November 10, 2016 Show with Simonetta Carr on “Martin Luther (Christian Biographies for Children)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania it's iron sharpens iron a radio platform on which pastors

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Christian scholars and theologians Address the burning issues facing the church and the world today

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another

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And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania And the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming

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This is Chris Arntz and your host of iron sharpens iron Wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 10th day of November 2016

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I'm delighted to be interviewing for the very first time today on iron sharpens iron

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Simonetta Carr she is going to be discussing two of her Latest books the first we are going to be addressing is

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Martin Luther Which is a part of the Christian biographies for young readers series published by Reformation Heritage Books and then in the second hour, we're going to be discussing a

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Figure from history that is a lot less known. In fact, I did not know about her until I found out about Simonetta Carr's book about her

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Rene of France who is quite a fascinating figure She was the wife of the

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Duke of Ferrara who was a servant of the Pope and yet She was a correspondent with John Calvin.

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So I'm sure we're going to learn some fascinating information about Rene of France And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to iron sharpens iron for the very first time

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Simonetta Carr Hello, Simonetta Yes, and Simonetta is originally from Italy so Our audience may have to be a little patient because she does have an accent, but I seem to be able to understand her

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Completely fine before we even go into your books that we're going to be discussing Simonetta I'd like to know something about your background in Italy what religion if any you were raised in and how you eventually came to embrace the

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Reformed faith of the Protestant Reformation Yeah I Met someone when

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I was about 18, I met someone Actually and a group of Americans.

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They were in Italy doing some evangelizing and so they

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Introduced me to the gospel. Anyway took a while for me to be hooked up with the church because they just Reached the gospel that gave me a copy of the gospel of John.

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They didn't stick around so but I was the seed that was sown and I ended up eventually marrying an

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American. My husband is American And we had eight children

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So I spent most of my life raising children but yeah,

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I Studied Become a teacher. I was an elementary teacher in Italy But yeah, most of the time

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I was I've been homeschooling my children and And then we came to America only about 20 years ago, so Here I I attend

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Christ United Reformed Church Yes, the

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United Reformed Church is a very fine denomination I have friends in that church and I know that many people who

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Left the Christian Reformed Church denomination because of liberalism that began to dominate there came into the

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United Reformed Church and so send my greetings to Everyone there at the

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URC na that you know and I look forward to interviewing as many United Reformed pastors as I can

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I really have a very high regard for the three forms of unity and much of what my

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Reformed brethren in that denomination hold in common with me as a Reformed Baptist and It's such a pleasure and honor to have you on the program now were you an author

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Before you became a believer in the doctrines of the Reformation Young or Yeah, even a little later.

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I just wrote articles for Magazines newspapers magazines. That's about it.

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That's the extent of my writing I've done a lot of translations from English to Italian so to me, that's a form of writing because Again the very right in their own language

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Yeah, that's what they did and this first book actually with With Reformation heritage books, which is the first Book about Calvin that was written in 2008 so before then no,

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I didn't write any book Well, this is you've got quite a number of accolades for this book that you have written on Martin Luther Let me read a couple of them

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Robert Kolb who is professor of systematic theology at Concordia Seminary in st

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Louis a very well -known seminary of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod He writes car leads readers into the world in which

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Martin Luther grew up and then served the church in his society with sensitivity to the times and places

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Where his life unfolded the adventure of bringing the gospel to his people and the drama of his testimony to the truth

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Come alive as we follow his footsteps into the heart of the German government when he stood up to the emperor and into his home and The joys he had in raising his family an excellent introduction to the life of the great reformer

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And we also have Karl Truman who has been a guest a couple of times on iron sharpens iron

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He is the Paul Woolley professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, which is a

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Which is a congregation within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination in Ambler, Pennsylvania And he writes

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I'm a big fan of both Martin Luther and Simon at a car So this book is a dream come true an author subject marriage made in heaven

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Simona beautifully captures both the life and the key thoughts of dr Martin and does so in a manner, which is fast -paced and exciting parents will love reading this book to their children and children will love reading it for themselves well quite a

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Commendation for this book and So tell us about what exactly you have put in the writing for younger people in regard to the

