Rev. Dr. Timothy R. Scheuers, Pastor of Congregational Life  at First United Reformed Church in Chino, CA, recently published a scholarly book entitled Consciences and the Reformation: Scruples over Oaths and Confessions in the Era of Calvin and His Contemporaries (Oxford University Press, 2023). Reformed Fellowship board member Michael Kearney interviewed Rev. Scheuers about practical implications of Calvin’s stance on consciences, oaths, and faithfulness.

Michael R. Kearney (MRK): From the very first word of your title, we are reminded that consciences are a vital topic, both in the time of the Reformation and now. What first inspired you to choose the topic that became your dissertation and now this book?

Timothy R. Scheuers (TRS): I was writing a paper for a seminar on Calvin, Geneva, and the Reformation, and stumbled upon a series of historical vignettes illustrating the repeated struggles Calvin and his pastoral colleagues faced in their attempts to inculcate a Reformed conscience and confession of faith among the faithful of Geneva. Perhaps surprisingly, pushback against their oath-dominated measures for reform came not only from the laity but also from the civil and ecclesiastical sectors, and it often came in the form of complaint against the alleged violation of the freedom of conscience—much to Calvin and his allies’ chagrin.

I began to look for other instances of these conflicts not only within Reformation centers but also in the centuries leading up to the early modern period. I discovered there were more related cases of “conscientious dissent” not yet explored within Reformation scholarship, which, happily, meant that I had stumbled upon my thesis topic. From that point on, my focus settled on isolating and explaining a nexus of related concerns—namely, oath-taking, confessional subscription, and the freedom of conscience—that had a somewhat tenuous relationship in early decades of reform.

MRK: How do the notions of consciences and oaths belong together?

TRS: The swearing of oaths and vows necessarily engages the human conscience (Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 37, Q/A 102). When a person voluntarily links his or her heart to a confession of faith, a promise of marital fidelity, or a vow of membership, they ought to do so in good conscience—that is, with a judgment of sound reason, with a Spirit-wrought integrity, and in accord with one’s innate knowledge of God’s law. The Reformers routinely encouraged Christians under their charge to assess their consciences before, during, and after making promises in good faith.

MRK: How do you explain oaths when counseling prospective church members or engaged couples?

TRS: This practice continues today in Reformed churches that take seriously promises of marriage, subscription to confessions and ministerial oaths, and membership or baptismal vows. As a matter of pastoral care, I make a point of impressing upon my congregants the importance of always speaking and acting in good conscience, only making promises they intend to keep, and valuing their membership vows. I also try to remain sensitive to members with weaker consciences by treating them gently, avoiding situations where they might feel forced to make promises they are not ready or able to keep. In these latter cases, pastoral patience and dutiful instruction are needed to help such people gain a sound conscience leading toward a firm confession or heartfelt oath.

MRK: In your chapter on reform in Strasbourg, you describe a set of Anabaptist appeals to conscience that you call “vague,” “obscure,” and “ill-defined” (72). Do these kinds of poor appeals to conscience still occur?

TRS: These appeals to conscience were heavily influenced by a type of Anabaptist piety that is highly subjective, mystical, spiritualistic, and generally resistant to external rites of the church. Anabaptists such as Sebastian Franck and Caspar Schwenckfeld claimed that the pure meaning of God’s Word is mostly spiritual, communicated to the conscience by the immediate operation of God’s Spirit. One must interpret Scripture as a confirmation of one’s own heart or conscience and should not be wedded to the Bible—what they called the “paper papacy.” According to these radicals, good conscience resides in the righteousness of one’s heart, not in outward displays of piety, discipline, or ceremony. They therefore encouraged resistance to the exercise of church authority, whether in requiring ceremonies to confirm faith or to discipline carnal behavior.

In response, the Reformers sought to inculcate a sense of conscience that would give external expression to one’s internal commitment to God and His Word. No one person, they argued, had the right to exercise their private judgment at the expense of their neighbor. While conscience is personal, it also has far-reaching communal implications relating to the order and harmony of church and society more broadly. One does not have the personal right, for example, to resist the wise methods employed by ordained church officials for consolidating, organizing, and purifying the church simply because they do so in the name of “conscience.” All believers are conscience-bound to do what makes for peaceful accord in the church—to do what is good for their neighbors—and not simply to take account of their own sensibilities. In other words, the reformers were often striving to inculcate a sense of the “communal conscience.”

