Calvin and the Nicodemites
This article examines Calvin's response to "Nicodemite practices" in 16th-century France, where Protestant believers faced severe persecution and were tempted to hide their faith or maintain outward conformity to Catholicism. Koole explores how Calvin addressed this compromise between confession and survival, providing historical context for understanding Reformed attitudes toward Christian integrity and faithful witness under opposition. The resource illuminates an important pastoral and ethical concern in the early Reformed movement regarding how believers should live out their convictions when facing persecution.
The Reformation penetrated France along with the rest of Europe as the writings of Luther were distributed far and wide. Many a Frenchman, as well as their families, was converted from Catholicism to the biblical, apostolic faith. The outstanding case, of course, was the conversion of the young Jean Calvinus himself in the 1520s to the "Calvinistic" faith, by which we mean, to confessing salvation by grace alone, sovereign and irresistible, and the Scriptures as the final authority in all...
Full article available on sb.rfpa.org