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The life of Martin Luther in this book that you have written Well, I I wrote about the life of Martin Luther, I also tried to explain his

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Theology and what the and of course What Martin Luther did for the church is you know, it could be we could write a few books so I had to choose the most important topic and You can see he's mostly famous for Yes, in fact,

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I'm gonna give our email address Out right now for any listeners who would like to join us on the air

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With a question of your own for Simon at a car. Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

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chris Arnzen at gmail .com Please give us your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA now obviously the Reformation is a very sensitive issue when it comes to our relationships with our

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Roman Catholic friends and family did any of your family members react in a negative way not only when you converted to the theology of the

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Protestant Reformation and the gospel what we would consider the gospel of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ Did you get much of a negative reaction or opposition from your family and then on top of that writing about it?

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no, no, I Don't know if all my family and friends really totally understood

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What I believe you know some some people did some people didn't but No, but they were not hostile to In fact, they were very interested

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They were very interested in what you've done Yeah, yeah, that's Well, that's a blessing from God because obviously there can be at times there are people who have experienced a lot of hostility and even have been and even have been shunned by their own family and totally left out of the

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Family gatherings and so on as a result of these things, but your family is interested in what you In the transformation that has taken place in you

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Well just to let our listeners know something more about this book it is a beautiful hardback

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Book that is illustrated beautifully illustrated which obviously is ideal when you are speaking of books related to younger readers and children so on the illustrations were done by Troy Howell and This is a really high quality book that Simonetta has written and You you start

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In the book from when Martin Luther was a law student and he eventually became a monk

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Can you tell us a little bit of a summary of the events that took place in Martin Luther's life?

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that led him from Aspiring to be an attorney to entering into a monastery

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Yeah He grew up pretty much like any other child at that time

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Story about the sausages, which it's always like Yeah Since you want to know about the transformation

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Yeah, he was Student of law and one time he went home to visit his family and It's event is pretty famous when he he went back to college he

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He was caught in a thunderstorm and At that point he was filled with terror because he didn't

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He didn't think he could be he was ready to face God and so he made a promise to a saint because that's all part of the

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Roman Catholic theology of the medieval theology Made a promise to a saint that he would become a monk

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Becoming a monk was seen as a very high form of serving

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God at that time and So he kept his promise and became a monk even if his father was against it

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So he was actually little Conflicted at that time because the father was against it so he felt

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He had to disobey father to become a monk, but But he did so that was this first Transformation, I guess of his life of going into the monastery and what was it that really started to challenge his thinking and Get him to become really like a

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Berean and examine What the Church of Rome was teaching in light of what the scriptures truly taught

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Yeah, I think he had a very sensitive conscience and He understood very well

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God's justice and God's holiness And then the church at that time didn't really have an answer to how can we?

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How can we as sinners reconcile with the Holy God that he sent?

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He didn't see a very clear answer to that and The church

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Had the different means like confession and then

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Tenance and Different offerings you can make and different Different ways that they had

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To offer to Make a person feel reconciled with God, but he knew that that was not enough he just Felt it was never enough and he kept going to confession to confess his sins

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He would go confess his sins and then leave and He realized that actually we sin all the time even a little thought

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Could be sinful and so he went back to confession, and he actually drove his superiors a bit frustrated because He kept going back, but their answer to it was just oh don't worry about a little sense and he

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Knew that God forgot every sin is equally

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Sinful and equally Hateful, so he just couldn't brush it off I can't relate to that personally because when

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I was a Roman Catholic I had the same thing as a child

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I was I was always very convicted about my sins and I actually wrote them all down To make sure

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I wouldn't forget I know it was it was terrible because Then I finally realized

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I couldn't do it. There was no way I could write all my sins down and Related to that Impossible you have you have a bad thought about something and you know some jealousy coveting anything and Finally I remember

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I went to confession once and I said I broke every commandment that I didn't kill anybody

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Yeah, so anyway, that's how he felt and For him it was a very deep

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Deep crisis and he was searching scriptures at that time

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Yes, and one of the key figures that propelled him to Begin to protest some of the practices of the church was

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Johan Tetzel who was basically coercing money out of the ignorant

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People in the Roman Catholic Church of placing fear in their hearts That they needed to give money in order to not only lessen their own time in purgatory but to get their

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The souls of their deceased loved ones out of purgatory and there's that famous Jingle for lack of a better term that was popular then as soon as the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs and That really angered that began to anger

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Martin Luther. Did it not then isn't that what one of the main reasons he? Posted the 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany I think

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Just because we put some money in a in a box or just because we we go to Rome and Climax there on our knees

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He just didn't think that was enough and also he was wondering if the church really had the authority to Decrease the punishment decided by God if if in fact

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God Had decreed it some punishment could the church just decrease that punishment just by By giving a piece of paper basically because that's what they were doing.

