"Reacting to the Past": Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament
July 8-12, 2024

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About the workshop

Immerse yourself in the heated debates that shaped England's religious future during this unique interactive workshop. Step back in time to the pivotal era of the English Reformation, where you'll assume the role of an influential figure caught in the crossfire of a nation divided.

As King Henry VIII desperately seeks to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, you'll find yourself grappling with the core ideological questions that defined this period. Will you defend the longstanding traditions of Rome and the papal authority? Or will you join the rising tide of reformers, fighting for a radical restructuring of English society and religious doctrine?

Through dynamic role-playing and engaging discussions, you'll utilize historical sources and Scripture to bolster your arguments. Collaborate with fellow participants as you navigate the intricate politics and ideological clashes that defined the Reformation era, debating core Christian principles including salvation, justification, and the very nature of Christian living.

This workshop offers a profound opportunity to reflect on the enduring relevance of these issues, exploring how Christians today approach the same questions of faith, authority, and the relationship between church and state.

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Workshop Details

• Daily sessions Monday July 8 to Friday, July 12, 9 am to noon and 1 pm to 4 pm
• Open to high school history and religion teachers, college/university students, and community members
• Costs: $100 registration fee, plus added fees for those seeking continuing education credits or graduate credits through �ƴ��ɸ�����̳'s education department. Current Calvin students, faculty, and staff can register for $50.
• Course Instructor/Coordinator: Dr. Karin Maag, Director, H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies
• Location: Meeter Center, Hekman Library, on the campus of �ƴ��ɸ�����̳ in Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Learning outcomes: by the end of the workshop, participants will be able to

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   1. Develop critical thinking and self-directed learning strategies
   2. Explore and develop their capacity to lead students through experiential learning activities in the classroom
   3. Use debates and discussions as key components of their pedagogical tool-kit
   4. Articulate the issues at stake that shaped the English Reformation up to 1540
   5. Evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the arguments presented both by the defenders of Reformation and the upholders of traditional Catholicism in early modern England
   6. Analyze the mix of political and religious factors that shaped the Parliament’s actions during these crucial years of the English Reformation

• Material that will be used: Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament (this is the gamebook) Second Edition By�� (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). You can purchase a hardcopy here: or buy it as a ebook:

Encounter a unique way to teach church history and breathe life into your classroom. Discover an innovative approach that fosters critical thinking, analytical skills, and a deeper understanding of the complexities that shaped our modern world.

Register

• Register today to secure your place in this immersive historical experience!
• Questions? Email Karin.maag@calvin.edu
• To register, please complete this form ()
• Fees
  • Course fee
    • $100 course fee
    • $50 for current Calvin students, faculty, and staff
  • Additional optional fees
    • For high school teachers who would like graduate credit or Continuing Education Credits (SCECHs), the costs are as follows:
    • Graduate credit (2 credit workshop): $780
    • SCECHs: $30
• Payment
  • Send the check and completed application form to
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    • Attn. Dr. K. Maag, Director, Meeter Center
      Hekman Library, 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE
      Grand Rapids, MI 49546
    • Check payable to "the Meeter Center for Calvin Studies"
  • You can also make the payment online here:
• In order to be considered, application materials and the fee must be received by June 24, 2024

About the Instructor

Prof. Noe earned his degree in Classics from the University of Iowa in 2003, after undergraduate work in Philosophy and Classical Languages at Calvin College. After teaching Classics at a number of institutions, in 2021 he became a full-time independent scholar, and then in 2022 was called as pastor of Reformation Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids. Dr. Noe serves as the Theodore Beza Scholar in Residence for Greek and Latin at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and occasionally teaches as an adjunct at other institutions. He has translated works by Franciscus Junius, Theodore Beza, William Perkins, John Calvin, Samuel Rutherford, and others. Much of his Latin and Greek instruction can be found at LatinPerDiem.com.

Application File:

Placement Exam:

About the Workshop

Our next French Paleography Workshop with Dr. Tom Lambert, sponsored jointly by the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies and the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, has been deferred to July 12-23, 2021, due to the current Covid-19 pandemic. This two-week course provides beginning paleographers the skills to read and interpret a variety of handwritten 16th-century French texts. Utilizing the Meeter Center's substantial number of original 16th century French manuscripts and texts, a broad range of documents will be included in the course, including: criminal proceedings, sermons, deliberations of the Geneva City Council and the Consistory of Geneva, wills, contracts, royal letters, and other documents. The workshop will be held every morning for three hours, Monday through Friday.