The effect of American individualism upon the conscience is, sadly, alive and well in the church today. I occasionally encounter vague or ill-defined appeals to conscience even in our Reformed churches, usually as a means of avoiding obligations relating to church office or to buck expectations that are manifestly well-suited to maintaining order in the church. We have to regain the Reformers’ vision for maintaining a good conscience—one that spares people from spiritually burdensome regulations that undercut gospel assurance, to be sure, but also one that helps them understand that they don’t live for themselves alone but also for others, and that obligations and rules that are good for the health of Christ’s church ought to be followed joyfully.

MRK: Where does the term “Nicodemite” come from?

TRS: These were closeted Protestants hiding out in Catholic lands. Out of fear or convenience, they continued to go through the motions of Catholic worship while secretly holding Protestant convictions. They were labeled “Nicodemites” after the biblical Nicodemus, a Pharisee by day, follower of Jesus by night (John 3).

MRK: Why did these Christians pose such a concern in Calvin’s day?

TRS: John Calvin, Guillaume Farel, and Pierre Viret were particularly critical of such individuals because they refused to confess with their mouths what they believed to be true in their hearts—a clear sign of a weak or compromised conscience. On top of this, Calvin and his pastoral colleagues were concerned that Nicodemite behavior would set a compromising and spiritually damaging witness to weaker Christians suffering under Catholic oppression. They warned against the scandalizing effects that false worship—even feigned idolatry—would have upon troubled consciences already vacillating between right and wrong.

MRK: But others, like Bucer, thought that French Protestants “could remain within the Catholic Church and seek to ‘gain brothers’ through their clandestine witness” (99).

TRS: Bucer, and Capito with him, are certainly remembered for taking a more irenic, strategic approach to dealing with Catholics-in-transition. They saw opportunities for Protestant evangelism in Catholic lands, driven by the everyday, gentle faithfulness of ordinary Christians toward their Catholic neighbors. Bucer, in particular, argued that the external rites of Catholic worship were in themselves indifferent; that a person did not actually embrace Catholic superstition was the main thing. Calvin and those of his persuasion, on the other hand, maintained a closer link between a person’s heart and mouth; no one should confess with their mouth what they did not believe in their heart or conscience.

MRK: Given this difference of opinion, how might you counsel a Christian who, for example, travels to an area that lacks a Protestant church or attends a mass with a Roman Catholic family member?

TRS: I can appreciate Bucer’s pastoral sensitivity to morally complex situations and might tend to show sympathetic patience toward Christians transitioning from one ecclesial context to another. But I would certainly advise committed believers to hold fast their confession of faith, not compromising it by contrary outward behavior. To profess belief is to assert that one’s conscience is bound by the truth of their confession; and unless one’s conscience is found to be in error against the ultimate standard of Scripture, a person is obliged to maintain their confession, even by external observances, without compromise. A Protestant might visit a Catholic mass for, say, the purpose of observation and research, but should not participate in its idolatrous rites as if giving them any measure of credence or admiration.

MRK: Are there other ways in which you think Christians are persuaded to be “Nicodemites” in the twenty-first century? For instance, how might Calvin counsel an individual or a church confronted with denials of God’s created order of human sexuality or the appropriate leadership of the church? Would he say that remaining silent in these instances is always an act of “compromising one’s confession” (135)?

TRS: To be sure, Calvin would rebuke any believer today unwilling to maintain biblical doctrine and willing to capitulate to the spirit of our age. Remaining silent while the authority and clarity of God’s Word is questioned is itself an act of unbelief.

I think we deal less with Nicodemism proper these days—holding orthodoxy while hiding out among the unorthodox. Rather, we’re seeing a calculated compromise of God’s Word while openly embracing the so-called wisdom of man. Calvin would certainly warn that such religious compromise amounts to a complete abandonment of the voice of conscience—a deadly state of affairs.

MRK: So do Reformed churches have an obligation to protect freedom of conscience? You quote a scholar who calls Reformed churches “a school for consciences” (169).

