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Ten Ways John Calvin Changed Modern Culture · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. I am honestly really glad you're
• 0:03
  here with us today. It's great to be here.
• 0:05
  We have a massive topic and to be completely honest with you,
• 0:09
  when I first saw the reading list, I was a little skeptical.
• 0:14
  Oh, I can imagine. We're doing a deep dive into
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  some source material that makes a, well, a pretty wild claim.
• 0:21
  I think that's fair to say, and I can guess why you were
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  skeptical. When people hear the name of the
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  figure we're discussing today, they usually have a very
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  specific and often, let's say, negative reaction.
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  Oh absolutely. The name is John Calvin, and for
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  most people, even a lot of people in the church, that name
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  just conjures up this image of a super stern, unsmiling guy in a
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  black robe. The fun police.
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  Exactly the fun police, The guy who just wants to talk about
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  predestination and tell you everything you enjoy is wrong.
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  You know, the frozen chosen. That is the caricature for sure.
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  It's a persistent 1. Right.
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  But the material we're looking at today, specifically David
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  West Hall's analysis of 10 Ways Modern Culture Is Different
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  because of John Calvin, argues that this caricature is just
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  missing the forest for the trees.
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  The whole argument here is that Calvin wasn't just a theologian
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  sitting in an ivory tower. He was an architect.
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  An unexpected architect of, well, the modern world.
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  That's the premise and Hall, the author we're looking at, he
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  doesn't pull any punches with it.
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  He starts right off the bat by comparing Calvin to some of the
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  biggest heavyweights in modern. History.
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  I saw that. It's a bold move.
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  It is, he argues, that if you look at the cumulative impact on
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  the world, I mean how we live, how we vote, how we work, even
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  how we think about money, Calvin's footprint is arguably
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  larger than someone like Rousseau or Nietzsche or even
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  Karl Marx. OK, stop there for a second.
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  That is the claim that stopped me in my tracks.
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  Izotomite. Karl Marx.
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  I mean, Marx literally redrew the geopolitical map of the 20th
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  century. You had half the world living
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  under systems that claimed his name.
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  Nietzsche, I mean, he redefined modern philosophy.
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  And you're saying a French pastor from the 1500s punches in
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  that same weight class? I am, and actually I think Hall
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  is arguing he punches above that weight class.
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  So. Well, because his influence is
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  more enduring and frankly more constructive.
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  Think about Marx. His ideas led to revolutions,
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  yes, but they also led to totalitarianism, economic
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  collapse, gulags, you know, 10s of millions dead.
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  A dark legacy, to say the least. A very dark legacy.
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  Calvin's ideas, as we're going to see, laid the groundwork for
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  the free institutions, the economic systems, and the civil
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  liberties that we, especially in the West, just take for granted
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  today. So if I'm hearing you right, the
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  argument is that we are all, in a sense, living in a house that
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  John Callen built, even if we've never read a war, he wrote, Even
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  if we actively disagree with his theology.
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  That is a perfect way to put it. We're swimming in water that he
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  treated, whether it's the fact that you can vote for your
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  leaders or that you expect your children to get an education.
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  Or even just the idea that your job has dignity.
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  Yes, or the way you think about your bank account and interest
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  rates. All of that has a surprisingly
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  Direct Line back to this one city, Geneva, in the mid 16th
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  century. Well, that is a big check to
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  write. So today we're going to try to
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  cash it. We're going to walk through the
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  evidence that Hall presents before we get to all the
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  cultural stuff, the schools, the politics, the money, we have to
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  talk about the man himself. We do.
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  Context is everything. Because I think my mental image
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  of him is just a brain in a jar, you know?
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  Did he have a life? Was he a real person?
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  He had a very, very intense life and it didn't start in the
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  pulpit, which I think is key. He was born in 15 O 9 in Noyon,
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  France, and here's a detail from the source that explains a lot
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  of what comes later. He was trained as a lawyer.
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  OK, that clicks when you read the institutes.
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  It's so structured, so logical, it reads like a legal brief
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  sometimes. Exactly.
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  He had a brilliant legal mind. He studied humanism.
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  He was on track to be a top tier scholar or lawyer, studying at
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  some of the best universities in France.
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  But then somewhere around 1533 or 34, something big happened.
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  He calls it a sudden conversion. What does that mean?
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  A sudden conversion? Was it a Damascus Rd. moment?
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  He's a bit private about the details, but he describes his
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  heart as being very hard, very attached to the traditions of
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  the Roman church. And then he says, God subdued
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  and brought my halt to teachableness.
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  He essentially realized that the Protestant movement, which was,
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  you know, a very dangerous thing to be part of in France at the
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  time, was correct about the final authority of Scripture.
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  And when you say dangerous, we're not talking about getting
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  unfriended on social media. We're not talking about getting
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  a mean e-mail. No, no, we're talking about
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  getting arrested, tortured and burned at the stake, right?
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  The king of France, Francis the Thirst was cracking down hard.
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  There was an event called the Affair of the Placards where
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  Protestant posters were put up all over Paris, even on the
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  King's bedroom door. That's bold.
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  It was, and the King's reaction was brutal.
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  Calvin was associated with the movement's leaders, and he had
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  to flee Paris. There's a famous story that he
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  escaped by climbing out of a window on a rope made of bed
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  sheets, remarkably similar to the Apostle Paul in Damascus.
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  So from a promising academic career to a fugitive overnight.
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  He's a refugee. He's a wanted man.
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  He spends the next couple of years on the run, using fake
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  names, moving from city to city. He eventually leaves France
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  entirely and hence for Strasbourg, a free imperial
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  city. His goal was just to be a
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  scholar. He wanted a quiet life in a
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  library writing books. That is relatable.
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  I think a lot of us would prefer that.
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  But on his way to Strasbourg, a war broke out between Frances
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  the 1st and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the 5th.
