This impressive, splendid study of clergy of Geneva in the era after Calvin is a detailed and persuasive indication that the common view that later Genevan clergy embraced unorthodox Socinianism is incorrect. Based on thorough prosopographical and archival analysis, McNutt presents historical, contextual, and theological evidence to show that clergy after Calvin kept continuities with the reformer while also making adaptations to preserve Calvin's legacy. The historical narrative that posits a decline into “secularization” must give way to one where greater variation and complexity is recognized.
Political and contextual changes after Calvin's death featured an increasing pluralism in the city and included the growing influence of France, which eventually annexed the city in 1798. Yet Geneva's Reformed Church continued as the state church until 1847. The presence of intellectuals in the city such as Voltaire and the difficulties he and other philosophes fostered created numerous challenges for Geneva's clergy. McNutt studies this period from the perspectives of clergy who served Geneva's churches. The complexities of ecclesiology, politics, and society linked in the midst of the theological state of the church presents an involved field of inquiry. But McNutt skillfully unweaves the various strands and now provides a compelling demonstration of how a fuller picture of this period can emerge when social and theological history are jointly considered.
The book's title is purposefully chosen. It is not “Between Calvin and Voltaire” since McNutt rejects the historiography that portrays the clergy as seeking a “middle way” during the Enlightenment, between traditional theology and the emerging views of French philosophes, thus also connoting compromise and decline in the interplays of orthodoxy and Enlightenment. Instead, the book is “Calvin meets Voltaire” to indicate “a metaphorical meeting of two minds and the complexity that emerges from that convergence. This wording is meant to allow for the possibility of ongoing continuity with the past as well as for movements away from past patterns” (21).
Part of the difficulty, as McNutt notes, is that often attention given to “reason” by Geneva clergy has been confused with advancing “rationalism” in the Enlightenment where revelation is judged by the canon of human reason alone. Genevan clergy, in line with Christian tradition, regarded God's revelation in Scripture as “reasonable.” Yet due to the Creator/creature distinction (as well as human sin), God's revelation is unknowable by human reason alone. So, rather than being a concession to Enlightenment optimism, the Genevan view sought to preserve orthodox Christian thought “and the adaptation of Calvinist thought to the context of the Enlightenment.” McNutt says: “I prefer to use the term ‘Reasonable Calvinism’” (22). This means, in short, the affirmation of how “eighteenth-century Calvinism largely remained a model of Reformed theology despite the incorporation of central Enlightenment characteristics” (22).
Throughout the eighteenth century, French policy was the most significant external factor affecting Genevan life. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) led many protestant refugees to Geneva so the city assumed the position of “Mother Church” to protestants, as it had been during Calvin's time. The city's Company of Pastors worked with local government to interpret government decisions and provide a religious core to stabilize the city. With population growth came increasing protestant pluralism in the city, as well as a continuing Roman Catholic presence. A turning point was when a Lutheran church was welcomed. The attitude of the City Council and Company of Pastors was for unity in moderation in managing religious pluralism (50, 51). Protestant divisions were seen as an evil for the church. In contrast to the reigning Reformed scholastic theology, a greater place for adiaphora began to be adopted. The 1725 abrogation of the scholastic Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675) was an example.
McNutt studies the duties and responsibilities of Genevan clergy, showing the fullness of their ministries as they functioned in church and city (chapter 2). Clergy jeremiads and renunciations were part of Genevan life (chapter 3). Clergy knew, as J.A. Turrettini, leading professor and pastor and son of the Reformed scholastic François Turrettini, said: “We have seen bad Christians since Christians were first seen in the world” (143).
When Voltaire moved to Geneva in 1754, he, along with the acclaimed Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was a native of Geneva, became renowned, leading figures. Voltaire generated conflict with the Genevan clergy, attacked Calvin as having “an atrocious soul” (151), and famously said: “I know of no other city where there are fewer Calvinists than in this city of Calvin” (153). In an infamous article by Jean d'Alembert published in the Encyclopédie (1757), Geneva's clergy were portrayed as relying on reason and as warming to Socinianism. Philosophes viewed Socianism in a positive light as providing a way of “uniting confessions through reason” (156). But the damage was done. Geneva's image came to be as a “city of heretics,” as no longer Calvinist, and as Voltaire claimed, a city that enabled the spread of atheism (157).
McNutt explores the clergy's preaching to discern the public theology of the pastors (chapter 5). She uncovers the complex dynamics of maintaining fidelities to the Genevan theological tradition in the context of emerging Enlightenment. She finds that instead of capitulating to heresies, the clergy throughout their ministries—from worship to theological questions—developed a “reasonable Calvinism.” This was taught to congregations and sought a compatibility of faith and reason “without advancing rationalization” (229). McNutt finds no warrant for the “characterization of the clergy as embracing Socinianism” (227).
The final chapter deals with ways clergy interacted with state and people during times of political crisis, ending with Geneva's annexation by France in 1798. Clergy functioned as “state-builders,” seeking to be political mediators. Later they were even “state-builders” for France (282). In the end, it was this “French connection,” says McNutt, which was the most significant factor in pushing this Reformed city into new directions.
