Calvin and Missions - World Evangelical Alliance

Calvin the Evangelist (2001)
FRANK A. JAMES, III
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Frank Allison James III is President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando,
Florida. He also serves as Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology
and Professor of Church History. He was awarded the D.Phil. in History
from Oxford University in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Theology from Westminster
Theological Seminary/Pennsylvania in 2000.
Originally published in Reformed Quarterly, Vol 19 (2001), No. 2/3 (http://www.rts.edu/
quarterly/fall01/james.html). Reprinted by permission of publisher and author.
There are many popular misconceptions about John Calvin. Who is the
true Calvin behind the image?
Will Durant, the famous author of the eleven-volume series on the History
of Western Civilization, said of Calvin: “We shall always find it hard
to love the man, John Calvin, who darkened the human soul with the most
absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored
history of nonsense.”
Even the defrocked TV evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, has something to
say about Calvin. “Calvin,” said Swaggart, “has caused untold millions of
souls to be damned.”
Such judgements, besides being uncharitable, fail to get at the real John
Calvin – a man with a strong evangelical heart.
One of the most pervasive criticisms of Calvin is that he had no interest
in missions. The well-known Protestant missiologist, Gustav Warneck,
portrayed the Reformers, including Calvin, as missiologically challenged
merely because they believed in predestination. “We miss in the Reformers,
not only missionary action, but even the idea of missions … because
fundamental theological views hindered them from giving their activity
and even their thoughts a missionary direction.”
But history tells another story.
The city of Geneva, long associated with Calvin, was also an important
refugee center in the Reformer’s day. Throughout sixteenth century
Europe, persecuted Protestants fled their homelands, many of whom found
their way to Geneva. In the 1550s, the population of Geneva literally doubled.