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  The main road was blocked by troops, forcing him to take a
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  long detour South, and that detour took him through a small
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  French speaking city called Geneva.
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  The famous detour. And this is where he runs into
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  William Ferrell, right? Yes, Farrell was this fiery red
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  bearded, incredibly passionate reformer who was already in
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  Geneva. He'd managed to get the city to
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  vote to become Protestant, but it was just total chaos.
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  So the city was officially Protestant, but they didn't
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  really know what that meant in practice.
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  Not at all. It was a mess.
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  Farrell hears that the young author of this brilliant new
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  book, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, which Calvin
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  had just published in his first edition, is in town for one
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  night, just passing through. So he sees his chance.
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  He goes straight to Calvin's Inn, bangs on the door, and
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  basically demands that he stay and help bring order to the
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  Genevan church. And Calvin, wanting the quiet
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  life, says no. Calvin says no thank you.
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  I'm a scholar. I'm shy.
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  I'm not a pastor. I don't want to get involved in
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  city administration and politics.
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  He just wants to study. Yeah.
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  And Farrell? Farrell gets angry.
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  What does he do? He stands up this huge
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  intimidating figure and he points his finger at Calvin and
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  literally calls down a curse from God.
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  He says, May God curse your studies and your quiet life if
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  you refuse to aid His Church in her time of need.
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  Wow that is intense. Nice books you have there.
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  Be a shame if God cursed them. It terrified Calvin.
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  He wrote later that he felt like God had reached down from heaven
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  and laid his powerful hand on him.
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  He felt he had no choice. So he stayed.
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  That was 1536. But it didn't go well, did it?
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  I remember reading that he got kicked out.
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  It was a complete disaster. You have to understand Geneva at
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  this time was a rough town. It wasn't some pious, quiet
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  village. It was known for gambling,
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  public drunkenness, riots and just general disorder.
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  Not exactly a model city. Far from it.
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  And Calvin and Farrell come in and try to bring moral
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  discipline. They wanted the church to have
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  the authority to excommunicate people for unrepentant sin.
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  The City Council, who are used to running everything, we're not
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  having it. They saw it as a power grab.
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  They did. The tension built and built, and
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  in 1538, just two years after he arrived, the council held a vote
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  and they egg filed. Both Calvin and Farrell ordered
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  them to leave the city within three days.
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  So the man we're calling the architect of the modern world
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  was fired from his first major job and humiliated.
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  Fired and humiliated, he went to Strasburg, which is where he
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  wanted to go in the 1st place. And honestly, the source
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  material suggests those next three years were the happiest of
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  his life. Yeah, he pastored a Church of
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  French refugees, people who actually wanted to be there.
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  He got married to a wonderful widow named Idalette de Bure.
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  He revised the institute's. He was finally living the life
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  he wanted. He thought he was done with
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  Geneva forever. But Geneva wasn't done with him.
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  Not at all. As soon as he left, the city
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  fell back into chaos. There were political factions
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  fighting. The Catholic Church, led by a
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  very clever cardinal named Satellito, tried to lure the
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  city back to Rome. So they were vulnerable.
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  Very. And finally, the City Council
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  realized they'd made a huge mistake.
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  They needed the one man who had the intellectual firepower and
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  the organizational skill to lead them.
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  In 1541, they swallowed their pride, wrote to him in
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  Strasbourg and begged him to return.
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  That must have been a tough decision.
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  I mean, going back to the place that publicly shamed you and
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  kicked you out. He did not want to go, he wrote
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  to a friend. I would rather die 100 times
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  than to that cross on which one had to perish daily, 1000 times
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  over. He called Geneva a crass a place
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  of torture. And yet he went back.
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  He felt it was his duty to God. He felt he couldn't say no.
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  So he went back. And that return in 1541 is
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  really the starting gun for the legacy we are discussing today,
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  right? That's it.
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  He stays there from 1541 until his death in 1564, and in those
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  23 years he basically rebuilds the city from the ground up,
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  culturally, religiously and institutionally.
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  And that's where a Hall's list of 10 ways really comes from.
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  It's the fruit of that second Geneva ministry.
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  All right, so let's get into that list.
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  The outline for today groups these impacts into some really
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  helpful categories. The mind, the hands, the heart,
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  and the state. Let's start with the mind
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  education. This is impact area one in the
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  source and for good reason. I think if you don't understand
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  the shift in education that happened in Geneva, you missed
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  the engine for everything else. So paint the picture for us.
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  What was the situation before Calvin?
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  What did education look like in, say, 1500?
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  Well, in the medieval era, education was basically a luxury
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  good. It was for the aristocracy, for
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  the sons of nobles, or is for the clergy.
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  If you were a peasant, a farmer, a blacksmith, A merchant, you
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  didn't need to read. Why not?
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  Because your life didn't require it.
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  And more to the point, your spiritual life didn't require
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  it. You went to Mass, you looked at
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  the stained glass windows, which were called the Bible of the
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  poor. You listen to the priest chant
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  in Latin, which you didn't understand anyway, and you went
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  home. So ignorance was the default
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  setting for what, 99% of the population?
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  That's a good way to put it, but the Reformation changes the
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  fundamental logic of life. The Reformers and Calvin
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  especially argued for sola Scriptura.
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  The Bible alone is the final, infallible rule of faith and
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  practice. Right, Scripture alone.
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  Well, think about the implication of that.
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  If the Bible is how God speaks to you directly, and you are
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  personally responsible for your own soul before God, then you
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  have to be able to read the Bible.
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  Literacy stops being a luxury and becomes a spiritual survival
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  skill. Exactly.
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  You cannot be a mature Christian in this new way of thinking if
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  you can't access the Word of God for yourself.
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  You can't check if the priest is telling you the truth.
