You’re rich because of the Reformation.

(This post is a summary of part of Wayne Grudem’s talk today at RTS Charlotte’s Fall Lecture Series.)

Until about 1550 AD, there had been almost zero economic growth for centuries– that is, no substantial increase in per capita annual income. From about 1550 to 1750, slow economic growth began to spread, especially in Northern Europe. In about 1770 economic history changed forever with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; per capita income began to grow dramatically, and the growth hasn’t stopped. In 1750, the ratio of per capita income in rich vs. poor nations was about 5:1; today it’s about 400:1.

It wasn’t that everybody started in the middle, some nations became poorer and some became richer. Everybody started at about the same place: poor!

How did this come about? What has made the last 500 years so dramatically different than the previous several thousand?

In his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Harvard history professor David Landes (who is not a professing Christian) credits the Protestant Reformation, beginning with Luther in early 16th-century Germany.

The Reformation brought a new idea: what’s become known as the “Protestant work ethic” or the “Reformed doctrine of vocation.” It was a huge shift in how men and women approached work. Work was no longer seen as a necessary evil, but a way to serve God and fulfill his command to exercise dominion over the earth. For centuries prior to the Reformation, the dominant view was that to really serve God, one had to be a nun or a priest– incidentally, fields that make little economic contribution to society.

With the Reformation, men and women began to see their everyday life as a sphere where they could serve and please God. The farmer, the blacksmith, the housemaid all did work that mattered to God. This understanding provided an incentive for innovation, development, investment, and all sorts of other things that lead to economic growth. The results changed the face of the whole planet.

Calvin at 500

My pastor is working on a PhD on Calvin. One time he heard about a Calvin conference going on just a couple of hours away, so he signed up. He was excited to hear about new developments in Calvin studies, probably learn some things he didn’t know that would help with his research. Instead, the big items of discussion were things like petitioning the government for a John Calvin postage stamp. He left early. He told us “I felt like I was at a Star Wars convention or something.”

That’s the wrong way to honor somebody like Calvin. The right way is to be thankful for how he served God, and to continue to learn from him. Calvin was one of the most brilliant minds in church history, uniquely used of God to strip away a lot of the unbiblical baggage the church had accumulated by the Middle Ages. Whether you’re a Presbyterian or a Methodist or a Pentecostal or whatever, it’s unlikely you would have heard the gospel, the real gospel, if it weren’t for Calvin.

Today is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. I’m putting some links below to stuff I’ve done before, stuff people are posting today that I run across, and some places for general info on him. The point is not to say “Calvin is great,” but to say “Thank you, God, for servants like Calvin who help us understand your Word better.”

Earlier posts here on Calvin:

• Reading plan for Institutes of the Christian Religion.
• Calvin on how we’re easily led away from the things of God.
• Calvin on Patience.
• On Calvin getting a bad rap.

Posts from elsewhere:

• Kevin DeYoung: Calvin shows us how to be relevant 500 years later. (Via JT)
• Abraham Piper at the DG Blog: Celebrating Calvin for Christ.
• Calvin’s Wikipedia bio, which isn’t perfect but isn’t bad at all.
• Dr. Frank James: The Calvin I Never Knew, a great lecture. (Opens in iTunes.)
• Also from Frank James: Calvin the Evangelist. Blows up some stereotypes. Calvin sent out a lot more missionaries than the guys who say that Calvinism kills missions.
• Piper’s biographical talk on Calvin.
• My friend James-Michael, who’s not a Calvinist, has a good summary of his contributions and also of the “five points of Calvinism:” Happy Birthday John Calvin – from a non-Calvinist. (Did you know that Calvin basically invented the modern commentary?)

On Presidential Eloquence

After a speech by the former President, the Chicago Times printed this tacky comment:

The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the filly, flat, and dishwatery utterances of a man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.

Another paper was more dismissive:

We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the nation, we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.

The President, by the way, was Abraham Lincoln. The speech was the Gettysburg Address.

We’ve Had It Worse

Rich Lowry offers some needed sanity and historical perspective.

John Adams

A couple of years ago we found out that our apartment complex was requiring us to have cable, at a cool $45 a month. We weren’t pleased. (Well, I was a little pleased not to have to go to sports bars during football season.) As a result, we have HBO. Which normally we’re not thrilled about, and on the rare occasion we channel-surf, we’ve always got the thumb on the button when we hit channel 7.

A couple of weeks ago, though, we got a nice surprise. I had been hearing about the miniseries John Adams, based on David McCullough’s bestselling biography of one of the least-known Founding Fathers. It occurred to me on one of those rare channel-surfing occasions that this was on HBO, and we have HBO. For a history dork like me, this was very good news. We began watching the miniseries (I think we picked up in the middle of episode 3), and I got the book from the library.

I can’t say enough good things about the book, which I haven’t finished yet, or the miniseries, which ended last night. McCullough’s writing is great, and the movie does a great job of getting you into the world of the American Revolution. It’s very cool to see George Washington and Thomas Jefferson come alive, and Paul Giamatti (as Adams) and Laura Linney (as Abigail) are fantastic.

I think one of the reasons I’m really liking learning about Adams is that I identify with him– in good ways and bad. He was fiercely opinionated, which can make you passionate and convicted (Adams’ resolve was probably the only reason the Declaration of Independence happened when it did), but also vain and controlling. He talked and thought and wrote a lot, and he always envied men like Washington who had more self-control.

But one of my biggest takeaways from the series was just to be thankful for men like Adams. It sounds very cliché to talk about the sacrifices they made, but seriously, Adams was away from Abigail and their children for months at a time during the Revolution. He took assignments he didn’t want, like brokering a treaty with the French. As president, he threw away his popularity (and chances for reelection) by steering a neutral course in the conflict between France and Great Britain, knowing the young republic couldn’t survive another war. He did all this because he was convinced of the rightness of the American cause, and because he loved his country. And of course, all American citizens (and many others) are reaping the benefits of his resolve today.

So if you have HBO, by choice or otherwise, check out these reruns (you know how HBO is). The DVD’s are preselling on Amazon too, and the book is definitely worth the time.