Writing a study on John Calvin is not for the faint-hearted. Calvin left behind a vast body of published texts, sermons and correspondence in French and Latin. Calvin’s relatively short life presents varied phases and guises for his biographers to consider – Calvin the theologian, the exile, the organiser, the preacher, the pastor and the political schemer. Biographers have offered mixed verdicts on Calvin’s character. Bruce Gordon’s superb 2009 biography presented a balanced account of a complex man who inspired both tremendous loyalty and ferocious opposition. Calvin lived with the considerable burden of believing he possessed a greater intellect than anyone else he met. A visionary leader, Calvin was both ruthless and, as Gordon memorably put it, an outstanding hater. Jon Balserak’s study presents a view of Calvin as a persistent liar. Balserak does not mean the reader to understand that Calvin told lies in the manner of any sinful but penitent Christian. Rather, Balserak insists that lies formed a key strategic element of the efforts made by Calvin (and his ministerial colleagues in Geneva) to evangelise the French monarchy. Balserak asks why ‘has this issue of the Genevan pastors’ immorality managed to remain largely unrecognized up to now?’ (p. 20). Balserak pursues his view of the lack of honesty and moral integrity of Calvin and his colleagues by considering the illegal methods used to promote Reformed religion in France. Balserak argues that Calvin and his colleagues did everything they could to hide their activities from the Catholic authorities in France (and often also attempted to disguise their activities from the attention of the state authorities in Geneva).

Balserak draws on correspondence, sermons and on a wide range of printed texts by Calvin as well as books by Theodore Beza, Guillaume Farel and others. He examines episodes in Calvin’s involvement in the mission to France to advance his argument. For example, Balserak discusses the 1535 prefatory letter to the Institutes written to François i. Balserak argues that this letter represented a deliberate strategy of dissembling as Calvin attempted to fashion an image of himself as a loyal and obedient subject of the French king to mask his illegal and clandestine activities. Balserak then considers Calvin’s efforts to develop Geneva as a base for mission during the 1540s. Calvin worked to establish a Reformed church in the Genevan Republic by bringing together a group of French-born pastors who largely shared his beliefs and vision. Balserak charts Calvin’s efforts to influence the emerging Reformed congregations in France. Dozens of Genevan-trained pastors were sent into the French monarchy. Young pastors crossing into France were advised to adopt aliases to try to avoid detection by the Catholic authorities. Calvin wrote to supporters in France using several pseudonyms with concern that messengers could be intercepted. Calvin advised supporters to meet in private and to remain unobtrusive. At the same time, Calvin lambasted those he dubbed as ‘Nicodemites’ who were privately sympathetic to the cause of reform but unwilling to break from the Roman Church. Balserak concludes that ‘the Genevans’ ministry was, by whatever standards of honesty one employs, as mendacious as that of the Nicodemites’ (p. 165).

The final chapters of Balserak’s book consider the early years of the French civil wars. Balserak assesses Calvin and Beza’s involvement in efforts to support the Reformed cause in France. Both men were quick to disassociate themselves from failed plots and issued stout denials of any prior knowledge of actions undertaken by Reformed nobles. In January 1561 an emissary from Charles ix arrived in Geneva demanding an end to all seditious activities against the French crown and that the Genevan authorities recall Reformed pastors sent to France. Calvin drafted a reply on behalf of the Genevan council denying that Geneva had sent preachers into France or that any Genevan citizens were involved in stirring up dissension in France. Balserak judges this reply to be ‘obsequious and mendacious’ (p. 206). Calvin’s public voice, recorded for example in his sermons, portrayed the war in France as a defence of true religion. In private correspondence, Calvin was engaged in the messy business of trying to advance the Reformed cause in the context of complex relations between the ministers in Geneva and their employers on the Genevan council, between the church in Geneva and churches in France, and between the church and Reformed nobles in the French monarchy. Balserak writes that while other biographers have noted Calvin’s pragmatism and dishonesty, ‘no one has identified a pattern of (or commitment to, if you will) mendacity which is strategically employed as a part of a plan in Calvin, nor has anyone located this within Calvin’s efforts to reform his homeland’ (p. 282). For Balserak, Calvin’s behaviour does not easily fit into any biblical paradigm, and he concludes that it is not a ‘willingness to break French law that moves me to identify Calvin’s conduct as immoral but his mendacity’ (pp. 284-5).