WINONA LAKE — Though they lived several hundred years apart, religious leader John Calvin and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “both thought of their ministries as prophetic,” said the Rev. Tim Robinson.
Robinson spoke about the two men as part of a special Black History Month event in Grace College’s Morgan Library on Thursday. It was put on by Grace’s Student Affairs, Department of Humanities and the School of Arts and Humanities.
Robinson holds a Master of Divinity from Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School and a Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He’s working on obtaining a doctorate from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with his focus being on Calvin.
He noted he became interested in learning about King through his mother and grandmother, who fought for civil rights in Alabama. That interest also stemmed from him being told by a teacher in fourth grade not to read about King and Abraham Lincoln.
“I told my mother this, and she was infuriated,” said Robinson. “She was like, ‘Baby, don’t you ever stop reading about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’ And from that time on, I’ve read, and I’ve read, and I’ve read (about) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Regarding Calvin, Robinson said he became interested in learning about him thanks to his master’s level studies connected to Dr. Timothy F. George.
Robinson said he studied the two men together “because like many African-American Christians I am bothered by the notion that a sovereign God willed slavery.”
As everything being willed by God was a belief of Calvin, Robinson said that’s why many Black theologians avoid him.
“So nevertheless in my dialogue with my Dean Timothy George, he encouraged me to read a book called ‘John Calvin as Sixteenth Century Prophet’ by John Balserak, and it is that reading of that book that I began to make connections between that 16th-century reformer and African-American pastors during the 20th century civil rights movement,” said Robinson. “So as I began to read about John Calvin as a prophet, I began seeing connections between Martin Luther King and John Calvin.”
“In a historical-social context, these guys look pretty similar,” said Robinson.
He also said he wanted to compare the two because “I was also disturbed by recent statements made by Calvinist pastor John MacArthur (who) called King not a Christian at all, a nonbeliever who misrepresented everything about the Gospel of Jesus.”
“MacArthur also spoke out against The Gospel Coalition’s reconciliation conference on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination,” said Robinson. “MacArthur also stated that the TGC at that time and from now on has moved away from Christian orthodoxy because they had that celebration.”
Robinson noted the Bible talks about reconciliation and “one church,” which he believed Calvin and King both stood for.
Regarding Calvin and King’s similarity of considering themselves prophets, Robinson said Calvin “aligned his ministry in Geneva (Switzerland) with the Old Testament prophets.”
“For Calvin, while allowing room for supernatural revelation for the primitive church, to have the gift of prophecy is to be able to rightfully interpret the will of God and to proclaim it through the ministry of preaching,” said Robinson.
Calvin also trained others to be prophets as Old Testament prophets did, said Robinson.
Similarly, King trained civil rights workers for that movement, and “thought of his work as being one of the Old Testament prophets,” said Robinson.
“MLK aligns his ministry against injustice with the Old Testament prophets to the very end of his life, and it is seen in his very last speech ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,'” Robinson said.
Robinson also shared multiple other similarities, including that Calvin and King were both church reformers and cared for those forsaken by society.