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So he had questions. He wasn't trying to Create a great

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Revolution at that time. They just basically wanted to discuss those questions with other Scholars with other teachers and that's why he posted the 95 pieces.

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Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that that enormous Well, I guess a lot of it would depend upon one's aesthetic taste but Some would call it an enormous beautiful Edifice some would say it is gaudy and grotesque

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But the st. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican that was built on the money from these these scare tactics of the

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Church of Rome to get their souls of their loved ones out of purgatory through their their contributions to the church and This is where the the famous Sistine Chapel is and so on that Michelangelo had painted

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We do have a couple of listeners have who have already Written in to us

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We have a listener in Slovenia Named Joe who says

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I'm wondering if sister Simonetta is familiar With Primo's true bar the

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Slovenia reformer from Italy's neighboring country to the east He is considered the father of the

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Slovenian people because he created the Slovenian language By being the first person to put into writing put it put it into writing

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He did this by writing a a reformed catechism in Slovenian and translating the

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Bible into Slovenian While in exile in Germany Could she possibly study his life and write a book about him in a similar way that she did for Martin Luther?

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Do you know anything about this? reformer Simonetta Primo's Yeah, I know

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Just about as much as you just said that I know That's about all

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I know but I have looked into it in the past He's a very interesting figure.

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Yes. I Don't know. Maybe one day I could write about it. Yeah Well jokes keep praying that Simonetta finds it within her schedule to eventually write a book about that so you could use it as An evangelism tool over there in Slovenia and thank you for providing your

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United States address Joe for your daughter because you are getting a free copy of This beautiful book published by Reformation Heritage Books Called Martin Luther, which is a part of the

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Christian biographies for young readers this gorgeous hardcover Color full -color illustrated book and So we thank you for the question and you should be getting that book

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God -willing within a week or so compliments not only of Reformation Heritage Books, but also of Cumberland Valley Bible book service who is shipping that out to you

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CV bbs .com CV as in Cumberland Valley bbs .com

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we also have a question from Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana She says thank you for interviewing simonetta,

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I'm so thankful She has written such excellent biographies for children to learn about reformed heroes of the faith

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Has she considered writing such high caliber caliber books for adults biographies of other?

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nonfiction subjects I Believe you have written Books for adults isn't your book on Lady Jane for for adults

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That's right, I'm sorry right with one what we're gonna be covering in the second hour Yeah Okay, well, well, thank you

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Erin and you are also getting a free copy of this beautiful book provided by Reformation Heritage Books Martin Luther So keep your eye out for that in the mail

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Thank you very much Erin from Indianapolis, Indiana for contributing to our program today

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Let's see we have Another listener we have Seth in Randlesman, North Carolina What would dr.

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Carr say to people who disavow reading or advocating books by Luther? based on his remarks about the epistle by James and His comments on Jews.

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I have pastors who regularly tell me we shouldn't Recommend anything from Luther.

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Obviously, I disagree with their view. Yes, there is the story that Luther thought that James was an epistle of straw.

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He wanted To throw Jimmy in the stove is the famous quote

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Whether or not that's an actual quote or not. I don't know but but He did have a conflict with James because it on on the surface

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Wrongly appeared to him to be teaching that works contributed to faith for justification

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Before God and you know in order to enter eternal life, but do you have any comments on that simonetta?

