*Repost on John Calvin number five.

Before I get to Scottish Theology, let me ask you a question; do you think that John Calvin’s classical training as a humanist and the emphasis that he brought to the pulpit and church service by way of framing it as a ‘classroom’ was a healthy move or unhealthy for the church? As I recall, Steven Ozment, in his book The Age of Reform, makes this claim about Calvin and his ecclesiastical approach — that the ‘church service should be seen as a classroom’.

If this claim is true, and by no means do we “suffer” from doctrinal teaching today; but I would say, by-in-large, most of our churches are set up in a class-room style. Of course it wasn’t Calvin who invented exposition or teaching, in fact it is quite biblical; since anybody knows that good practice (orthopraxy) flows from ‘Biblically sound doctrine’ (orthodoxy). So maybe my question is misguided; maybe the rather isolated-individualistic church services that represent most of American Evangelicalism (and Reformed) can be blamed on just that — the ‘American psyche’ of Individualism. I just can’t help but wonder what impact Calvin had upon the church formation today; that is in regards to thinking of the church service as a ‘classroom’ instead of a ‘worship service’ where fellowship and communion around Christ and His Word is emphasized. Maybe Ozment is wrong.

My pondering stems from reflecting on I Corinthians 12 and the body life described therein. So many Christians are suffering, as we should be (or the Bible lied about it); yet I don’t see the cross having much play in our worship services today. If we are suffering (say like with cancer, or many other an ailment — physical-mental-or emotional), how is the church service and the time immediately following the service set up in a way where the body can be the body? How is the church service set up in a way that real communion around Jesus and the Word can happen in a way that “when one member of the body is suffering, all of the body suffers?” Is it because the church service is more like a ‘classroom’ that this isn’t happening, is it ‘American Individualism’, or am I just barking up the wrong tree, or something else?

Does John Calvin have any impact upon the way we do church today?