To The Evangelical Nicodemites (Part One)

by on August 2, 2024 | 15 Comments

Over the last few years there have been a few laments about “Reformed rocks stars.” Carl Trueman has rightly warned against the cult of personality.1 Now, I would like to turn the tables. If we should be concerned about rock stars and personalities in evangelicalism and Reformed-dom, then we should also be concerned about two other parties to all this: those who attend those conferences and those who do not.

First, there are lots of Christians who attend congregations which, shall we say, are part of the problem more than they are part of the solution, where the gospel is not preached purely, where the sacraments are not administered purely, and where discipline is not practiced. These folk also attend Reformed conferences. They attend because they are “fed” there, because they can fellowship with like-minded folk there, because, in some cases, it is a relief from their congregation. Still, they stay in their congregations.

The Original Nicodemites and Their Evangelical Children

I know this happens because I have heard the stories and have met such people. They bring to mind Nicodemus (John 3), who came to Jesus late at night when it was safe to visit, so that he would not have to pay the price for being publicly associated with Jesus. In the sixteenth century, there was an analogous group whom the Reformed called “Nicodemites.” These were Roman Catholics who professed to hold the evangelical faith, but who nevertheless were unwilling to leave their Roman congregations. They told their Reformed friends and sometimes even wrote to the Reformers themselves to ask for counsel about this very problem. They felt the tension. They were fearful of offending family. They feared leaving the familiar and the comfortable. They feared social consequences, even economic consequences, losing a job or an inheritance. In some cases it might have meant leaving town for purely religious reasons. There were strong external incentives to remain in the Roman Church while practicing the evangelical faith privately.

There are discontinuities, of course, between sixteenth-century Roman Catholics and twenty-first-century evangelicals, but there are continuities too. There are strong external reasons not to leave the local mega-church. There is a comfortable anonymity and safety in the theater seating, at the coffee bar, or on the couch with the candles. The services might not be great but the small groups are fantastic. It is the place to be. The band is hot. One can dress casually. All one’s friends attend. There is a peer pressure or family pressure to conform.

There are things to be lost in walking away from one’s comfortable evangelical congregation. Indeed, I have known more than a few Reformed folk who, upon leaving their evangelical congregation, have been shunned, have lost business or business opportunities, and have damaged family connections. Calvin addressed these very problems in a number of letters and in “A Short Treatise Setting Forth What the Faithful Man Must Do When He is Among the Papists and Knows the Truth of the Gospel” (1543).2 It is worth considering this treatise and it is useful to apply it to our evangelical Nicodemite friends in hopes of encouraging them to identify with those churches, who were in the sixteenth century and who are once again in the late modern period, “under the cross.”

In his brilliant work, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin, Carlos M. N. Eire adds some context to the Nicodemite problem as Calvin faced it.3 As Eire notes, the problem was not in Geneva, but in France, where “French Protestants lived in an environment that was hostile to their beliefs and practices, making the threat of idolatry even greater.”4 Before “such pressure, some Protestants assumed the attitude of compromise and deceit that came to be known as Nicodemism.”5 Beza explained:

At this time there were some persons in France, who, having fallen away at first from fear of persecution, had afterwards begun to be satisfied with their conduct as to deny that there was any sin in giving bodily attendance on Popish rites, provided their minds were devoted to true religion. This most pernicious error, which had been condemned of old by the Fathers, Calvin refuted with the greatest clearness. . . . The consequence was that from that time, the name of Nicodemites was applied to those who pretended to find a sanction for their misconduct in the example of that most holy man Nicodemus.6

As Beza noted (and as Eire follows him), Calvin was not the only one to face this problem. It was universal to the confessional Protestants. The confessional Lutheran theologian, Johannes Brenz, used the adjective “Nicodemish” in 1529. Calvin wrote to Luther and translated two books into Latin just for him to ask him to speak out against it (but Melanchthon pocketed the letter because, as he told Calvin, “Pericles” was in no mood just then to hear from the Reformed about worship).7 There is a debate in the scholarship over whether Nicodemism was a coherent movement. Carlo Ginzburg argues it was and Eire disagrees.8 If we compare the sixteenth-century “Nicodemites” to today’s churchless evangelicals wandering from congregation to congregation or being part of no congregation at all, we can see how there can be a sort of intellectual community with no organization. There seem to be a lot of folk who share certain ideas; but just as they seem to be allergic to the visible church, so they lack any formal organization. It is hard to imagine any sort of formal organization of people afraid to identify publicly as Protestants or as Reformed or as evangelicals.

