book Three, which is his treatment of the Holy Spirit and the Christian Life.  In fact, he places it near the end of this treatment—the only topic to follow is the final resurrection!  Moreover, of the 1,521 pages of the Battles translation, 67 pages or less than half of 1%, is given to a discussion of predestination.

Second, Calvin tells us that he treats the subject because it is taught in Scripture and therefore it benefits the Christian to believe it.  We would miss these benefits if we remained silent.  However, Calvin himself apparently knew when to remain silent.  Calvin wrote a catechism for children to prepare them to make a profession of faith before receiving the Lord’s Supper and in this catechism he does not even mention predestination.  So evidently it is those who advance in piety (adults) who will derive some benefits from their belief in predestination, but only if they recognize certain constraints.  Calvin cautions those who investigate the doctrine to curb their curiosity and not speculate into the secret will of God by going beyond Scripture.

Third, what Scripture tells us is that God elects the nation of Israel and individuals within the nation; God elects Jesus Christ and individuals who will be members of the body of Christ.  So God elects a community of which the individual is then a part.  For Christians, this means that they should always start with Christ when contemplating predestination.  “Christ, then, is the mirror wherein we must, and without self-deception may, contemplate our own election” (III.xxiv.5).   Calvin has a very Christocentric view of election.  The benefits that come to Christians from election are no different from the benefits that come from Christ.

Fourth, while Christians may contemplate their own election as members of Christ and his body, they ought not to pass judgment on others.  Calvin says, for example, that it is evil to tell someone that if they do not believe, the reason is that they have already been divinely destined for destruction.  On this point, Calvin quotes Augustine: “For as we know not who belongs to the number of the predestined or who does not belong, we ought to be so minded as to wish that all men be saved” (III.xxiii.14).

In his own words, Calvin, a bit later, writes as follows:  “For here we are not bidden to distinguish between reprobate and elect—that is for God alone, not for us, to do—but to establish with certainty in our hearts that all those who, by the kindness of God the Father, through the working of the Holy Spirit, have entered into fellowship with Christ, are set apart as God’s property and personal possession; and that when we are of their number we share that great grace” (IV.i.3).

Calvin writes something similar in his commentary on John 17:9:  “We ought to pray that this and that and every man may be saved and so embrace the whole human race, because we cannot yet distinguish the elect from the reprobate . . . we pray for the salvation of all whom we know to have been created in God’s image and who have the same nature as ourselves; and we leave to God’s judgment those whom He knows to be reprobate.”

We have an example of Calvin’s refusal to identify a reprobate person in a letter to Duchess Renee of Ferrara.  Her son-in-law, the Duke of Guise, had persecuted Protestants in France.  After his death, the Duchess was disturbed by the fact that her Protestant pastor had labeled the Duke one of the reprobate.  In his letter to her, Calvin is clear that he does not share the pastor’s judgment:  “To pronounce that he is damned, however, is to go too far, unless one had some certain and infallible mark of his reprobation.  For that we must guard against presumption and temerity, for [there is no one who can know that] but one Judge before whose tribunal we have all to render an account” (E. McKee, ed., John Calvin: Writings on Pastoral Piety, p. 310).

The reader will have to determine whether the four points above are enough to move predestination off center in the Calvinist system.  It seems that given its placement in the Institutes, its limitation to Scripture, its focus on the mirror of Christ, and the ultimate mystery of its application to others, it at least has no special claim to occupy the center of Calvin’s own thought.

Calvin on the Spiritual Practice of Contemplation

Calvin on the Spiritual Practice of Contemplation

In his treatment of monasticism, Calvin is clear that he does not like it very much, even in its ancient as opposed to medieval form.  He believes it is founded upon the mistaken opinion “that a more perfect rule of life can be devised than the common one committed by God to the whole church” (IV.xiii.12).  From Calvin’s own writings one can certainly distill a rule of life consisting of many spiritual practices that he believed applied to every Christian.  Thus, in the Institutes he discusses such practices as worship, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, among others.

His preferred term for the spiritual life is piety.  “I call ‘piety’ that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces.  For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service.  Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him” (I.ii.i). 

For Calvin, then, to be spiritual is to be pious.  While he eschews monasticism and avoids the Latin term “spirituality,” Calvin does employ two terms that were significant in the earlier literature on the spiritual life; namely, contemplation and meditation.  The terms appear to be synonymous in his writing, and often appear with similar words such as ponder, consider, reflect, etc.  Still, it seems that at times Calvin has specific practices in mind.

For example, in Book One, Calvin often encourages the reader to contemplate God in his works of creation.  Language itself is inadequate to the task.  He writes:  “Indeed, if we chose to explain in a fitting manner how God’s inestimable wisdom, power, justice, and goodness shine forth in the fashioning of the universe, no splendor, no ornament of speech, would be equal to an act of such great magnitude.  There is no doubt that the Lord would have us uninterruptedly occupied in this holy meditation; that, while we contemplate in all creatures, as in mirrors, those immense riches of his wisdom, justice, goodness, and power, we should not merely run over them cursorily, and, so to speak, with a fleeting glance; but we should ponder them at length, turn them over in our minds seriously and faithfully, and recollect them repeatedly” (I.xiv.21).

