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A Jolly Folly?. Allan J. Macdonald
Читать онлайн.Название A Jolly Folly?
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isbn 9781498242998
Автор произведения Allan J. Macdonald
Жанр Религия: прочее
Издательство Ingram
The Anglican or Episcopal Church also gave the church the power to decide and establish ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies not derived from Scripture. While in many ways the Lutheran and Anglican churches became a vast improvement over Rome (e.g., regarding justification by faith alone), they both denied the absolute authority of Scripture in the area of worship.
Fifty years before Luther, the first ever Protestant Church (the Moravians), led by Jan Hus (John Huss, 1370–1415) also tolerated Christmas. Der Haus-Christ, meaning “the House Christ,” was a term used in sixteenth century Germany for the gift-bringer. German Protestants, who wished to abolish the Catholic cult of saints, needed a replacement for St. Nicholas as the traditional bearer of presents at Christmas. Clergymen chose to speak of Christ himself as the bringer of good things at Christmas and his collection of gifts as the “Christ-bundle.” This shows how Protestants recognized the pagan roots of the gift-giving practice during the Reformation. However, rather than abandoning the pagan practice, some chose to attempt to “Christianize” it. Ironically, this is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church had done twelve centuries earlier. The Reformers were condemning the Roman church for incorporating paganism into the church, but some of the Reformers themselves were unwilling to completely walk away from the cult-like behavior.
In Zurich, Zwingli abolished the vast majority of the Roman Catholic holy days but several, including Christmas, were retained. William Farel (1489–1585) arrived in Geneva (pictured) in 1532 and ministered there as a Reformed pastor with Peter Viret (1511–1571). Calvin joined Farel in 1536 and both sought to move the city toward a more biblical lifestyle.
Farel instigated a ban on all holy days, including Christmas, which caused uproar in the city. In so doing, he followed the example of Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, two hundred miles to the north. Bucer had assumed leadership of the Reformation there in 1529, and in 1535 he eliminated all holy days from the church calendar, except the weekly Lord’s Day.31
Calvin supported Farel but adopted a more conciliatory approach to the matter, declaring that “little will be said about ceremonies before the judgement-seat of God.”
There was a struggle between those who wanted the magistrates firmly in control of the clergy and others, like Calvin, who wanted a city where the clergy were free to preach what they wanted from the pulpit and administer the sacraments as they wished.
Matters came to a head over several practical issues demanded by the Council, including the reintroduction of Christmas and other holy days. In 1538, Geneva’s city elections resulted in a demand to the pastors to imitate Bern (where Bernhold Haller and then Caspar Hedio pastored) and re-adopt Christmas and other holy days, among other things. Calvin and others refused to comply with what they viewed as unwarranted interference in spiritual matters.
After they ignored an order banning them from their pulpits, in April 1538 Farel and Calvin were forced by the Council to leave the city, which they did, going to Strasbourg (pictured). It was there, while agreeing to pastor a group of French refugees, that Calvin experienced the power of congregational song on a regular basis, which stimulated his preparation of a complete French psalter.
Farel never returned to Geneva, ministering in Strasbourg and Neufchatel, but Calvin returned for an intended stay of a week in 1541 and to great acclaim from most in the city, only to remain there for the rest of his life!
Calvin progressively endeared himself and his teaching to the influential families in the city and Geneva’s City Council became increasingly Reformed. The functions of the church in Geneva and its relationship to the state were embodied in the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, which were officially adopted and promulgated by the General Council on November 20, 1541. Calvin insisted that the Lord’s Day was the Christian’s true holiday. In 1545 and after much campaigning, the Genevan Company of Pastors persuaded the magistrates to follow Bucer’s example in Strasbourg, outlawing all holy days. They feared that the retention of days such as Christmas would reinforce the long-standing superstition as to the sacred value of certain days and seasons.32
According to the Register of the Company of Pastors, in 1546, Calvin and his fellow pastors issued an edict to the effect that “those who observe the Romish festivals or fasts shall only be reprimanded, unless [i.e., if] they remain obstinately rebellious.”33 On Sunday, November 16, 1550, an edict was issued by the pastors reaffirming a ban on holy days: “Respecting the abrogation of all festivals, with the exception of Sundays, which God had ordained.” Holy days were to be treated as a normal working day.
A church member in Geneva, Antoine Cadran, was suspended from the Lord’s Table for “impertinence and lies,” for maintaining that Geneva was wrong for not practicing Christmas, which, he maintained, was a mandatory requirement of Scripture as a commemoration of Noah’s flood! It had been the custom to hold the Lord’s Supper four times a year, including on Christmas Day, but this was now changed and moved to the Sunday closest to December 25.34
Calvin was more relaxed on the issue of holy days than Farel or Bucer. He and others viewed the “evangelical feast days,”35 as they called them, not as a part of the Christian’s accomplishment of his or her salvation, as viewed by the Church of Rome, but as celebrations of the salvation that Christ had already accomplished for them in his incarnation (Christmas), death (Good Friday), resurrection (Easter), ascending to the Father (Ascension), and giving of his Spirit (Pentecost). He subsequently recommended that Christmas Day be observed in the morning only and that shops and trades resumed work as normal in the afternoon. These views are expressed in two different letters he sent, one from Geneva, dated January 2, 1551, to John Haller, pastor in Bern (previously an understudy to Bullinger in Zurich),36 and the other from Lausanne, dated March 1555, to the leaders of Bern.37 However, although Calvin permitted the retention of Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and Ascension, the Council of Geneva disagreed with him and subsequently re-introduced the ban on all these “holy days” once again. Although the Council, during and after Calvin’s life, sought at times to reintroduce former practices, including reintroducing holidays such as Christmas into the church calendar, the Company of Pastors consistently rebuffed the attempts.38
Calvin’s Commentaries on the Bible are appreciated the world over; however, we only have them because he did so much consecutive preaching, selecting a Bible book then preaching through it week by week, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. One of the benefits that Calvin received in Geneva was the appointment of a stenographer to record his sermons. As Calvin worked his way slowly and systematically through one book of the Bible at a time, he produced 123 sermons on Genesis, 200 sermons on Deuteronomy, 159 sermons on Job, 176 sermons on First and Second Corinthians, and 43 sermons on Galatians.39 Often, each year when it came to December 25, Calvin did not take a break from the book he was preaching through but continued unabated, irrespective of how relevant or irrelevant the verses were to Christ’s birth.
Following Calvin’s death in 1564, there was growing pressure from the Genevan population to reinstate holy days, including Christmas. This occurred in the context of a Roman Catholic resurgence that had a significant military dimension to it.
The Second Helvetic Confession (1566),