John Calvin at Baker Book House

At the risk of alienating all of my Reformed friends out there, I think I'm a little John Calvin'ed out. Yes, he is an important figure in Western history, and yes, tomorrow is his 500th b-day, and yes, I am Calvinist in my theology. But Tuesday evening's symposium on John Calvin at Baker Book House really put this whole 500th b-day fever into perspective. I went, and now I want my 90 minutes back. It was worse than pointless. It was an attempt to fill a space that had been specifically created for having a space to fill. The first topic was on dispelling the myths about John Calvin. Yawn. Moving on. Richard Muller was supposed to speak on whether Calvin was a Calvinist, which I find intriguing, although I already have my mind made up on that, but he had to back out due to a family emergency. Finally, there was an attempt at trendiness, trying to draw a critique of emergent "theology" out of Calvin's thoughts, but this is an exercise in futility. Calvin wouldn't have even wasted his time, and it was clear that the presenter on this topic knew this but was still faced with the task of filling his time with something. Perhaps my hopes were just too high, but I expected more. I do not consider myself a Calvin scholar by any stretch of the imagination - quite the opposite, which is why I went. I guess I felt cheated since I didn't really learn anything new. Oh well. Better luck next time.