Calvin was conscious that there were some difficulties in calling these “dissemblers” Nicodemites. He did not regard Nicodemus as a dissembler.9 The cowardly Nicodemus became a faithful man. Calvin even describes his contemporaries as “pseudo-Nicodemites” because at least Nicodemus came forward to identify openly with Jesus.10 By 1562, he stopped using it as an epithet altogether. Nevertheless, we preserve it if only for the ease of the label. He identified four different classes of Nicodemites:

  1. Those who do it for money
  2. Those who try to convert high-born ladies, but who do not take the gospel seriously
  3. Those who try to reduce Christianity to a philosophy
  4. Those merchants and common people who fear danger

Not everyone in Paris was pleased with Calvin’s critiques. Some of a certain social status felt he was rocking the boat too much. They thought he was too harsh. The more they complained, the more Calvin pushed.

When I heard that many people complained about my strictness, especially those kinds of people who think that their wisdom increases proportionately to the care they take in protecting their lives, I wrote an apology which made their ears twitch even harder than the first book.”11

Calvin was less worried about what French elites thought than what Christ thinks.

The problem of the crypto-evangelicals’ refusal to come out of the Roman church and into the confessing Protestant churches (and especially into the Reformed Churches) troubled Calvin enough to cause him to write on the topic repeatedly and to publish several letters and other short writings through his career until the early ‘60s.

In the 1562 treatise, he concluded, “That if no service is agreeable to God, except that which comes from an honest conviction: the opposite holds true, that no simulation can displease him, when one only pretends to adore the idols without having devotion in order to please the unbelievers.”12

For Calvin, one cannot separate body and soul. They can be distinguished, but Calvin was an anti-Gnostic. We are embodied persons. We cannot worship Christ with our “souls” if our bodies are in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing (violating his moral will). It is a 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 problem. It is one thing to eat meat offered to idols. It is another thing to sit at table with one who involves you in his offering. Once it is not just a meal anymore, then we have communion with idols and, for Calvin as for Paul, one cannot be joined to Christ and to idols.

In France and in modern Belgium there were a considerable number of people who privately, personally identified with Reformed or evangelical theology (in the sixteenth century “evangelical” meant confessional Lutheran or Reformed theology. Calvin frequently spoke of “the evangelical” view when describing his view of this or that), but they did so without leaving their local Roman congregation. These churches were the status quo. They had family ties or political connections there, or perhaps there was no local Reformed congregation with which to identify. In some cases, to leave the Roman Church meant leaving a Roman city and moving to an “evangelical” city where there was a Reformed congregation. In some cases the local Roman Cathedral was the local mega-church. It was the biggest or best show in town. After all, a high Mass was quite a sight. It was high, visual drama. It produced intense religious feelings, people “experienced” God. It was the “place to be” and the “place to be seen.”

But what about those poor souls who were not allowed by the papists “to worship God purely”?13 Calvin said the answer is easy, “if their hearts were fully resolved to follow everything that God declares to them completely and unquestioningly.”14 The problem is that “most men, having learned a thing to be displeasing to God, nevertheless give themselves leave to go seeking its defence.”15 Calvin said that “a hundred people” had asked him about this in the same way Balaam asked God for leave to go before King Balak (Num 22).16 He knew it was contrary to God’s will but he asked anyway. In the same way, crypto-evangelicals (my term; perhaps better than “Nicodemites,” and in our case we might speak of “crypto-Calvinists”) attend the mega-church because of the youth group or the praise and worship or what have you. Calvin says these folk are,

fairly convinced in their consciences that it is wrong to bow down before idols, inquire and query about what they should do, and not to subdue their affections to God by submitting to his word, but so they may have free rein, and having an answer to their liking, may flatter themselves enough to remain in their evil doing.17

He says that this lot is looking for “cushions to put their consciences to sleep, and for someone to make them believe they are alive when really they are dead.”18

Remember, he was speaking to people who were “not allowed” to worship God according to the Scriptures.19 In some cases, obeying God would have meant tremendous hardship and possibly the most extreme hardship: arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death. In the sixteenth century probably no fewer than 62,000 Calvinists were martyred for the faith by Roman authorities. Tens of thousands of those died in one week, in 1572, during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The rest were systematically hunted and murdered by Spanish troops in the Netherlands. In many places, knowing the Calvinist and Reformed conviction that only God’s Word may be sung in worship (and that often meant the Psalms), authorities banned the singing of psalms and then, when Christians were found to be singing the Psalms, they arrested them. When people were converted through watching the Calvinists go to the stake singing God’s praise in his own Word, in their own language, the Roman authorities began cutting out the tongues of the martyrs to prevent them from praising God.