It would seem that he is suggesting some uninterrupted time spent out in nature; putting oneself in a position to simply be filled with wonder.  Moreover, Calvin resorts to the traditional spiritual language of ascent and descent when describing how we need to go beyond rational thought when contemplating God.  On the one hand, he writes that “the best way to contemplate the divine is where minds are lifted above themselves with admiration” (I.xi.3).  On the other hand, Calvin uses expressions like a person should “descend within himself to find God” (I.v.3) or “descend into ourselves and contemplate” (I.v.10; cf. IV.xvii.40).  It sounds almost like the Quaker practice of centering.

It is also important to Calvin that his readers meditate upon the teachings of Scripture.  “It is therefore clear that God has provided the assistance of the Word for the sake of all those to whom he has been pleased to give useful instruction because he foresaw that his likeness imprinted upon the most beautiful form of the universe would be insufficiently effective.  Hence, we must strive onward by this straight path if we seriously aspire to the pure contemplation of God.  We must come, I say, to the Word . . .” (I.vi.3).  His famous metaphor is that the Word provides “the aid of spectacles” to clearly show us the true God (I.vi.1).

Calvin expected Christians to read and ponder Scripture privately.  Of course, Christians should not rely solely upon this method; they should also come to worship to hear the preaching of the Word.  “Many are led either by pride, dislike, or rivalry to the conviction that they can profit enough from private reading and meditation; hence they despise public assemblies and deem preaching superfluous” (IV.i.5). 

Both private reading and public reading are important avenues of meditation.  When the Spirit shines upon such reading, when the Word is accompanied by the power of the Spirit, it “causes us to contemplate God’s face” (I.ix.3).  Through the Scripture, Calvin encourages Christians to contemplate any number of great truths; including God’s mercy, our unworthiness, Jesus Christ, our election, the lofty mysteries which lie hidden in the sacraments, and the life to come.  Indeed it has been argued by scholars that one of Calvin’s major intentions in writing the Institutes was to teach Christians how to read the Word profitably.

Calvin on Financial Stewardship

Calvin on Financial Stewardship

We are living through some difficult economic times.  Many churches are seeking ways to trim their budgets in order to bring them into line with 2009 pledges and offerings that have declined or remained static.  Our stewardship committee is now beginning to plan the fall campaign which will support our ministry goals in 2010.  While we will once again use Herb Miller’s New Consecration Sunday stewardship program, I have also been praying about introducing some new practices suggested to me at the Presbyterian Stewardship Conference held in Kansas City in March 2009.  As I continue to reflect on this, it has been helpful to learn what John Calvin teaches about financial stewardship.

In his treatment on the Christian life, Calvin gives major place to the concept of self-denial.  One of the ways we deny ourselves is to use the gifts God has given to us for our neighbor’s good.

“But Scripture, to lead us by the hand to this, warns that whatever benefits we obtain from the Lord have been entrusted to us on this condition: that they be applied to the common good of the church.  And therefore the lawful use of all benefits consists in a liberal and kindly sharing of them with others.  No surer rule and no more valid exhortation to keep it could be devised than when we are taught that all the gifts we possess have been bestowed by God and entrusted to us on condition that they be distributed for our neighbors’ benefit . . .
Let this, therefore, be our rule for generosity and beneficence: We are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us by which we are able to help our neighbor, and are required to render account of our stewardship.  Moreover, the only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love” (III.vii.5).

Later, Calvin returns to the ideas that all gifts are bestowed upon us by God, that we are to use them as God intends, and that we will give account of our stewardship.  In terms of the latter, Calvin states a rule that he suggests should be our guide:  Christians “should know how to bear poverty peaceably and patiently, as well as to bear abundance moderately” (III.x.4).

Certainly given the fluctuations of our market economy with its cycles of boom and bust, growth and recession, we have to live with the reality of economic downturns and upturns.  Calvin maintains that poverty teaches us to trust in God alone for protection and provision (III.vii.10).  Abundance should be received with gratitude for God’s kindness and a commitment not to excessively indulge in food, clothing or buildings.  Calvin exhorts the rich “to indulge oneself as little as possible; but on the contrary, with unflagging effort of mind to insist upon cutting off all show of superfluous wealth . . . “ (III.x.4).

Finally, Calvin makes the interesting argument that if you have not learned how to conduct yourself when in poverty then you will also not know how to conduct yourself in prosperity.

“This is my point:
he who is ashamed of mean clothing will boast of costly clothing;
he who, not content with a slender meal, is troubled by the desire for a more elegant one, will also intemperately abuse those elegances if they fall to his lot.
He who will bear reluctantly, and with a troubled mind, his deprivation and humble condition if he be advanced to honors will by no means abstain from arrogance.
To this end, then, let all those for whom the pursuit of piety is not a pretense strive to learn, by the Apostle’s example, how to be filled and to hunger, to abound and to suffer want” (III.x.5).

Clearly, Calvin would agree that the current economic downturn gives the church a valuable teaching moment about stewardship.