TRS: One of the most sacred duties of ordained elders and pastors is ministering to consciences. This happens in two main ways. First, elders and pastors feed the souls of believers by maintaining the pure preaching of the gospel, by which the Spirit of God removes fear and self-loathing from the Christian’s conscience and gives deep-seated comfort and assurance of forgiveness. This is, in essence, the freedom of conscience.

But consistories also have the task of correcting erring consciences. When believers act in bad conscience toward one another or resist the instruction and correction of Christ through His officials, the consistory bears responsibility to expose error, rebuke sinners, and call them to exercise a submissive spirit.

The goal of all spiritual discipline should be the interiorization of God’s law, rather than mere external compliance to it. Its aim is that believers would know in their very conscience the freedom of forgiveness and the joyful promise of sanctification by the grace of the Spirit. In this way, the church most certainly remains a school for consciences today.

MRK: How is your final chapter on the Genevan Academy and the Lausanne Academy related to the overall thrust of the book?

TRS: My last chapter illustrates how quickly Reformed institutions, historically, have lost their way once they loosen the grip on their confessional distinctives. Compromise rarely happens overnight; it takes decades, even centuries, to develop. It starts with changing words, then removing sentences, and finally abandoning concepts that were essential to maintaining biblical institutional standards. And none of this happens without violating one’s conscience and confession.

The spirit of compromise that took over the Genevan Academy, beginning in the late sixteenth century, arose for various reasons, including ambition (wanting to remodel the academy after the grand medieval universities and attract more students), expediency (an expanding school required a wider faculty pool, making it harder to maintain strict confessional requirements), and panic (challenging social and economic hardships resulted in calls for abolishing the student oath to the Confession of Faith). Loosening standards seemed to be the best way to keep the school viable and gain prestige. This continued into the early seventeenth century, by which time the school could better be described as “broadly non-Catholic” as opposed to uniquely “Calvinistic.” Accommodation for the sake of viability largely undercut Calvin’s founding vision for the school, both in terms of its educational goals and spiritual character. The school underwent a reformulation under Napoleon in 1798 and has existed ever since as a secular university.

Sadly, the story of the Genevan Academy has been replayed many times over among Calvinistic institutions. And it’s a lesson of history that many modern Reformed institutions refuse to learn. What this chapter (and my entire book) hopefully illustrates is the ongoing value of confessions and confessional subscription (as an act of a sound conscience) for guiding the instruction, discipline, and fidelity of the church. All the vignettes in this book illustrate that the church was strongest, most faithful, and most effective at having a transformative effect upon believers when it held on to its confessions and fine-tuned its methods for maintaining confessional adherence. Confessional subscription (pledging to submit one’s conscience to a biblical statement of faith) proved to be the most effective method for maintaining doctrinal faithfulness; when it was abandoned, all sorts of problems arose (e.g., lax morals, loss of identity, and church breakdown).

I would encourage all parents and their children who are considering higher education to find a school that has held fast to its Reformed confessional distinctives—even at the expense of worldly recognition—by maintaining standards for properly gauging confessional commitments among its faculty and staff. It’s one thing to say you’re Reformed; it’s quite another thing to stay Reformed.

MRK: How has writing this book helped your pastoral ministry?

TRS: I’ve been surprised by the practical pastoral payoff of writing this book. In pastoral counseling cases, I’ve encouraged conflicted individuals to consider the communal aspects of conscience, appreciating the needs and weaknesses of others before insisting on their own way. Such considerations have dovetailed into matters relating to membership and marital vows, submission to church authorities, and how to bear patiently with one another during morally complex situations in the church. I’ve also had opportunities to encourage various Reformed institutions to remain true to their founding vision and confession, to learn from the errors of our forebears. In short, writing this book has allowed me to gain some of the pastoral balance exhibited in Calvin’s Genevan ministry—a ministry staunchly committed to the changeless truths of God’s Word while also sensitive to weak and conflicted consciences in need of correction and assurance.

  Dr. Michael R. Kearney is a board member of Reformed Fellowship. Dr. Timothy R. Scheuers (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is Pastor of Congregational Life of First United Reformed Church (Chino, CA) and Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Providence Christian College (Pasadena, CA). Scheuers’ research and publications have focused on the theology and pastoral ministry of John Calvin, as well as various topics of systematic theology.