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  You can't meditate on it. You can't teach it to your
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  children. So it wasn't just about getting
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  smart, it was about getting saved, or at least understanding
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  your salvation. Precisely so.
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  In 1559, after years of planning and fundraising, Calvin leads
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  the charge to found the Geneva Academy.
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  And this was not just some little Sunday school or a Bible
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  study group. It was a serious, rigorous
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  educational institution. And it had two levels.
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  Right, Yes, the source details this.
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  First there was the Scala Pravata, which was essentially a
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  grammar school, elementary and high school for the youth of
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  Geneva. Then there was Sakala Publica,
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  which is a seminary or university level institution
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  primarily for training ministers who would then go out all over
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  Europe. The numbers here on the source
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  are just wild to me. The public school, the Spella
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  Privato, started with 280 students.
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  By the time Calvin died just five years later in 1564, there
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  were 1200 students in that part of the school.
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  And another 300 in the seminary. In a city the size of Geneva,
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  that is a huge percentage of the population.
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  That's a city completely reorienting itself around
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  education. It's massive, but the most
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  revolutionary part wasn't the size, it was the cost.
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  What was the cost? It was tuition free.
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  Wait. Tuition free in the 1500s?
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  How on earth did they pay for that?
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  Calvin argued relentlessly that the city should pay for it.
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  He saw it as a public good. An educated populace was a
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  benefit to the whole society, religiously, economically and
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  civically. So it was funded by the city
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  government along with private donations.
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  Hall calls this the forerunner to modern public education.
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  It really is the idea that every child, not just the rich ones,
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  not just the boys destined for the priesthood, should have
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  their mind developed because they are an image bearer of God.
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  That is a total paradigm shift. It democratizes knowledge.
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  It breaks the monopoly on information that the clergy had
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  held for 1000 years. When you teach a cobbler son to
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  read Greek, you are giving him the tools to question a priest
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  or a magistrate or even a king. You are empowering the
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  individual in a way that was unthinkable before.
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  And what were they learning? Was it just the Bible?
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  No, not at all. That's a common misconception.
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  The Academy taught the Bible, of course, but it was a full
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  classical humanist education. They taught Latin, Greek,
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  Hebrew, logic, rhetoric, history.
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  Calvin wanted to produce well-rounded, thinking
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  Christians. So he's building this army of
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  thinkers, but if you have all these new readers, you need to
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  give them something to read. Which leads us perfectly into
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  the next impact area. The source discusses publishing.
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  The 16th century information revolution.
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  This is one of my favorite parts of the story.
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  We talk about Silicon Valley today as this hub of innovation.
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  The source argues that Geneva was the Silicon Valley of the
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  16th century, but for paper and ink.
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  It really was. The stats hall sites are
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  incredible. In 1536, the year Calvin first
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  arrived, Geneva published a grand total of three books 3.
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  That's it for the whole year. That's it.
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  By 1561, they are churning out 48 different volumes a year, and
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  by 1563 there are 34 printing presses running in the city
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  almost non-stop. What were they printing?
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  Everything. Calvin's institutes, his
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  commentaries on almost every book of the Bible, sermons,
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  theological treatises. But, and this is the crucial
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  part, they were printing it all in the vernacular languages,
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  mostly French. Not Latin.
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  Not Latin. This was for the people.
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  And we have to realize what they were doing with these books.
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  They weren't just for the library in Geneva.
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  They were for export, specifically for illegal export
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  into Catholic France, where Protestantism was a capital
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  crime. This is where the story gets
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  really spy novel. The source talks about these
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  people called Co Port Tours. Now, when I first saw that word,
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  I had no idea what it meant. What is a cool Porter?
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  A cool Porter. Was basically a traveling
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  salesman, A peddler. Someone who would walk from town
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  to town with a big pack on his back selling everyday goods.
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  Ribbons, needles, mirrors, little trinkets.
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  And something else. And hidden in false bottoms, in
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  their packs or sewn into their coats were these small cheatly
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  printed banned books from Geneva so.
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  There were smugglers. Spiritual smugglers and the risk
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  they took was absolute. The King of France issued
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  something called the Edict de Chateau Brean in 1551.
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  It was the ultimate ban hammer. It banned all books from Geneva.
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  It banned anyone from printing them, selling them, or even just
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  possessing them. And the punishment was what?
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  A fine. The punishment was death.
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  Death just for having a book. Yes, and yet these Cole porters
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  flooded France with this literature.
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  The source mentions a man named Laurente Normandy who was a
• 15:54
  close friend of Calvin's. He was a former mayor of Noyon,
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  Calvin's hometown, who became a refugee, and he set up this
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  entire underground distribution network.
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  It sounds like a drug cartel, but for theology.
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  Structurally, it's not a bad comparison.
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  The demand was so high they couldn't print the books fast
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  enough. People were starved for this
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  teaching, and the printers in Geneva got incredibly clever.
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  To bypass the censors, they'd use fake title pages.
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  They would print a book of Calvin's theology, but put a
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  cover on it that said something like Essays on Roman Law printed
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  in Venice. They would use French style
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  fonts to make it look like it came from Paris, not Geneva.
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  They've used fake publisher names.
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  Anything to get the books past the border guards.
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  That is incredible. It's a testament to how powerful
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  they believe these ideas were. It shows that you cannot stop an
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  idea whose time has come. Hall argues that this was the
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  moment ideas truly transcended geography.
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  Before this, if you wanted to learn from a master, you had to
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  travel to his lecture hall in Bologna or Paris.
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  Now Calvin could sit in his study in Geneva and effectively
• 16:55
  teach a secret gathering of believers in a cellar in Lyon or
• 16:59
  Paris, or all the way up in. Scotland.
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  It's the Internet. It's the 16th century
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  blogosphere. It is, and it created a shared
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  culture, a shared identity. People in different countries
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  under different kings were reading the same arguments,
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  getting angry about the same abuses and finding hope in the
• 17:13
  same gospel. And that kind of unity is very
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  threatening to tyrants. OK, so that's the mind.
