On Wednesday, Oct. 23, at 4 p.m., Dr. Jon Balserak of the University of Illinois Chicago gave a lecture titled “Calvin and the Genevans’ use of deception in their evangelizing of France,” hosted by the H. Henry Meeter Center in conjunction with the Historical Studies department. According to Karin Maag, who introduced Balserak at the beginning of the lecture, the event was part of a bi-annual lecture series on the Protestant Reformation. 

Chimes had the opportunity to speak with Balserak about his research on Calvin and the details discussed in the lecture.

About Balserak

Balserak is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Illinois Chicago who specializes in Calvin and the Protestant Reformation, specifically in France and Geneva. Balserak is originally from the United States, but did the majority of his academic work in the United Kingdom, returning to the U.S. in 2023.

When asked how he first started his research into John Calvin, Balserak told Chimes, “When I was at university back in the early 80s, … I was given a copy of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress for a Christmas gift, and I read it and I was blown away.” Afterward, Balserak said he became increasingly interested in English Puritan literature. He noted that the Puritans “kept referring back to Calvin, so I thought, well, golly, I should go read some Calvin, and I got the Institutes of the Christian Religion in the spring of 1987 and kind of never looked back.”

John Calvin and the Nicodemites

In his lecture and in his book Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Subterfuge, 1536-1563, Balserak gives several examples of John Calvin’s use of deception during his evangelism efforts to France. This included pseudonyms for letters, insisting in various letters of his obedience to the French crown, urging French Protestants to meet in private homes and not preach in public, and helping Genevan ministers sneak into France using methods such as fake passports. 

However, one of the clearest examples of deception is in a letter that Calvin sent to the new king of France in 1561. “Calvin and his colleagues in Geneva have been sending ministers into France since 1555, or early 1556. And they involved themselves in a plot a political plot to try to essentially put this one man into a position of political power, and it doesn’t work out,” Balserak explained. The new king of France in 1561 then sent a letter to the Genevans, telling them that he had heard about them sending ministers and had heard they were involved in a political plot. John Calvin then wrote back on behalf of Geneva, denying all the king’s claims. 

In his lecture, Balserak compares John Calvin’s use of deception with his treatment of the Nicodemites. “[The Nicodemites] are people in France who decide that the best way to go about trying to reform the church is by staying inside the Catholic Church in France and working for reform from within. … Now that, you will notice, involves a certain amount of deception,” Balserak said. 

Calvin brutally condemns the Nicodemites, arguing that their deception and hiding of their beliefs is an attempt to avoid persecution. However, as Balserak outlined in his lecture, Calvin himself engaged in many acts of deception and concealment, and he encouraged his followers in France to do the same. This creates what seems to be a paradox: why would Calvin condemn something he himself is doing?

“So I asked the question,” Balserak told Chimes. “Do you think Calvin knew he was lying? That’s one example where I think to myself, golly, it would be awfully hard for me to think that Calvin was unaware of the fact that he was denying things that he and his colleagues had been obviously involved in for six, seven years.”

Key takeaways: Examining historical figures

It can be difficult to determine why John Calvin treats the Nicodemites so harshly. During and after the lecture, attendees brought up this very question and discussed different theories. Some posited that Calvin judged the Nicodemians differently because they participated in Catholicism, or that he judged them harshly because they didn’t follow his specific idea of Protestantism, amongst other ideas. However, Balserak suggests that we must start by trying to understand. 

In Balserak’s article “Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Simulation in Their Efforts to Reform France, 1536–1563,” he ends by writing that we must recognize the extent to which John Calvin and others in Geneva employed deception in their ministry, “particularly if our aim is to uncover the true character of the French Reformation and of the profoundly human individuals who contributed so significantly to it.”

Balserak expanded on this idea of “profoundly human individuals.” “I think we run two risks when we’re looking at historical figures,” he said. “One is to treat them as perfect, … [to] think they are people who we ought to model our lives after in an uncritical way. … The other error I think we’re tempted to fall into … is to judge them extraordinarily harshly by our own contemporary standards.” Balserak argues that what we’re left with, then, is “trying to make an honest attempt to understand people from within their own context and see why they do the things that they do. What drives them? What reasons do they have for doing this or doing that? And when we sort of boil things down to that, can we come closer to seeing why they do it?”

When asked what he hoped attendees took away from the lecture, Balserak noted that he hoped to spark more interest in John Calvin. “I’m a big believer in benefiting from writers who have sort of stood the test of time. And so, I would say, go read a bunch of Calvin. I think you’ll be a better person from the experience.”