On a hot summer afternoon in 2004, I was treated to an unexpected visit to John Calvin’s birthplace in Noyon, France. The Rev. Lee, the senior pastor of the Korean Presbyterian Church in Paris, guided my husband and me to the childhood house of Calvin, which is a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Paris. Noyon is a small city with a rich historical heritage, and Calvin’s house is managed by the city as a historical and cultural site. In Noyon, we found a small two-story building with simple pieces of furniture and some of Calvin’s memories. Compared to Martin Luther’s birthplace, it was a plain and common place. I remember feeling a sense of solitude in the quiet room where Calvin lived his childhood days.

John Calvin has influenced me not only theologically, but also culturally. His teachings are a significant presence in my life whether I consciously recognize it or not, because of my faith roots in the Presbyterian Church in Korea and in America. I was raised in a Presbyterian church that was founded by a Presbyterian missionary from the former southern Presbyterian Church in 1895; I married a Presbyterian minister whose grandfather was a pastor of that church for over 25 years. I came to the United States to join my husband, who was studying in Denver, Colorado, and we have been serving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as clergy couple for many years. God called us to the wilderness of North America as pilgrims and sojourners, like Calvin. I am a Korean-American Presbyterian who inherited her spiritual identity from John Calvin, a Frenchman.

I became an admirer of John Calvin after I experienced a personal touch of his childhood and youth days in Noyon and Paris. Calvin couldn’t have had a comfortable family life after his sudden and unexpected conversion around 1533, when he was twenty-four years old. After his conversion, Calvin became a sojourner in Geneva and Strasbourg to lead the Reformation. He married Idelette de Bure, the widow of Jean Stordeur of Liege, in 1540. Their only child, Jacques, lived only a few days, and Idelette died in 1549. In his later years, Calvin was afflicted with several diseases. On the evening of May 27, 1564, at the age of fifty-five, Calvin died quietly.

John Calvin is one of the greatest of the Protestant Reformers. With the possible exception of Martin Luther, no one has had a greater impact on the theology and ecclesiology of the Protestant churches today than John
Calvin. I like him as a great educator, too. Calvin established schools throughout Geneva and taught children a catechism of Christian doctrine, which the children had to learn while they were receiving secular instruction. He was also the primary person behind the printing of the famous Geneva Bible. John Calvin was a great and faithful servant of God and I am proud of being a Presbyterian and serving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) which has inherited his spiritual and theological legacy.

For more information, contact the author, Grace Choon Kim, associate for Korean adult curriculum development, Theology Worship and Education, at (888) 728-7228, x5484 or by email.