I came up with the idea for a comic strip about the adventures of Jean Calvin and his reptilian companion, Bob, in the afterworld, a bleak and lifeless place where they only occasionally encounter other wandering souls. Once I got the characters down the dialogue began to write itself. Here is one early attempt:
I like the design.
“When these things, and others to the same effect, are said by us, they interpose, and querulously complain, that in this way we overturn some blind light of nature, fancied preparatives, free will, and works meritorious of eternal salvation, with their own supererogations also; because they cannot bear that the entire praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, justice, and wisdom, should remain with God. But we read not of any having been blamed for drinking too much of the fountain of living water; on the contrary, those are severely reprimanded who “have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Again, what more agreeable to faith than to feel assured that God is a propitious Father when Christ is acknowledged as a brother and propitiator, than confidently to expect all prosperity and gladness from Him, whose ineffable love towards us was such that He “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32), than to rest in the sure hope of salvation and eternal life whenever Christ, in whom such treasures are hid, is conceived to have been given by the Father? Here they attack us, and loudly maintain that this sure confidence is not free from arrogance and presumption. But as nothing is to be presumed of ourselves, so all things are to be presumed of God; nor are we stript of vainglory for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord.” –Jean Calvin
I prefer the cartoon Calvin to the real one. The cartoon one is reduced to the logical conclusions of Old Jean’s heinous doctrines, not the awe at divine sovereignty that supposedly inspired the creation of the Sadistic Monster he called ‘god’. And I am thinking that ‘Calvin and Robert’ is a better title, still honoring Watterson without rhyming with the title of his strip…
Bob the dinasoar? Is he the one Filbert found hiding behind the couch?