John Calvin and Missions

From a very old edition of St. Anne’s Pub comes this (1MB MP3 LINK BROKEN). Proof that Calvin actually did send out missionaries and was interested in sending out more. The MP3 has gone missing. Here is a text version of it.

Here is the (archived) article by Dr. Frank James referred to in the MP3.

Dr. Michael Haykin, a Reformed Baptist and church historian, has an (archived) article at Reformation21 on Calvin and missions.

Here is an article originally published in the Founders Journal on Calvin and missions by Ray Van Neste.

Henry R. Van Til briefly cites some of Calvin’s missionary zeal:

Calvin was never a narrow, nationalistic, sectarian Reformer; he believed we must draw all men to God in order that all may worship God and serve him. To this end, he sent out two Protestant missionaries in 1556 to Brazil, with a group of colonists. Neither did Calvin restrict his spiritual ministrations to the Genevese and the French, but the whole world was his parish. When his enemies mocked Calvin and threw the death of his son in his face, Calvin responded, “Children, I have them over the whole earth, myriads of them.” – Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, Baker Academic, (Grand Rapids: 1959), 93

Here are a handful lifted from Timmy Brister’s blog:

John Calvin and Missions: A Historical Study by Scott J. Simmons

John Calvin’s Missionary Influence in France by Michael Haykin (Reformation & Revival vol. 10 no. 4 [Fall 2001]

John Calvin and His Missionary Impulse by Errroll Hulse

John Calvin the Church Planter (doc) by Frank James

This article begins by asking “Calvinists are not concerned with evangelism. Calvinism itself declares evangelism unnecessary. Right? History tells a different story, a story that goes back to Calvin himself.”

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