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Practically say he was the father of the Reformation although there were a few minor

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Reformers before him so I think he does a lot of things that he

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Developed in his thought as time went on When he posted in 95 pieces, for example, he was only asking some questions and it was mainly wondering about Repentance and and whether Indulgences were really a proper way of showing repentance then later he developed his is a doctrine of justification by faith alone, but it all came gradually so I think he was still learning a lot and I If we look at the reformers that came after him and the confessions that we have confessions of faith

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Especially Westminster or other three forms of unity

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Okay at that point the reform faith was more mature

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But he was just working through certain things I think his writings are wonderful about Justification by faith alone.

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They really help us to understand the difference between the law and the gospel and Many many other things about you know,

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God's grace There is so much in Luther so we can't just put them aside just because of a couple of things that You get wrong

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And the second thing you mentioned was that did you say the Jews? Yes, there are many people who are very critical of Luther because he

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Apparently from what I have heard from history He was expecting the Jews to convert in mass after the

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Reformation had a stronghold and he when that did not happen when you know, there was still only a trickle of Jewish people coming to faith in Christ.

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He was furious by this and I also had heard that there were rabbis writing a

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Horrible negative pamphlets about him as well. And so he had these outbursts of anger where he wrote horrible things about the

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Jews about Destroying their places of business and forcing them to work in the fields and all kinds of things like that That that even the

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Nazis had took him taking some of that literature and and used it to further their own cause but Luther was a sinner.

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He was a sinner saved by grace and obviously that was some of the the

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The fruit of a life that was not a hundred percent purified as no one is here on this earth.

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Am I right? At that time, that attitude toward the

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Jews was as bad and as incondemnable as it is was very prominent at that time

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Christians and it was definitely wrong, but it was very prominent. So I remember reading actually

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Kurt Truman saying that We should not be as much surprised when we read

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Luther's condemnation of the Jews, we should be more surprised that he actually favored the

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Jews. He wrote a very positive booklet about the Jews Initially at which it which was an exception at that time.

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So that was even more surprising the second part Yeah, he was more

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Falling into the Mentality of his times and and it was definitely wrong.

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It was very Regrettable the way he Handled it that Yeah people at that time.

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They made lots of mistakes and we are making lots of mistakes, too. Hopefully Yes, and at that time also the rhetoric between those of different Religions was very very harsh a lot

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Harsher than it is today Seth if you give us your full mailing address

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There in Randleman, North Carolina, you will receive a free copy of this beautiful hardcover full color illustrated book

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Martin Luther a part of the Christian biographies for young readers series by Simona Dakar and So we look forward to getting your full mailing address we have to go to a break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Simona Dakar our email address is

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Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

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Harvey Cedars where Christ finds people and changes lives Welcome back.

35:21

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours is Simonetta Carr She is from Italy and now resides in San Diego, California here in the

35:33

United States And we are today are discussing two of her books for the first hour

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We are discussing her book on Martin Luther, which is a part of the

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Christian biographies for the young readers published by Reformation Heritage Books the second hour we are going to be addressing a

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Figure from history that is a lot less known than Martin Luther. In fact, I did not even know of her existence until reading this book by Simonetta Carr on Rene of France and that is a work published by evangelical press or EP books and If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own

36:18

For Simonetta Carr our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com Chris arnsen at gmail .com.

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We have someone writing with an alias from Valley Stream, Long Island, New York lamb lamb

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Lamb lamb says, please express. Thanks to miss Carr For writing the

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Christian biography series that is interesting and informative. I would like to ask her I read in one of your other books in the series that using the word reformer to title or describe

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Martin Luther Is there a glossary list in the back of the book how parents are to explain the idea of?

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Reformation or reformer and how can parents as when teaching their younger children to connect all the dots among the series in Relate in relationship to the

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Chronicle as a whole picture in the Reformation history Did you get that question?

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Simonetta Yes I have

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Talked to my publisher a couple of times about including a glossary

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I Could ask him again. The problem is that The book is quite packed already.