Notes

  1. Carl Trueman, “The Day They Tried to Recruit Me,” Reformation21, August 28, 2008.
  2. John Calvin, “A Short Treatise Setting Forth What the Faithful Man Must Do When He is Among the Papists and Knows the Truth of the Gospel,” in Come Out From Among Them: ‘Anti-Nicodemite’ Writings of John Calvin, trans. Seth Skolnitsky (Dallas: Protestant Heritage Press, 2001), 45–95.
  3. Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
  4. Eire, War Against the Idols, 235.
  5. Eire, 236.
  6. Eire, War Against the Idols, 236; Vita Calvini in CR 21.138; Tracts and Treatises (1851; 1958) 1.lxxxvii.
  7. See R. Scott Clark, “‘Subtle Sacramentarian’ or Son? John Calvin’s Relationship to Martin Luther.”
  8. Eire, War Against the Idols, 239.
  9. Eire, 243.
  10. Eire, 243.
  11. Letter to Luther; Eire, War Against the Idols, 246.
  12. Eire, War Against Idols, 250; Response in CR 9.613.
  13. Calvin, “A Short Treatise,” 47.
  14. Calvin, 47.
  15. Calvin, 47.
  16. Calvin, 47.
  17. Calvin, 47.
  18. Calvin, 47–48.
  19. Calvin, 47.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

Editor’s Note: This essay was first published serially in 2009 and appears here slightly revised.

You can find the whole series here.

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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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15 comments

  1. Sorry for resurrecting this entry but it’s relevant to the above discussion.

    Here’s something I’ve come across a lot with regard to the sacraments:

    “We can’t judge other people. It’s not for us to decide whether someone’s got enough faith.”

    The previous pastors baptised everyone who came even though they never attended church and couldn’t give any kind of account of the Christian faith. (And the families were allowed to leave before the sermon. I almost had a Luther moment when I heard that one.)
    The table is “open” to all and sundry and they think they’re being Christian that way.

    It shows how much a job of Reformation there is to do…

  2. Dr Clark,

    Your plan which includes (1) catechism, (2) Bible study, (3) teaching the elders of their biblical mandate, and (4) preaching like a confessionalist (graciously preaching the gospel and the law) is extremely helpful. Thank you. In the present situation, its easy feel overwhelmed.

    Phil B.,

    It’s nice to know I’m not the only one out there who is ‘a soldier far behind enemy lines.’ Fight the good fight, brother.

    I agree about a forum where such soldiers in mainline denominations can discuss their situation; it might be very beneficial.

  3. Robert,
    I’m in a similar position but in the UK. I’ve become the pastor of two congregations that haven’t had solid teaching, who haven’t taught their kids the faith and are dwindling in numbers and vitality. It breaks my heart when 80 year olds confess they’ve never had a minister visit them before, never had a minister pray with them or never talked of the Gospel.
    I also realise how inadequate I am to face these challenges. My prayers are with you.

    Dr Clark,
    Thank you for the gracious response to Robert. I read it as being directed to all of us trying to be faithful in a faithless denomination. Your list of things to be done – catechism, bible study, preaching of law and gospel, and discipline just seems like a massive mountain to climb. Then there’s the denomination which will never take my time but may need the odd challenging word.
    I’ve been thinking that there needs to be a place online where you Reformed guys in the States can help your mainline brethren – I have so many questions as to what to do in certain situations but don’t want to become an email stalker…

    Thank God that he has provided all for us in the gracious gift of his Son and the support of the Holy Spirit!

  4. Hi Mike,

    I get that question a lot. Here are some responses and links:

    1. “Who or What Defines Reformed?”

    2. Churchless Evangelicals pt 3. It would be useful to read the previous two posts in that series for context.

    3. See RRC for more context.

    4. Ask yourself the question: If predestinarian Baptists had appeared at the French, Dutch, or German Reformed Synods in the 16th century, would they have been received as fellow Reformed Churches or ministers? What if they had shown up at Dort, Westminster, or Savoy?

    That said, some of my best friends are predestinarian Baptists. Jim Renihan is a scholar and friend and a colleague. He doesn’t think I’m baptized and I can’t recognize his congregation as a true church. It’s not personal. It’s that we both take our vows seriously and we take our theology serious and our ecclesiology seriously. I appreciate very much that he’s able to look me in the eye and tell me what he thinks, with a smile. He would “baptize” me if I’d let him and I would have baptized his children and catechized them after, if he had let me.

