I would like to see the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Presbyterian Record refer to Calvin’s Christian name as Jean instead of John, as he has been called in the English-speaking world since the Reformation.
Jean Calvin was very much French in culture and identity. He offered the first edition of the Institutes of Christian Religion (first published in Latin in 1536) to King François Ier of France, the reigning monarch of his time. Believing that the people must have easy access to scripture and religious thoughts, Jean Calvin was the first Frenchman to write a book on theology in French and, as such, he has his place in French literature.
The 16th century witnessed a quick evolution French from an archaic language of the 15th century to the classical French of the 17th, and Calvin’s French was enormously influential in this development.
During his years in Geneva, Calvin was deeply interested in what was happening in his native land, and particularly to the French Reformed Church.
To continue to refer to Calvin’s Christian name in English is ethnocentric: what would the Presbyterian churches of Scotland, Canada, and the United States say if French-speaking Protestants refer to Knox’s Christian name as Jean? We live in a country that has two official languages: would it not be appropriate that we be sensitive to a language and culture that is so much part of Canada.