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  We have a newly literate population and a mass media
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  network to feed them ideas. Let's move to the next category,
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  the hands. This is about work, money and
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  taking care of people. The source lists the doctrine of
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  vocation as a major impact. This is huge.
• 17:35
  And again, to really get it we have to look at the medieval
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  backdrop. In the medieval church there was
• 17:41
  this very sharp, very high wall between the sacred and the
• 17:45
  secular. Right.
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  The sacred world was the world of priests, monks, nuns.
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  The secular world was, well, everyone else.
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  Exactly. The thinking was if you really
• 17:54
  wanted to please God, if you wanted the highest form of
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  Christian life, you left the world.
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  You went into a monastery or a convent, you prayed all day.
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  That was the religious life. And being a farmer or a
• 18:05
  blacksmith. That was necessary.
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  Sure, the world needs food and horseshoes, but it wasn't holy,
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  it was just worldly. It was seen as a distraction
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  from spiritual things. It was second class spiritual
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  citizenship. That's a great way to describe
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  it. Calvin comes along and just
• 18:19
  smashes that wall to pieces. He argued that God is the
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  creator of the physical world, not just the spiritual one.
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  Therefore, engaging with the physical world, planting crops,
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  building houses, drafting contracts, healing the sick is a
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  primary way of honoring the Creator.
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  So he didn't just elevate the secular jobs, he redefined them.
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  He erased the distinction. He taught that every lawful
• 18:43
  occupation is a calling or a vocation from God.
• 18:47
  The word vocation comes from the Latin vocarie, which means to
• 18:51
  call. Before the Reformation, only
• 18:53
  priests had a calling, Calvin said.
• 18:55
  The nursing mother has a calling from God.
• 18:57
  The magistrate has a calling. The chimney sweep has a calling.
• 19:00
  That must have been incredibly liberating for the average
• 19:02
  person to be told, hey, you don't have to become a monk to
• 19:05
  matter to God. You can serve God by making
• 19:07
  really, really good shoes. It changes everything about how
• 19:10
  you approach your work. If your daily work is an
• 19:13
  offering to God, you strive for excellence.
• 19:16
  You don't cut corners. You don't cheat your customers.
• 19:19
  This is the real root of the socalled Protestant work ethic.
• 19:22
  It's not about working yourself to death to get rich.
• 19:25
  It's about doing your work. Quorum Dio before the face of
• 19:29
  God. The source uses the composer JS
• 19:31
  Bach as an example here. Bach is the perfect example.
• 19:35
  He wasn't a Calvinist, he's a Lutheran, but he was swimming in
• 19:38
  the same Reformation worldview. He would sign his musical
• 19:41
  scores, even the secular ones, with SDG.
• 19:44
  So Lee deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory.
• 19:47
  He put that on his Brandenburg Concertos just as much as his
• 19:49
  church can taught us. He didn't see a difference.
• 19:52
  Composing beautiful music glorified God because God is the
• 19:55
  one who invented melody and harmony.
• 19:57
  I love that. Now let's pivot to the other
• 19:59
  side of economics. Because if you have a bustling
• 20:01
  city with all this work going on, you also have people who
• 20:04
  fall through the cracks. The sick, the widowed, the
• 20:06
  refugees. How did Calvin's Geneva handle
• 20:09
  poverty? This brings us to another one of
• 20:11
  Hall's points, the Bourse Francaise.
• 20:14
  And you have to remember the context we talked about earlier.
• 20:17
  Geneva was basically a massive refugee camp.
• 20:20
  Right, the population doubled. It doubled in a very short time.
• 20:23
  You have thousands upon thousands of people flooding and
• 20:26
  fleeing persecution in France, Italy, England.
• 20:30
  They arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
• 20:34
  You have widows whose husbands were martyred orphans, men who
• 20:37
  had to abandon their businesses and farms.
• 20:39
  That's a humanitarian crisis, a logistical nightmare.
• 20:43
  Where do they all sleep? What do they eat?
• 20:45
  Exactly. The city infrastructure just
• 20:47
  couldn't handle it on its own. So Calvin revived and
• 20:50
  reorganized the church office of Deacon, the diaconate.
• 20:54
  But this wasn't a state-run welfare program, right?
• 20:56
  The source makes a clear distinction.
• 20:58
  There a very clear distinction. Calvin believed that caring for
• 21:01
  the poor was the specific duty of the church, managed by the
• 21:05
  deacons. They established the Borce
• 21:07
  Francaise, which was basically a deacon's fund specifically for
• 21:11
  the French refugees. So as a private charity
• 21:13
  essentially. Yes, but highly organized.
• 21:16
  This wasn't just standing on a corner handing out cash.
• 21:18
  The deacons would visit families, verify their needs and
• 21:22
  provide aid. They'd visit the sick.
• 21:25
  They'd find housing for widows and orphans.
• 21:27
  But, and this is the key, the goal was never ever permanent
• 21:32
  dependency. The source mentions they gave
• 21:34
  out tools. Yes.
• 21:36
  They didn't just give handouts, they gave handouts.
• 21:39
  The whole system was oriented around the doctrine of vocation
• 21:42
  we just discussed. If the master Weaver arrived
• 21:45
  with nothing, the boars might buy him a new loom so he could
• 21:48
  start his business again. If a tailor arrived, they'd get
• 21:51
  him scissors and cloth. If a farmer arrived, they'd help
• 21:54
  him find land to work. So the goal was to restore the
• 21:57
  person's dignity by getting them back to their work, back to
• 22:00
  their calling. Exactly, the aid was interim
• 22:02
  assistance. It was a bridge to get them back
• 22:04
  to self-sufficiency. It sounds like a very modern
• 22:08
  approach to social work doesn't it?
