Honoring David Calhoun

In my last post, I mentioned that David Calhoun is an emeritus professor of church history at Covenant Theological Seminary. I also mentioned that he gave a series of lectures for a class called “Reformation and Modern Church History” several years ago, and that these lectures are available free online. And, I mentioned that these lectures had a great impact on me. In this post, I want to describe that impact briefly. My reasons for doing this are two. First, I want to express my gratitude to Calhoun for his contributions to Christian education, which have been considerable. (Calhoun has taught scores of seminary students; and, in addition to his lectures for “Reformation and Modern Church History”, he gave lectures for a class on Calvin’s Institutes and a class on the ancient and medieval church, which are also available free online. There is a sore lack of good, scholarly materials on church history online, and Calhoun is one of the few professors who has made entire series of lectures available free to the general public. For this, and for his seminary teaching, he deserves our thanks.) Second, I want to encourage others to listen to at least a few of these lectures.

I started listening to Calhoun’s lectures on modern church history about a year ago. Although Jill and I were living in Chicago, I was teaching classes at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, which is a stone’s throw away from Iowa. I stayed in Rock Island during the week and spent my weekends in Chicago. The drive between Chicago and Rock Island is beautiful, but it is also long – three-and-a-half hours each way. To fill the time, I downloaded lectures from iTunes and listened to them as I drove. I soon developed a mild obsession with listening to lectures – I listened to them while driving around Rock Island, and I often listened to them in Chicago. I started out with a set of lectures by Donald Kagan on ancient Greece. I then listened to lectures by Isabelle Pafford on the ancient world (mostly Greece and Rome), and then lectures by Margaret Lavinia Anderson on modern European history. These lectures were wonderful, but after a while I started hankering for something on the Bible or church history. That was when I discovered Calhoun’s lectures on modern church history.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the lectures. I had been attending a Presbyterian church for two years, and I had recently begun to study Reformed theology, though not yet in great depth. I was interested in the Reformed tradition, and I was even attracted to parts of it, but I still had many doubts about the doctrines of grace, depravity, and providence, and I certainly didn’t consider myself Reformed. But Calhoun was strongly Reformed in his theological outlook, and he didn’t hide this in his lectures. In fact, Calhoun often preached Reformed theology as he lectured. I was surprised by this; I had never heard a seminary lecture before, and I wasn’t accustomed to hearing professors defend their own theological positions in a classroom. Much of what Calhoun said intrigued me. However, I was also puzzled by some things he said, and I was somewhat troubled by his strong defense of the core doctrines of the Reformed tradition. It seemed to me that Calhoun was too bold at times, and not sufficiently skeptical. But I liked Calhoun. He was affable and intelligent. And, more importantly, he seemed to be a person of strong faith and great integrity. So I kept listening. And, as I listened, I started reading more about Reformed theology, including some Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. I began to scrutinize the Bible more carefully. Did it really teach the doctrines that Calvin and others found there? Or had they read too much into the text, as I frequently suspected? Did Reformed doctrines seem reasonable to me independently of what the Bible might say about them? Did I really understand those doctrines? These were questions that rattled around in my head for months.

The Lord began to work in my heart, and my mind gradually changed. I became convinced that the Bible really did teach the core doctrines of the Reformed tradition. I also became convinced that those doctrines were quite reasonable independently of Scripture. This was a very exciting time for me. I began to see vistas – beautiful, majestic vistas – in the Bible that I had never seen before. I saw that Scripture was richer and lovelier than I had ever expected. Through the Bible, the preaching at my Presbyterian church, the writings of Calvin and Edwards, and Calhoun’s lectures, I had come to affirm the core doctrines of the Reformed tradition. It would take me a long time to explain how significant this period was for my understanding of the Bible and theology, and for my relationship with God. Let me pass over that for now and say something about the role of Calhoun’s lectures in all of this.

Calhoun’s lectures on modern church history contain some of the best preaching that I have ever heard. Calhoun doesn’t simply narrate past events – he evaluates them. In particular, he evaluates them from a Reformed perspective. Calhoun’s lectures contain some social and economic history, but they largely concentrate on great individuals, movements, and books; and, as Calhoun examines these individuals, movements, and books, he always asks whether they got things right as judged from a Reformed perspective. For example, in his lecture on the Westminster Assembly, Calhoun spends some time discussing the reasons it was convened, the men who participated in it, and its productions. But he also asks whether the Westminster productions are faithful to the Bible. His conclusion? The Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms may not perfectly explicate the theology of the Bible in every single detail, and their use of Scripture is sometimes questionable, but they are generally very faithful to the Bible, and they do succeed in laying out its core theology.

How does this amount to great preaching? When Calhoun lectures on Erasmus, or Luther, or the Catholic Church, he always gives you the Reformed perspective on them. But he doesn’t present this perspective as a piece of dry, stolid orthodoxy. For Calhoun, the core doctrines of the Reformed tradition are nothing other than the teachings of Scripture, which impart truth, but are also full of grace and love. There is no dead orthodoxy in his lectures – there is a living orthodoxy whose central message is that God saves sinners. Calhoun preaches the gospel with a simple, effective grace. He knows the Bible well, and he teaches it well. His words are well chosen, and they are well spoken, with a distinct South Carolinian flair. His personal testimony is powerful. So is his presentation of the testimony of others. And, though Calhoun is a staunch defender of the Reformed tradition, he is not smug or vain. He finds much of value in non-Reformed traditions. He extols the liturgical traditions of the Anglicans and the Orthodox. One of his favorite preachers is Spurgeon, a Baptist. He is funny and winsome. I could say a lot more, but I will stop here.

God used Calhoun to help me to understand the Gospel, and for that I will always be grateful. I am sure that I am not alone, and that God has used Calhoun to witness to many others.

Listen to Calhoun. Again, the lectures are avaible through iTunes, and they can also be found here and here. If you don’t have time to make it through all his lectures, or if you aren’t sure that you want to commit to the whole series, start with his lecture on the Anglicans, or his lecture on the church in the Netherlands, or perhaps his lecture on the Westminster Assembly. These are some of my favorites, and I have listened to them several times. You might also want to try his lectures on the English Reformation, the Puritans, or Jonathan Edwards. If you do decide to listen, I hope that you will find the experience as informative and enjoyable as I have. Thanks be to God. Amen.