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So if we add a glossary we may have to cut out something else or reduce the pages for the story, but But yeah,

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I can ask him again that that could be a good idea They formed the

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Reformation I think actually I explained it in my first book about Calvin and Yesterday too,

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I was giving a talk in the school and I asked the kids and they they understood it as Reformation as a change for the better changing something for the better improving so that's what

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The reformers were trying to do they were trying to change the church for the better and Improving and overcoming

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Well, thank you If you if you were going to do something

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Write something that connects all the dots between all of the figures from history that you've written about Yeah, actually, that's another thing that we've been thinking about and I'm going back and forth kind of like an overview of a church history and that's such a big a

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Big job. I would have to really study a lot more than I It is something like that, but we can see you know by doing something else something simpler

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Connect those dots because I can see the need for something like that So, yeah, that's another thing

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I can talk to my publisher about Mm -hmm, and We have

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Let's see We have a couple more listeners here and well before I go back to another listener

39:56

I'm going to ask a question of my own How far into the story of Martin Luther's life do you take this book?

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obviously when he defies the magisterium That he will not back down from What he believes to be biblically faithful and so on how far into his life.

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Do you go with this book? Well, I actually go to his death So pretty much cover his own life.

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Obviously, I don't cover every single Event, but yeah, I give an overview of all this life

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And Why do you think that it is important for children to know about Things that we might ordinarily view as deeper subjects

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Fit for adults such as some of these deep theological issues that separate

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Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation Why do you think it's important for us to instill in the minds and hearts of children these things?

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I think we need to know what we believe and why we believe it So if other people ask us

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We know we know what to say. I have Catholic friends. They think

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That the only thing that divides us is that we don't believe that the Pope Has authority over all

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Christians, but you know, obviously There's much more than that though, you know, most people don't know and I think it's important for them to know

41:46

Fully know their faith and fully know what they believe in And I think that you may be accidentally

41:54

I don't know if you're aware of this but you're accidentally touching a button on your phone That keeps beeping

42:02

You know, there's something that you're doing with your phone that periodically beeps

42:08

I think you're accidentally perhaps pressing a button with either with it That's okay.

42:14

We can deal with it That's all right. We have Casey in Kannapolis, North Carolina Mm -hmm, and Casey writes

42:26

Can you ask Simon at a car about how we're going to be able to communicate with each other? We can have a modern Reformation for our children today in the church

42:36

I'm not a hundred percent sure what Casey means by that and perhaps Casey if you want to clarify that with another email but Can you answer what he has written here?

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Can you ask someone at a car about how we can have a modern reformation for our children today in the church?

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I think what we can do is inform our children of What it means to be reformed maybe maybe that's what she meant

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Just to teach them What what the Reformation? Originally taught and why we still believe the same things

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There would be a way for for them to be more grounded in this doctrine

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Yeah, and there's there's plenty that the church needs to be reformed of Today even with an evangelicalism.

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There are a lot of things That would contradict with the scripture teaches that are going on that children today might want to be and have something instilled within their hearts and minds to be a

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Little reformers of the future if you will because of the fact that you know, the church has become a place of entertainment and The church has become a place where our feelings and our needs are primary

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Above the gospel of Jesus Christ above the glory majesty and holiness of God the the things that selfishness seems to be at the height of What is happening in the modern

44:21

Christian Church even in those churches that are the heirs of the Reformation and it's sad to say so Perhaps that was a part of his intent.

44:31

Um, and by the way, Casey, I apologize if you are a woman I keep calling you a he I'm not really sure.

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I keep thinking of the You know Casey Stengel and other men And the mighty

44:43

Casey has struck out that famous baseball poem But huh, so I apologize if you are a woman

44:51

Casey but and by the way Casey if you give us your full mailing address You are also getting a free copy of this gorgeous hardcover full color illustrated book

45:04

Martin Luther by simon at a car a part of the Christian biographies for young readers published by Reformation heritage books and we thank you for submitting that question and I want

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Before we run out of time on this first hour Simonetta, I want you to make sure that you

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Provide our listeners with what you most want etched on their hearts and minds In regard to the life of Martin Luther and the book you have written here

45:50

Justification by faith alone, which he didn't obviously he didn't invent it a biblical doctrine was taught by early church fathers to but Yeah, he he was able to To clarify and to bring it back and and I think everything he wrote about that is is very

46:17

Enlightening and So I think that's probably the main thing that he is

46:25

Well known for and if people just understand the gospel

46:30

By reading this book. They'd understand what the gospel is and what it means to to be

46:38

Reconciled by God By grace alone through faith alone. That's already a major Achievement if children can understand that much.