• 22:09
  Needs assessment, temporary aid, job training, rehabilitation.
• 22:13
  It does, and the source also says that moral accountability
• 22:16
  went along with the aid. It did.
• 22:19
  The deacons would also provide spiritual counsel.
• 22:22
  They expected recipients to be living responsible lives.
• 22:25
  There's a holistic approach, body and soul, And it worked.
• 22:28
  It prevented Geneva from collapsing under the weight of
• 22:31
  the refugee crisis. In fact, it did the opposite.
• 22:34
  It turned a potential burden into an economic boom because
• 22:38
  all those skilled refugees eventually started businesses
• 22:41
  and contributed to the city's economy.
• 22:43
  Speaking of the economy, we have to tackle the big money
• 22:46
  question. Impact Area 8 economics and
• 22:49
  profit. There's this long standing
• 22:51
  debate about Calvinism and capitalism.
• 22:53
  The Weber thesis. Right.
• 22:54
  Max Weber wrote that famous book, The Protestant Ethic and
• 22:57
  the Spirit of Capitalism, basically blaming Calvinists for
• 23:00
  modern capitalism because they supposedly thought being wealthy
• 23:04
  was a sign of God's favor, a sign that you were one of the
• 23:06
  elect. And Hall, our source, is very
• 23:09
  quick to correct that. He points out that Weber's
• 23:11
  thesis has been largely debunked by serious historians.
• 23:14
  Calvin did not teach that having a full bank account meant you
• 23:17
  were saved. In fact, if you read his
• 23:19
  sermons, he's constantly warning against the spiritual dangers of
• 23:22
  riches and greed. So where did Weber get it wrong?
• 23:26
  He basically misunderstood the doctrine and then cherry pick
• 23:29
  some quotes and later Puritans generations after Calvin.
• 23:33
  Calvin's view is that property and profit are legitimate, but
• 23:36
  they come with heavy responsibilities.
• 23:38
  How did he ground that? He looked at the 10
• 23:40
  commandments. Thou shalt not steal.
• 23:43
  Calvin, with his legal mind, said that this command doesn't
• 23:47
  just forbid theft, it positively implies the right to hold and
• 23:51
  protect personal property. If it's wrong for me to steal
• 23:54
  from you, it must mean that the thing I'm not supposed to steal
• 23:56
  is rightfully yours. That makes sense.
• 23:58
  But he did change the rules on something that had a huge
• 24:01
  economic impact, interest. Usury.
• 24:04
  Exactly. For centuries, the medieval
• 24:06
  church had banned usury, which they defined as charging any
• 24:09
  interest on a loan. They base this on Old Testament
• 24:12
  passages where God tells the Israelites not to charge
• 24:14
  interest to their poor brothers. So if I lent you money, I could
• 24:18
  only ask for the principal back, nothing more.
• 24:21
  Right, which sounds nice and charitable, but in practice it
• 24:24
  freezes the economy. It means there's no incentive
• 24:27
  for anyone with capital to lend money for business ventures.
• 24:30
  If you want to start a printing press and you need capital, no
• 24:34
  one will lend it to you because there's no return for them, only
• 24:36
  risk. So how did Calvin get around
• 24:39
  that Bible verse? He looked at the context.
• 24:41
  He was one of the first to do this systematically.
• 24:44
  He argued that the Old Testament prohibition was about protecting
• 24:47
  the vulnerable. You shouldn't charge interest to
• 24:50
  a starving man who needs to borrow money to buy bread for
• 24:54
  his family. That's predatory.
• 24:56
  That's exploitation. But a business loan is
• 24:59
  different. But a commercial loan between
• 25:01
  two businessmen, he argued, is a completely different matter.
• 25:05
  If IA wealthy merchant lend you money to buy a new ship to
• 25:08
  transport goods and you make a huge profit from that voyage,
• 25:11
  why shouldn't I, the one who took the risk on the loan, share
• 25:15
  in a small pre agreed part of that profit through interest?
• 25:18
  So he distinguished between biting usury that exploits the
• 25:21
  poor and productive credit for business investment.
• 25:24
  That's it. And that single distinction
• 25:27
  unlocked the modern economy. It allowed Geneva to become a
• 25:30
  banking center. It allowed for capital
• 25:32
  accumulation and large scale investment.
• 25:35
  But Calvin was always the pastor.
• 25:36
  He insisted that interest rates be capped by the city.
• 25:39
  He was ruthless towards anyone who defrauded others or charged
• 25:42
  predatory rates. He actually wrote a prayer for
• 25:45
  workers to say, didn't he? He did it asked God grant that I
• 25:49
  may follow my calling without any fraud or deception.
• 25:52
  He wanted a free market, but a moral market bounded by God's
• 25:55
  law. OK, let's move to the heart
• 25:57
  worship and music. This might seem like a niche
• 26:00
  topic just for church nerds, but the source argues that music in
• 26:03
  the vernacular had a massive society shaping cultural impact.
• 26:07
  It's hard for us to imagine today, but try to picture a
• 26:10
  standard medieval church service.
• 26:12
  You walk into a giant, beautiful, echoing cathedral,
• 26:15
  but the priest is way up at the front with his back to you,
• 26:17
  whispering in Latin. The choir.
• 26:20
  A group of professional trained male singers is up in a loft
• 26:24
  singing incredibly complex polyphony, also in Latin.
• 26:27
  And I'm standing there, a peasant who speaks French,
• 26:30
  understanding literally nothing of what is being said or sung.
• 26:34
  You are a spectator, You are watching a performance.
• 26:37
  You might feel a sense of awe or mystery, but you are not
• 26:40
  participating. Calvin looked at that and said
• 26:43
  this is wrong. He believed the whole
• 26:46
  congregation should sing, and to do that they had to sing in
• 26:49
  their own language. Protestant Karaoke.
