That's MY Reformer!

Like all Reformed folk, I'm tired of detractors of Calvin. Equally, I'm tired of people who accuse Reformed people ('Calvinists', as we're sometimes called, or call ourselves) of a slavish devotion to Calvin. This happened to me recently, from a good friend. 'Rubbish!', I wanted to retort, but found something more careful by way of reply. Calvin would be horrified to hear anyone following his system of thought to the letter, as if subscription to it equalled salvation. He would recoil no less at learning that his name was identified with a series of convictions. Calvin strove to be a student of the Word, and he put his considerable gifts into interpreting it and laying out as clearly as he could its truths. I say 'amen' to those truths as I see them reflected in his Institutes and other works. I'm very happily Reformed.

Anyway, this is just a preface (an overly long one, anyway) to a gem I found at Tony Reinke's Miscellanies. Many know Marilynne Robinson's wonderful novels Gilead and Home, and many know too her Christian faith. Read her exchange with Mike Horton below. So perceptive of her, and so true. So call me a Calvinist - that's MY Reformer!

Michael Horton: “What moves you most about Calvin’s thought?”

Marilynne Robinson: “I think what moves me most about it is that he has such an incredibly high sense of what human beings are. It [the Institutes of the Christian Religion] is the most profoundly humanistic articulation of Christianity that I have ever encountered.”