The Reformation Wall, Geneva

The International Monument to the Reformation (French: Monument international de la Réformation, German: Internationale Reformationsdenkmal), usually known as the Reformation Wall,[1] is a monument in Geneva, Switzerland. It honours many of the main individuals, events, and documents of the Protestant Reformation by depicting them in statues and bas-reliefs.

The Wall is in the grounds of the University of Geneva, which was founded by John Calvin, and was built to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Calvin's birth and the 350th anniversary of the university's establishment. It is built into the old city walls of Geneva, and the monument's location there is designed to represent the fortifications', and therefore the city of Geneva's, integral importance to the Reformation."

Photo credit: Reformationsdenkmal mit Farel, Calvin, Bèze und Knox (60 KB - 591x400)
© Foto: Roland Zumbühl, Arlesheim, 17.04.03

The Sovereignty of God

From Michael Horton, "Where in the World is the Church?"

The sovereignty of God is not only an essential tenet of the Christian faith in particular (and theism in general), but it is also immensely practical for our confidence that God fights our battles for us; evil can never have the last word. At the Cross, we are told, our debt was not only canceled, but 'having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross' (Colossians 2:15). Is it not the height of arrogance, bordering on blasphemy, to suggest that it is the believer's victory over demonic forces rather than Christ's once-and-for-all triumph that secures liberation from bondage? It is by proclaiming the Gospel, Paul declares in his famous passage on spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6), not by taking it upon ourselves to eradicate spiritual darkness, that God's kingsom is extended and Satan's diminished.

Often, our political causes, like our evangelistic cursades, tend to ignore this fundamental truth, so that we sometimes sound as if this latest, greatest movement (the Christian Right in politics, or Promise Keepers [or other movements] ...) of our own frenetic activity and ambitious, entrepreneurial projects will achieve the work credited in Scripture to the Cross of Christ. Or, on the other end, if the wrong person occupies the White House, we give the impression that the universe is out of control, as if God depended on us and our machinery for the realization of His kingdom. Very often, the most well-meaning believers engage in these ambitious causes with the best of motives, but the temptation is great to forget, when we lose, that Christ is still King, and when we win, that we are not.

Of course, this is not to say that Christ's triumph at the Cross eliminates our responsibility to evangelize the nations or to teach them righteousness, but it is to say that the only way we bring this victory to the nations is by proclaiming what Christ has already accomplished, not by our feats of grandeur and glory. For, unlike the "super-apostles," as Paul referred to the Gonostics, "We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake (2 Corinthians 4:5).

The sovereignty of God comforts us in crisis and curbs our pride in triumph, reminding us that it is not we who determine the outcome of spiritual battles, but Christ the King who fights for us and has already secured the final victory.

Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"

Here is a brief excerpt from "The Power of the Powerless", written in 1978, during the time when the grip of the Soviet Union seemed unbreakable:

By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. . . .

The original and most important sphere of activity, one that predetermines all the others, is simply an attempt to create and support the independent life of society as an articulated expression of living within the truth. In other words, serving truth consistently, purposefully, and articulately, and organizing this service. This is only natural, after all: if living within the truth is an elementary starting point for every attempt made by people to oppose the alienating pressure of the system, if it is the only meaningful basis of any independent act of political import, and if, ultimately, it is also the most intrinsic existential source of the "dissident" attitude, then it is difficult to imagine that even manifest "dissent" could have any other basis than the service of truth, the truthful life, and the attempt to make room for the genuine aims of life.

The name for this blog, "Reformation 500," was intended to highlight both the Reformation as it occurred then, and the Reformation as I believe it must occur now.

Havel's writing is significant in that it aligns with some of the political reading that I've been doing (which I hope to publish here as time moves along). "The sovereignty of God is not only an essential tenet of the Christian faith in particular (and theism in general), but it is also immensely practical for our confidence that God fights our battles for us; evil can never have the last word. At the Cross, we are told, our debt was not only canceled, but 'having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross' (Colossians 2:15). (Pg 18, "Where in the World is the Church?" (c) 1995, 2002 Michael S. Horton, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.)

I'll have much more of this later, Lord willing.

My wife

 This is one of the best photos I've ever taken of my wife. It was March 2003, just before she went off to Iraq. This is one that I kept close by the whole time she was gone. She has returned, of course, she is out of the army now, and she is sleeping peacefully in the bed behind me as I write. In September she will begin the first year of her nursing program. Getting into that program represented the accomplishment of a goal that she had had for a long time.

This is one of the first images I've posted since trying out the new Picasa2, a photo editing and publishing tool from Google.