• 26:52
  In a way, but the content mattered immensely to him.
• 26:56
  He didn't want them singing just any sentimental hymns.
• 26:59
  He wanted them singing the Psalms, the actual words of the
• 27:02
  Bible put to music. This is the famous Geneva
• 27:05
  insulter. Yes, he wasn't a great poet or
• 27:07
  musician himself, so he hired the best he could find.
• 27:10
  Men like Clemmo Moreau, the most famous poet in France at the
• 27:13
  time, and the musician Louis Bourgeois.
• 27:16
  Their job was to take the Hebrew Psalms, translate them into
• 27:18
  beautiful, rhythmic French poetry, and set them to catchy,
• 27:22
  memorable, simple tunes that anyone could sing.
• 27:24
  And it took off like wildfire. The numbers are staggering.
• 27:28
  The source mentions that the complete 1562 edition.
• 27:31
  Bees's Edition printed 27,400 copies in its first year.
• 27:36
  That's best seller territory even today, let alone in the
• 27:38
  16th century. Why was it so popular?
• 27:41
  Because it gave people a voice in worship for the first time,
• 27:44
  and people were singing these Psalms everywhere, in the
• 27:47
  marketplace, in their homes while they worked, in the
• 27:49
  fields, on ships. And psychologically, this does
• 27:52
  something profound. When you sing something over and
• 27:55
  over, you memorize it. It gets into your bones.
• 27:57
  So the average person was memorizing huge chunks of
• 28:00
  scripture and theology without even trying.
• 28:02
  Exactly. It was a mass media and
• 28:04
  memorization tool. It lodged deep theology into the
• 28:07
  popular mind, and it turned the congregation from a passive
• 28:11
  audience into an active, unified army.
• 28:13
  Literally an army. There are stories of the
• 28:15
  Huguenots, the French Protestants, going into battle,
• 28:18
  singing Psalm 68. Let God arrive and let his
• 28:21
  enemies be scattered. Yes.
• 28:22
  Can you imagine hearing 1000 soldiers marching towards you,
• 28:25
  singing that in unison? It's terrifying and incredibly
• 28:28
  unifying. It gave them a collective
• 28:30
  identity. And the source mentions this
• 28:32
  tradition crossed the ocean right?
• 28:34
  The Bass Psalm Book in America. Directly, the Puritans who
• 28:37
  settled Massachusetts were spiritual children of Geneva.
• 28:41
  The Bass Psalm Book was the very first book printed in British
• 28:44
  North America in 1640. So the whole rhythm of American
• 28:49
  congregational worship, the idea that everyone participates,
• 28:52
  starts right there in Calvin's Geneva.
• 28:54
  OK, we have arrived at the final section and honestly, the one
• 28:57
  that feels the most complex and maybe the most consequential the
• 29:01
  state law, government and liberty.
• 29:04
  If we're going to make the case that Calvin is an architect of
• 29:06
  the modern West, this is where the foundation is poured.
• 29:09
  Absolutely. This is where the theology hits
• 29:11
  the political reality head on, and we have to start where
• 29:14
  Calvin started with his view of the law.
• 29:17
  This is Hall's impact. Area 3.
• 29:19
  The moral law. The source mentions the third
• 29:21
  use of the law. Now that sounds like a very
• 29:24
  technical theological term. Can you break that down for us?
• 29:27
  I can try. The reformers talked about God's
• 29:30
  law. Think of the 10 commandments
• 29:32
  having different uses or functions.
• 29:34
  The first use is like a mirror. You look at the law, you shall
• 29:37
  not lie, and the law reflects your own heart back at you and
• 29:40
  you realize, oops, I lie. It shows you your sin.
• 29:44
  It shows you your need for a Savior.
• 29:46
  Got it. The law condemns me so that I
• 29:48
  run to Jesus for grace. Exactly.
• 29:51
  The second use of the law is to restrain evil in society.
• 29:54
  We have laws against murder, not to make people holy, but just to
• 29:57
  keep society from descending into chaos.
• 29:59
  It's a civil use, but Calvin put a huge emphasis on the third
• 30:03
  use. He said that for the Christian,
• 30:05
  for the person who is already saved by grace, the law is no
• 30:08
  longer a harsh judge. It becomes a friendly guide.
• 30:11
  It's like a map. It shows you how to live a life
• 30:13
  of gratitude that pleases the God who saved you.
• 30:16
  It's a pattern for thankful living.
• 30:18
  So how does that affect politics?
• 30:19
  Because Calvin argue that this moral law, this pattern for
• 30:23
  righteous living, applies to everyone, including and
• 30:26
  especially kings and rulers. The king is not the source of
• 30:29
  law, God is. The king is under the law, just
• 30:32
  like the peasant. This is the seed of
• 30:34
  constitutionalism, of the rule of law rather than the rule of
• 30:38
  men. And that leads directly into the
• 30:40
  next point impact area for freedom of the church.
• 30:44
  This was the fight of Calvin's life in Geneva.
• 30:47
  In the medieval system, and even in some other Protestant cities
• 30:50
  like Zurich, the state basically ran the church.
• 30:53
  The City Council would decide who could take communion, what
• 30:56
  the doctrine should be. And Calvin said no.
• 30:59
  Stay in your lane. He did.
• 31:00
  When he returned in 1541, he insisted that the city adopt
• 31:04
  what were called the ecclesiastical ordinances, and
• 31:06
  the key innovation was the establishment of the consistory.
• 31:09
  What was the consistory? Was it a court?
• 31:11
  It was sort of moral court, yes. It was a body made-up of the
• 31:14
  pastors of the city and twelve elected elders from the
• 31:16
  congregation, not politicians. Their job was to handle the
• 31:20
  moral and spiritual discipline of the Church.
• 31:22
  What kind of things would they deal with?
