wfn.org | Do you have Calvin on the brain?

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@warc.ch>]

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>23 June 2010

>Do you have Calvin on the brain?

>By Jerry Van Marter, UGC correspondent

As a lifelong Presbyterian, I approached the Calvin Neuron
Factor ( http://www.contactgps.ch/ )test with fear and trembling.
Would I be exposed as a pagan? A heretic? A Baptist? 

As part of the celebration of 16th century Reformer John
Calvin’s 500th birthday last year, two Swiss journalists have
developed the online test as a way to “detect traces of Calvin in
your brain,” says journalist and theologian Michel Kocher.

The two-stage, 12-question test playfully determines whether the
test-taker is an “avowed Calvinist,” a “pseudo-Calvinist,” a
“Calvinist oblivious of it” or a “Calvinist in disguise.”

“Our premise is that if Calvin had not lived, everyone’s life
would be different somehow,” Kocher says, “so everyone is a
Calvinist to an extent, even if they don’t know it.” 

The first stage of the test calculates whether Calvin’s personal
influence is “secular” or “religious.” In stage two, those deemed
secularly influenced are divided into those for whom the
influence results in community-orientation or individualism.
Those deemed religiously influenced are divided into those for
whom the Bible “is the only true standard” of faith and life and
those who follow the Law and commandments “as a spiritual key.”

“In our scheme there is a place for everyone,” Kocher says, “and
no place is better than any other.”

More than 1,000 Genevans took the Calvin Neuron Factor test when
it was introduced in two public settings in Geneva last year.
Fifty-four percent were identified has having a greater religious
inheritance than secular one. And fully two-thirds of respondents
exhibited a “let’s do it together” attitude rather than a “I do
not do it like you” relationship to others. 

Kocher says nearly everyone who has taken the test has reacted
positively to it. “They take the test, get a specific answer and
say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting!’” he said. 

So, how did I fare? Religiously influenced in the “Zone of
Pleasure,” which means I’m “not crushed by the Law: the
commandments of God are a figure of Christ. I follow them like
Jesus did … with a free spirit.” That makes me a “Calvinist in
disguise.” No surprise there.

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States
(June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World
Communion of Reformed Churches. 

>Contact: Kristine Greenaway
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Communion of Reformed Churches

UGC News Room – Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204
Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636
News Room: 1-616-526-7885
email: kgr@warc.ch
web: www.reformedchurches.org (
http://www.reformedchurches.org/#_blank )