    Before you react to this post, please read the linked posts.

  5. Hi Robert,

    Without being cavalier, one thing that comes to mind is to find out whether the woodpile on which you are presently working is really rotten. If, after preliminary instruction in catechism, bible studies, instruction of the elders etc, you begin to preach like a confessionalist (i.e. graciously preaching Christ’s gospel and firmly preaching his law) and administering the sacraments and exhorting the elders to administer discipline and you begin to see good results, then you’ll know what is at hand. If there are no results– to stretch the metaphor– perhaps the wood is wet. If the elders and congregation rebel then perhaps the wood is rotten.

    Christ is head of his church. I dearly wish that I had not bought into the church growth stuff when I was in my little flock in Kansas City. I wish had trusted Jesus to use his means of grace to accomplish his purposes rather than trying new measures. I didn’t trust him and things were what they were. I don’t know what would have come of it had I tried things Jesus’ way. I’ll never know and I have to live with that.

    You have an opportunity to do what you know is right, to live by faith and not by sight. Whatever you do, to borrow from Grandma, “don’t go killing snakes.” Be patient, be gracious, but be about serving Christ resolutely. It’s his church. If they respond well in repentance and faith, praise God. If they rise up and throw you out on your ear, praise God.

    I’ll pray for wisdom for you and me and the rest of us.

  6. Dr. Clark,

    First, let me just say, ‘Ow.’ You struck a chord that I don’t want to hear. I am a sympathizer with all-things-reformed. Over the past few years as I’ve studied reformed theology my confidence in its soundness continually grows. Like Scott H, I listen to WHI, read reformed books, go to reformed conferences but I remain in an extremely liberal denomination here in Canada (think of the wackiest one you know and you’ve probably got it right).

    Second, my situation is different than some other ‘Nicodemites.’ I am a pastor who, as an undershepherd of the great Good Shepherd, is charged with the responsibility of caring for the flock. I tried to enter a reformed denomination and the heads of the reformed denomination told me not to abandon the flock. At first I was dazed. I had made the move to transfer precisely because I recognized that I was a Nicodemite (without knowing the term–thanks for bringing it to my attention!). But now I do see the wisdom of the elders. Once they heard that a small number of people were responding to the preaching of the word the elders advised me to stay.

    Third, the advise I was given was to present the reformed faith to the people of my congregation clearly and boldly, but not abrasively and ungraciously. (Easier said than done…I read about Calvins persistence and I am overawed at his fortitude in the midst of so much opposition and outright hostility). The denomination has been around over 80 years and has pumped-out its toxic theology to two or three generations. So, the principles that the Presbyterian forefathers contributed to the foundation of the denomination are long forgotten.

    Fourth, I’m not even sure where to begin (for the reasons set out in point #3). Its one thing to read about brave men of faith who weathered the storms of persecution, its another to be in the middle of enemy territory yourself. I’ve read some personal accounts of the Allied soldiers who were left behind enemy lines after the disasterous airborne assault of WW II, made famous in the movie A Bridge Too Far. Most were isolated with no weapon, no radio, little food, and little or no support from most of the citizens. How did they survive for months on end? It is one of truly amazing stories of the Second World War. But it is harrowing to hear the reality of their struggle. Am I being gutless? Faithless? I think of Master Bilney, one of the first of the English reformers and the organizer of the original White Horse Inn gang, who puppied-out when he was initially persecuted. He couldn’t live with himself after that. Then he resolved to preach the true gospel where ever he could–fields, woods, anywhere where people were gathered. I pray for such courage.

    Fifth, and finally (sorry for the length), I agree with B.B. Warfield who, when asked about the division of the Presbyterian church, replied, ‘How can you split rotten wood?’ I pastor in a denomination that is hopelessly rotten (forget about the scandal of ordaining women–the denomination I belong to ordains lesbians, homosexuals, and bisexuals!; many ministers refer to God as goddess, deny the deity of Christ, his atoning death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, the imputation of his righteousness to those who believe, etc.) So, where do I begin to reform?

  7. Hi Scott,

    I feel your pain. One of the great difficulties Mike and Kim have on the WHI and that I, to a considerably lesser degree, have here, is that we insist that people attend confessional Reformed (NAPARC) congregations and then, when they do, they find weirdness. This is one of the major reasons I wrote RRC. Excuse for a moment whilst I yell as my NAPARC brothers [Hey, Stop it! Just stop it. You can’t complain that no one ever directs people to your congregation if, when they come, you unnecessarily creep them out!]