• 31:24
  All sorts of things. If you were beating your wife,
• 31:27
  or cheating your customers in business, or getting drunk and
• 31:30
  starting fights in the street, you can be summoned to appear
• 31:33
  before the consistory. They would rebuke you, counsel
• 31:36
  you, and in serious cases of unrepentant, they might bar you
• 31:40
  from the Lord's Supper. That sounds incredibly intrusive
• 31:43
  to modern ears. Oh, it was intrusive.
• 31:45
  There's no doubt about that. But here's the crucial political
• 31:48
  innovation. The City Council hated it.
• 31:51
  They saw it as Calvin setting up a rival government.
• 31:54
  They wanted to control church discipline themselves.
• 31:56
  So as a power struggle. A massive power struggle that
• 31:59
  lasted for over a decade. Calvin threatened to resign and
• 32:03
  leave multiple times to protect the consistory's independence.
• 32:06
  He was establishing a sphere, sovereignty.
• 32:09
  The state has its sphere, the power of the sword for civil
• 32:12
  justice, but the Church has its sphere, the power of the keys
• 32:16
  for spiritual discipline. Neither should control the
• 32:19
  other. That is the beginning of the
• 32:21
  separation of church and state, not to keep God out of
• 32:24
  government, but to keep the government out of the church.
• 32:27
  You've got it. That is the key distinction.
• 32:29
  Now let's talk about the structure of the government
• 32:31
  itself. Impact Area 5.
• 32:33
  Limited government. This all flows from Calvin's
• 32:36
  view of human nature. This is the doctrine of total
• 32:39
  depravity. He didn't believe that people
• 32:42
  were as evil as they could possibly be, but he did believe
• 32:45
  that every part of a human being, our minds, our wills, our
• 32:48
  emotions, is tainted and corrupted by sin.
• 32:51
  We're all broken. We all have a tendency toward
• 32:54
  selfishness and pride. Exactly, we are all prone to
• 32:57
  selfishness and grabbing for power.
• 32:59
  So if you believe that, what kind of government do you build?
• 33:02
  Well, you certainly don't give one single broken, sinful guy
• 33:05
  all the power. Right.
• 33:07
  If you have a king with absolute power and he is a Sinner, it is
• 33:11
  it's almost inevitable that he will become a tyrant.
• 33:13
  Calvin preached a famous series of sermons on First Samuel 8
• 33:16
  where God warns Israel what will happen if they demand a king,
• 33:20
  and Calvin just hammers on this point.
• 33:22
  Kings tend to be takers. They take your sons for war.
• 33:25
  They take your daughters for their court.
• 33:26
  They take your best fields and vineyards for themselves.
• 33:28
  So what was his alternative to monarchy?
• 33:30
  Republicanism, or what he called an aristocracy or a system
• 33:35
  compounded of aristocracy and democracy.
• 33:38
  Basically a system of checks and balances.
• 33:40
  He preferred a government where power was shared among many
• 33:43
  different people and councils. Like in Geneva?
• 33:45
  Exactly like Geneva, if they had the council of 200, the little
• 33:48
  council, the four syndex or mayors.
• 33:51
  To pass any significant law you had to have multiple groups
• 33:54
  agree to it. He deliberately distributed the
• 33:57
  power so no one person or group could do too much damage.
• 34:01
  He built a system designed for sinners, not for angels.
• 34:04
  That's the core of it. He predated Montesquieu, the guy
• 34:07
  from the Enlightenment. We usually credit for checks and
• 34:09
  balances by 200 years. And he liked elections, right?
• 34:13
  The source makes a point of that.
• 34:14
  He did. He said.
• 34:15
  The most desirable kind of liberty is that we should not be
• 34:18
  compelled to obey every person who may be tyrannically put over
• 34:21
  our heads, but which allows of election, so that no one should
• 34:25
  rule except he be approved by us.
• 34:28
  He believed magistrates should be chosen by the votes of the
• 34:30
  people. OK, this brings us to what I
• 34:32
  think is the most radical point, the one that to me leads
• 34:36
  directly to 1776 impact. Area 6 calls it decentralized
• 34:41
  politics, but I want to talk about the idea of interposition.
• 34:44
  This is the dynamite. This is the theological idea
• 34:47
  that changes history. Explain it because for most of
• 34:51
  collection history, the rule was basically the King is God's
• 34:55
  anointed, you must obey him. If you rebel against the King,
• 34:58
  you're rebelling against God. Right, that was the standard
• 35:00
  interpretation of Romans 13. Let every soul be subject to the
• 35:04
  governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God.
• 35:09
  The standard Christian view for centuries was that if the king
• 35:12
  is a tyrant, you just have to suffer patiently and pray
• 35:15
  because God put him there for some reason, maybe to test you.
• 35:18
  And Calvin changed that. He didn't throw it out, but he
• 35:21
  qualified it in a revolutionary way.
• 35:23
  He introduced the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.
• 35:25
  The lesser magistrate. He said, OK, a private citizen
• 35:28
  shouldn't just grab a pitchfork and a torch and go start a
• 35:31
  revolution. That's chaos.
• 35:32
  That's anarchy. But what about the other
• 35:35
  officials in the Kingdom? The lower level officials, the
• 35:38
  elected representatives, the Dukes, the mayors, the town
• 35:41
  council. They have authority from God
• 35:43
  too. Exactly.
• 35:44
  They've also been put in their place by God.
• 35:46
  Calvin argued that these lesser magistrates have a divine duty
• 35:50
  to protect the people from a greater magistrate, like a king
• 35:54
  if he becomes a lawless tyrant. If the king violates God's law
• 35:57
  and begins to crush the people's liberties, the lower officials
• 36:01
  must stand in the gap. They must interpose themselves
• 36:04
  between the tyrant and the people.
