John Calvin - The Leader

Geneva

Once Calvin returned to Geneva, he dedicated the next twenty four years to his adopted city. He exerted a great influence on the morals as well as the religion of the people of Geneva. He seems to have been tireless for he preached several sermons each week and a lecture very day. He wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible and revised his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

He developed a system of Church government which he believed to be much closer to the New Testament model than the Episcopal system of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches. In this system, known as presbyterianism, the Church members would elect their own ministers and elders and those officers would rule the church in presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly. Ministers and elders were considered to be equal in office although they had different functions within the Church. Most importantly, there could only be one head of the Church - Jesus Christ.

In actual fact, Calvin's system was not fully in operation in Geneva where the elders were appointed by the City Council on the advice of the ministers. In fact, it was only in the French Calvinist church and in Scotland that the presbyterian system worked in the way that Calvin had designed.

Calvin's Theology

The central tenet of Calvin's theology was the sovereignty of God. Since God was all powerful, nothing could happen unless it was within the will of God. Thus, everything that did happen must have been predestined by God. This included the election by God of those who would be saved. Only God can save and he does so based, not on the actions or will of humans, but on God's grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin's theology spread through many countries in Europe including some that we think of as being exclusively Catholic. France, Italy and Spain all had flourishing congregations of Reformed Christians. In France the Protestant Church was severely persecuted, including the St Bartholomew Massacre resulting in the deaths of over 20,000 French Protestants. In Spain, the reformation was virtually destroyed by the Spanish Inquisition.

Calvin has many detractors but it is impossible to deny that he was one of the most influential leaders of the Reformation.