A meme making the rounds on social media has much to say about the state of many Western nations today. Thus it has become quite popular to post it and share it. The short saying, attached to a picture of John Calvin, says this: “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers”.
Now I realise that far too often stuff like this is passed around without any careful check to see if indeed it is so. I am sure I have been guilty at times of doing this as well. But often I do want to get to the bottom of a matter, and ascertain just what is accurate and what is not.
Since I have long had an interest in Calvin, and since the saying is a neat one, I wanted to make sure he did in fact say it. So I actually spent a bit of time sniffing around on this, as well as asking a few like-minded friends. After a day or two of digging around, the best I can come up with can be gleaned from two Calvin sources.
Neither one says exactly what this meme says, but both come pretty close.
“Now I realise that far too often stuff like this is passed around without any careful check to see if indeed it is so”
Aye, isn’t that the truth?