• 36:06
  So it's not a rebellion of the mob, it's a lawful, orderly
• 36:09
  resistance led by other constituted authorities, Yes.
• 36:13
  It frames resistance to tyranny not as a chaotic rebellion, but
• 36:16
  it's a moral and legal duty. It's like the police captain
• 36:19
  arresting the police chief because the chief himself broke
• 36:22
  the law. It's an act of upholding the law
• 36:24
  against a lawless ruler. And this is exactly what
• 36:27
  happened in the American Revolution, the Continental
• 36:29
  Congress. Where the lesser magistrates,
• 36:31
  they were the duly elected representatives of the colonial
• 36:34
  assemblies. When King George the Third
• 36:36
  violated their established rights as Englishmen, they
• 36:39
  didn't just start a riot, They convened to Congress.
• 36:42
  They wrote legal petitions, and when that failed, they issued a
• 36:46
  formal declaration, a legal document framing their
• 36:49
  revolution as a necessary act of interposition against a lawless
• 36:54
  king. That is mind blowing.
• 36:56
  So the internal logic of the Declaration of Independence is
• 36:59
  basically Calvinist political logic.
• 37:01
  Many serious historians have called this the Calvinist theory
• 37:03
  of revolution, and the founders knew it.
• 37:06
  John Adams, who was a key founding father, explicitly
• 37:10
  credited this theological lineage for American
• 37:12
  independence. He knew exactly where these
• 37:14
  ideas came from. So when we look at the sources
• 37:16
  conclusion and it mentions the Massachusetts body of liberties
• 37:20
  or the influence on James Madison, it's not a stretch,
• 37:22
  It's not wishful thinking. It is a direct historical line.
• 37:26
  The Puritans who settled New England were radical Calvinists.
• 37:29
  They came to America specifically to build a city on
• 37:31
  a hill based on these Geneva principles.
• 37:33
  They set up towns with public schools for everyone.
• 37:36
  That's Cal. They set up town hall meetings
• 37:38
  with elected officials. Calvin.
• 37:40
  They set up a system of written laws based on the Bible that
• 37:43
  limited the power of their governors.
• 37:45
  Calvin, the whole framework is there.
• 37:47
  The whole framework, it's baked into the American political DNA.
• 37:51
  And there is that quote in the source material from the late
• 37:55
  Supreme Court Justice Anson and Scalia that just sums this all
• 37:58
  up. It's a powerful quote.
• 38:00
  Scalia, who was a Roman Catholic, by the way, not a
• 38:02
  Calvinist, said the principle that law should be made by
• 38:05
  representatives of the people and not by kings or their
• 38:08
  ministers is the paramount political accomplishment of the
• 38:11
  Millennium. And then he calls this principle
• 38:13
  specifically Calvinist republicanism.
• 38:16
  The paramount political accomplishment of the
• 38:18
  Millennium. And it comes from a theologian
• 38:20
  that most people just think of as a grumpy guy who talked about
• 38:23
  predestination. It shows that ideas have
• 38:25
  consequences. Deep theological ideas have very
• 38:29
  practical, real world consequences.
• 38:32
  Calvin's view of God as absolutely supreme, holy, and
• 38:35
  sovereign meant that no human king could ever claim absolute
• 38:39
  power for himself. Only God is absolute.
• 38:41
  Exactly, and his view of man as created in God's image and
• 38:47
  therefore valuable, but also has fallen and sinful and therefore
• 38:51
  not to be trusted with absolute power, meant that we need both
• 38:55
  freedom and laws, liberty and limits, checks and balances.
• 38:59
  We are getting to the end of our time, but I want to circle back
• 39:01
  to something the source said at the very end that really stuck
• 39:04
  with me. It was an observation from a
• 39:06
  scholar named Douglas Kelly. He says that Calvin's legacy is
• 39:10
  so strong precisely because its roots are often unperceived.
• 39:15
  That is the sign of true, deep cultural success, isn't it?
• 39:19
  When an idea becomes so normal, so much a part of the air we
• 39:22
  breathe, that you don't even know it was ever a controversial
• 39:24
  idea. You just think, well, of course
• 39:25
  we should have elections, obviously.
• 39:27
  Obviously, every kid should learn to read.
• 39:29
  Obviously the president isn't above the law.
• 39:31
  We don't call them Calvinist ideas anymore.
• 39:33
  We just call them common sense or modern life or the way things
• 39:37
  should be. We are living in the structure
• 39:39
  he designed, even if we've completely forgotten the
• 39:41
  architect's name and painted over his blueprints.
• 39:43
  That's a great image for it. So here's the final thought for
• 39:47
  you, the listener. You might not be a Calvinist.
• 39:50
  You might not even be religious. You might find the theology of
• 39:52
  predestination confusing or frankly off putting, but if you
• 39:58
  value your ability to go to a Public Library and read any book
• 40:02
  you want. If you value the fact that your
• 40:04
  boss can't just seize your paycheck for no reason.
• 40:08
  If you value the fact that the president is not a king, that he
• 40:11
  or she is bound by a constitution.
• 40:13
  Then you are in some small way interacting with and benefiting
• 40:17
  from the legacy of John Calvin. That is a lot to chew on.
• 40:21
  I'm definitely going to look at the local library and the voting
• 40:23
  booth a little differently now. It gives you a deeper
• 40:26
  appreciation for the roots of our liberty.
• 40:27
  It didn't just happen by accident.
• 40:30
  There were deep convictions underneath it.
• 40:32
  Thank you so much for walking us through all this.
• 40:33
  This was a true deep dive. My pleasure.
• 40:36
  It's an important story, and one that's not told often enough.
• 40:40
  And thank you to everyone listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 40:43
  We hope this challenged you and maybe gave you some new
• 40:45
  categories for understanding the world around you.
• 40:48
  Until next time, keep reading, keep thinking and remember ideas
• 40:51
  have consequences.