World Cup Churches 28. Switzerland

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Switzerland is one country I've wanted to visit yet never have.  We've had a lodger from Switzerland, a family member also lived there for some years and I've visited every major country it borders - but I've never been there.

I don't doubt that were I to visit I'd be heading straight up some mountains on the amazing railways for which Switzerland is rightly famed.  But were I to visit one church I guess it would be this one in Geneva - though admittedly Geneva is barely in Switzerland.

Despite the name, St. Pierre's Cathedral is not a cathedral any more because, like Church of Scotland 'Cathedrals' it has no Bishop or Diocese since the changes of the Reformation.  My interest in this church building is simple - it is the one in which John Calvin, day in and day out, preached his way through the Scriptures.

I would be much less interested in its Protestant relic pictured here - John Calvin's chair:

Perhaps the most powerful message from this church's story is that, however great a human season is, it is just a season.  Called by the city to the city to cement and spread the Reformation, Calvin steeped the place in Scripture and the Grace of God.

Intervening centuries played around with this, and almost completely in the Canton and eventually in the city that heritage was wasted away - like the revival era chapels in Wales.  Earlier in 2022 the first Catholic mass was held in the building since the Reformation.  You can keep the chair but only God can keep the hearts of the people as they turn to him; a lesson for all of Western Europe.

Reformation Day

Forget Hallowe'en.

This is the day on which we remember how the Church was rescued from the institutional hopelessness of European politics and restored to some hope of understanding what God had revealed in his Word and his Son, the Word made flesh.

So let's have a quotation from a reformer.  Here's John Calvin (yes, he whose name is associated with predestination - as any Biblical scholar's should be) nonetheless setting out the simple glories of God's invitation in Christ:

“No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keeps us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief”

If the reader is confused as to why election is necessary with such a gaping gate of salvation available, the answer lies (as it does in Scripture) in the nature of the barrier represented in the last word of the quotation.