Review: Friends of Calvin

Friends of Calvin by Machiel A van den Berg
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009, 286 pages.

I feel somewhat odd writing this, but I think I’ve read more books about John Calvin than anybody else not found in the Bible. I’ve devoured biographies of Calvin, books discussing and evaluating his theology, and books specifically about his preaching. And while I’ve loved and admired Calvin’s theology and ministry for a couple of decades, up until relatively recently my perception of Calvin’s personality was rather negative. I looked at him as the theological equivalent of Batman.

What do I mean? Well, Batman is a fairly stiff, dark soul, isn’t he? Unusually intelligent and resourceful, Batman is able to singlehandedly perform almost supernatural feats—without making any facial expressions. Moreover, Batman is a disturbed loner who doesn’t get along well with others, except maybe for his butler (and occasionally Robin).

That’s pretty much who I thought John Calvin was, just in the realm of theology. In contrast to the gregarious Martin Luther (whom I might liken to Iron Man/Tony Stark), I perceived Calvin as this mega-mind who was, in his personal life, a dark, disturbed loner able to churn out doctrinal tomes faster than a woodchuck could chuck wood without ever relaxing his perennial frown. Many portraits of Calvin on modern book covers only serve to reinforce this impression. Several I’ve seen make you think Calvin was some sort of cyborg who dispassionately sliced and diced heretics while sucking on lemons.

Well, recently all of that changed when I happened to pick up Friends of Calvin by Machiel van den Berg. The book is a collection of 24 brief vignettes about Calvin’s friends and colleagues. Here we learn about, as the chapter titles put it, Martin Bucer, his “Fatherly Friend”; Phillip Melanchthon, his “Lutheran Friend”; Heinrich Bullinger, his “Swiss Friend”; John Knox, his “Scottish Friend”; and, sadly, about Louis Du Tillet, “A Friend Who Turned Away”. Calvin had friends who were pastors, doctors, aristocrats and students, and more than one who became his enemy. There’s a chapter about his wife, Idelette, and another about his successor, Theodore Beza. All in all, I hadn’t a clue Calvin had so many good friends—reading it made me wonder whether a similar book written about me would include half as many chapters.

Assuming van den Berg is a reliable historian (and I have every reason to believe he is), the overall impression of Calvin is dramatically different from a theological Batman. Here we see a much more human, much more ordinary, and actually much weaker John Calvin, who did what he did only because the Lord gave him so many helpful, wise, encouraging friends. Furthermore, van den Berg is a very clear communicator, and the pathos of Calvin’s life, work, and suffering comes through vividly. We sympathize with Calvin’s fear, hesitation, and feelings of inadequacy when his “Passionate Friend” French evangelist William Farel threatens to curse Calvin if he doesn’t come pastor in Geneva; we can smell the steaming pork and cabbage on Calvin’s dinner table as he welcomes exiled Christians into his home for refuge; we can hear Calvin weeping with Idelette over the death of their infant son; we can feel Calvin getting hot under the collar as he confronts 69-year-old Farel over his ridiculous marriage proposal to a 17-year old girl; and we can see Calvin and Bullinger sauntering down the cobblestone streets of Zurich together in their long robes and leather clogs, bantering back and forth as to the best way to teach the communication of attributes. For maybe the first time this book helped me see Calvin as “a man with a nature like ours”, a really rather ordinary brother used of God in part because of the people he chose as friends.

I enthusiastically and unreservedly recommend Friends of Calvin. For you John Calvin aficionados, this book will hopefully give you a far more realistic understanding of this great Bible teacher if you’ve always thought of him as the doctrinal Dark Knight.

But a second, and probably more important, reason you should read this book is that it will make you reflect much on your own friendships. Who are my best friends? Why is it that so few of us have several close, reliable friends? Could I do more for God’s kingdom if I had more and better friends? How can I maintain the friendships I have and cultivate new ones? Chances are, this book will force you to consider these and similar questions.

Please read Friends of Calvin. It’s the most affecting, paradigm-shifting book I’ve read thus far this year. And I’ll never look at John Calvin the same way again.

This article first appeared in Credo Magazine, December 2016, pp. 58-59.