The course is currently full, but if any vacancies emerge, we will first turn to our waiting list and then (if space remains) open the opportunity for applicants in spring 2021.��
Quick Look

�� ��For: undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars with strong reading knowledge of French
�� ��Stipend: $500
�� ��Length of Course: 2 weeks

About the Instructor

Tom Lambert, Ph.D., has taught the French Paleography course at the Meeter Center seven times. He began his study of paleography under the tutelage of Professor Robert M. Kingdon in 1989. Later that year, also under Kingdon’s direction, Lambert began working on the Geneva Consistory Project, which was then transcribing the Registers of the Consistory for the period of John Calvin’s ministry. In 1991 he took an intensive six-week summer course from Bernard Barbiche of France’s prestigious school of archival sciences, the École des Chartes. From 1992 to 1995 he lived in Geneva, working daily in the State Archives, finally producing a critical edition of the Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin, tome I (1542-1544), with Isabella Watt in 1996. He finished his Ph.D. dissertation on daily religion in Reformation Geneva in February 1998. Tom worked full time on the Consistory project until 2011, publishing seven volumes of the registers with Isabella Watt and Wallace MacDonald. He now owns a tiny inn in Yosemite National Park and maintains the websites for a few large hotels.

If the typical view of John Calvin is one of a serious, humorless man, the beginnings of the tradition to celebrate his birthday are quite the opposite. It all started with two unlikely objects: the July 10, 1959 edition of the Banner and an office door in the Spoelhof Center, both of which belonged to former vice president for advancement Peter Vande Guchte. Strangely enough, it looked as if there were two faces on the door, and not just any faces. "In the woodwork on the door you could see the profile of John Calvin,” said Vande Guchte. John Calvin could also be seen on the cover of the 1959 Banner that commemorated the reformer’s 450th birthday.

Vande Gutche’s then administrative assistant Diane Vander Pol, happened to see the edition in her boss’s files and through conversation discovered that they both shared a birthday with the reformer. "I remember seeing that edition of the Banner when I was a little girl and realizing for the first time that I had the same birthday as John Calvin,” Vander Pol said. It was then that she decided to play a little prank on her boss. On July 10 she decorated his office door to show two profiles, one of John Calvin and one of Vande Guchte—they were wishing each other a happy birthday. After that, the vice president and assistant team had a great idea. "We thought, John Calvin’s birthday is July 10. We’ll throw a birthday party every year and wink at each other because we’ll know that the party is really for us,” said Vande Guchte.

The first birthday party, celebrated by a small group of development staff, is thought to have happened in the summer of 1982. "The first parties were really impromptu and one of them almost didn’t happen because we forgot to order cake! Thankfully, food services made a cake anyway and bailed us out!” said Vander Pol. Soon the annual party evolved into a campus-wide celebration and institutional tradition.

Vander Pol created a corduroy hat patterned after the hat worn by John Calvin in some of his most famous portraits and, along with Vande Guchte, bestowed it upon a “two-minute lecturer,” a professor or staff person asked to give a short, humorous speech during the celebration. "I was a bit of a clown, so we made a real ceremony of the cap and robe donning,” said Vande Guchte. Howard Rienstra, the director of the Meeter Center from 1983–1986, was the first to receive the John Calvin hat and give a two-minute lecture. In 1985, Marion Battles, then program director for the Meeter Center, gave the second two-minute lecture, a satirical news report playing on several controversial topics. "John Calvin has found the missing link in the evolutionary chain. Now—what is the missing link? It’s woman!” she said before reading a portion of Calvin’s sermon on 1 Timothy 2:12–14.

One year, soon after the John Calvin birthday parties began, alumni and public relations director Mike Van Denend recalls there being a great rush of sound on the Spoelhof Center patio heralding the reformer’s special day. It was Vande Gutche’s new assistant (Vander Pol had assumed the role of documents librarian at the Hekman Library), playing the sound of jets flying overhead on a keyboard through a set of speakers. Everyone thought that jets had really been hired to fly overhead for the party, said Vande Gutche with a laugh.

In the late 1980s, Van Denend and the alumni office assumed the role of planning the birthday parties for John Calvin and more and more people came to celebrate the occasion. Alumni and their families attended the party as it coincided with Summerfest, an event that brought Calvin graduates back to campus for classes and other activities in the late 1980s and 1990s. In more recent years, visiting scholars from the Seminars in Christian Scholarship have added between 40 and 60 more guests to the crowd.

Today the birthday celebration continues on the strength of tradition, and, as professor emeritus and former two-minute lecturer Harry Boonstra said, on the strength of the Calvin community’s love for cake and punch.

Past Speakers

Were you a previous John Calvin Birthday speaker?

Please contact meeter@calvin.edu so we can add you to the list!