I was a stubborn college student.

Click to enlarge: John Calvin had some good ideas even though he wore a goofy hat. Bummer about that unfortunate business with Servetus, though. Every year at Calvin some student discovered this skeleton in Calvin’s close and trotted it out, as indignant (and rightly so) as if it happened yesterday. Dying 500 years ago of course wasn’t any less painful than it is today, and killing someone over an idea wasn’t some forgivable cultural norm that everyone had to accommodate. I seem to recall a guy about 2,000 ago that made friends with dregs and sinners and went to his own death for telling the emperor he had no clothes. Servetus was burned at the stake >

I remember being challenged by a professor regarding my attitude towards those less fortunate than me. (Me being a middle-class white Protestant kid at a middle-class white Protestant college).

This was in Psych 101 at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I don’t remember the prof’s name. I was a senior at the time, close to graduation, finishing my core and ready to shake the dust from small-minded Calvinism off my feet and enter the real world.

This professor asked if we were responsible for those that were less fortunate than ourselves.

I was eager to contribute. I said yes, of course, for those that suffer through no fault of their own, but not those that harm themselves (alcohol, tobacco, drugs) or ignore their bodies (obesity, depression), or hurt others and wind up in jail.

He didn’t counter me, but solicited alternative views from the class, of which there were few or none. Maybe because I’d been so forceful, maybe because they agreed, maybe because I was so obviously and grossly misguided they didn’t want to embarrass me in front of others.

He was a good professor. Older, nearing retirement, a little tired. He’d probably seen more kids like me than he wanted to remember.

I wasn’t a very good example of a good Baptist, at last not the type most Baptist want to be.

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Yes, this is related to my opinion on national healthcare. There’s a reason why we make some provision for the poor and needy, and why there are prison ministries, and very good work like Mel Trotter in Grand Rapids.

c0

The single most indelible thing I learned at Calvin about Calvinism was the goal of transforming culture through Christ; not separating ourselves out of it, but rather working within it and changing it from the inside out.

That's a very good message that Baptists can learn from.

[2013-10-12]

c0