    Okay, I’m back now.

    I’ve complained about this before and have had similar posts to the HB before. It’s heartbreaking.

    Are you being petty? Well, without being there and without knowing all the particulars, I can’t say. One of the great blessings we have in our NAPARC churches is that we attract people with lots of conviction. It can also be a curse. Not all convictions are equally important. Some of them are just unhelpful and have little to do with being Reformed.

    I’m reasonably familiar with the churches in KC. Email me privately and maybe I can help. http://www.wscal.edu/clark

  8. Dr. Clark,

    I think I could be classified as a person who fits your description. I attend an evangelical Anglican church (it left the ECUSA a few years ago) here in the suburbs of Kansas City, and it often disappoints me with its weak, non-expository preaching. I love the sacraments and the litugy though, and I think that is laregly what keeps me there.

    My wife and I have looked at some Reformed congregations in the area. We really like one, but probably not enough to join. I think the thing that keeps us from joining is just how counter-cultural it is. There seems to be a huge emphasis on home-schooling or at least Christian schooling, in addition to a culture-warriorish emphasis on societal transformation. I looked at the church’s bookshelves one time and saw volumes by Rushdoony and Bahnsen. It really creeped me out. The last thing I am going to do is join some church assoiciated with something weird like theonomy. At any rate, I really like Reformed theology ( I have many books by Reformed theogians and I am a regular listener to WHI), and I have gone to Reformed churches in the past (both EPC and PCA), so I think I could be considered to be a prime candidate to join a Reformed congregation in the future. Am I being petty?

  9. Dr. Clark,

    Thanks for doing this as a series. This is an important subject and handling “Nicodemites” properly is something I struggle with as a pastor.

    Keep up the good work!

  10. David,

    I believe that the 12th chapter of John’s Gospel gives us good reason to take the traditional reading as the correct understanding.

    There John informs us that, “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”

    The Greek term used in 12:42 for “authorities” is the same as that used in 3:1 for describing Nicodemus as a “ruler of the Jews”. It is pretty clear that if Nicodemus was indeed included in this number, that he would have been approaching Christ at night out of fear.

    P.S. – I don’t mean to stand in as a substitute for Dr. Clark, but I have had a fascination with the 12th chapter of John’s Gospel, and its implications for understanding elements of the book as a whole, for a long while now. Apologies offered!

  11. Dr. Clark,

    A bit off subject: In spite of the widespread use Nicodemus coming at night as an example of cowardice – I’m not convinced. There are a lot of reasons why Nicodemus might have come at night (e.g. 1. having a day job; or 2. this would have been a rather convenient and unpressured time for rabbis to talk theology with each other). Yes, John often describes the actual situation in ways that reveal more than the literal meaning; so we are right to look for a connotation of “night” that indicates more than the time of day. But, when we do this, we will discover that the other uses of “night” in John’s gospel imply spiritual darkness rather than cowardice – and that connotation of “spiritual darkness” fits perfectly well with the flow of this passage.

    Back on subject: I totally agree with your point. Reformed Christians belong in confessionally reformed churches.

    David

  12. Hi Mike,

    Yes, that would be a good example of less than pure preaching of the gospel! Tragically such moralism afflicts many ostensibly Reformed churches.

    I can’t answer your question more fully here but to point you to,

    Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry. See esp ch Bob Godfrey’s chapter on sola fide, Hywel Jones’ ch on preaching sola fide and 12 law and gospel and and Dennis Johnson’s chapter on counseling and the law/gospel distinction.

    and

    Recovering the Reformed Confession.

  13. “where the gospel is not preached purely, where the sacraments are not administered purely…”

    Dr. Clark

    Can you provide an analysis of how this looks in practice? Is preaching the Law of God for sanctification w/o repeatedly anchoring the congregation in the Gospel an example of unpure preaching?

  14. Mr. Clark,

    In your second paragraph you say that part of the problem and not part of the solution are people who attend Reformed conferences who also belong to congregations where the Gospel is not preached purely, the sacraments are not administered purely, and discipline is not administered. In light of that statement, I am curious if you would classify “Reformed Baptists” as Nicodemites? Hopefully you don’t think that “Reformed Baptist” congregations don’t preach the Gospel purely or administer discipline. But, I would assume that you believe those congregations do not administer the sacraments purely, or at the very least not correctly. So, would you say that “Reformed Baptists” are part of the problem or part of the solution?

    Mike

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