46:48

Yes Yes, and it is I think it is something that is very inspiring to know that Even if you think that because you're outnumbered

47:03

By by by thousands of times over By people who are in opposition to you as you stand for the truth of God and the

47:15

Holy Scriptures that you are not alone if you are on God's side and If he more importantly is on your side

47:24

Then it does not matter how many people are opposing what you say or do if you're standing up for truth that God will bring about Whatever he desires to occur and in that particular circumstance for his praise honor and glory and you have the

47:41

Protestant Reformation Largely Catching fire as it did and spreading all over the globe

47:49

Largely due to this one Augustinian monk. Obviously, there were other people involved, but he is a key figure in History of all this occurring and it also reminds me of centuries earlier with Athanasius When Athanasius was standing up in defense of the deity of Jesus Christ One that nearly all of the bishops in the church had become

48:15

Arian or those who rejected the fact that Jesus was both God and man and Athanasius didn't care how many people

48:23

Even if they were leaders in the church were in opposition to him. He stood firm knowing that God was on his side.

48:30

That's a very Inspiring thing to know that what we can accomplish even though we be outnumbered and frail and weak in and of ourselves and even though we're sinners

48:44

God can do mighty things through us. Can he not? Yes Yeah, and I think that's a valuable lesson for children to know that when

48:54

They may be being bullied or mocked or being made fun of or they may be outcasts with other children because they are following Christ These are important things for them to know

49:07

And I think also Luther, one thing that also impressed me is his humility because he didn't just go out to defy the church.

49:19

In fact, he tried to respect it as much as possible. He wrote a letter to the

49:25

Pope in full hope that the Pope would understand and obviously the

49:32

Pope didn't. Luther thought through all his doctrines and his teachings, and he didn't just blurt them out and say,

49:48

I'm right, you're wrong. In fact, in those days, it didn't even exist. Everyone was supposed to submit to the church, and I remember they asked

50:01

Luther a question, are you the only one who's right, basically, and it was a question that he considered very carefully.

50:13

He didn't want to be the only one right and go against everyone else before him, but he was constrained by the truth, by what the

50:24

Bible actually said. Amen. Now, before we go into the topic of our second hour, which is going to be on Rene of France, I wanted to get a little bit more background of what is going on in Italy in regard to the gospel, since that is the home of your birth, and you obviously have a great love for Italy and the people there.

50:51

You obviously still have relatives there and so on, and loved ones. It is very unusual for me to meet somebody from Italy who is a firm believer in Reformed theology.

51:06

I've met many Italian -Americans who are second or third generation, but you are from Italy.

51:14

How prevalent are the doctrines of Sovereign Grace or Reformed theology in Italy today?

51:24

Well, not prevalent, obviously. There is a group of Christians there.

51:33

There are different denominations. The Valdensian Church is quite established there.

51:45

I would say that the liberal, I would consider liberal in many of their doctrines, but at least they're preaching the gospel.

51:58

Then, yeah, there's some evangelicals. What I'm very happy about is that now we have actually a

52:06

Reformed church from our denomination, the URC. We have a church friend there, and that makes me very happy.

52:17

And some people from there are coming to America to be trained.

52:23

We have an Italian now in Westminster Seminary, California. He's going to go back and be a pastor there.

52:34

Yeah, there's a real lack of pastors, especially in the Reformed churches.

52:40

There's one church in Milan. The one is connected with our denomination, so it's

52:47

Reformed and confessional. There's a few other places around Italy where there are believers that are very interested in joining a

53:02

Reformed church, but they can't transfer. So sometimes all they can do is use their computer and Skype on Sundays so they can hear the sermon.

53:14

So obviously that's not ideal, but just to give you an idea,

53:20

I was in Grand Rapids yesterday, and there was a church at every corner. Many of them are very good, solid

53:27

Reformed or Bible -believing churches, but in Italy there's basically only one

53:38

Reformed church in the whole country. So it makes us grateful for what we have here and also makes us pray for the believers in Europe.

53:48

It's probably not just Italy. I think it's most of Europe. Now, as far as the state of the

53:57

Roman Catholic Church in Italy, obviously we would view the Roman Catholic Church as heretical and in disobedience to the

54:09

Scriptures on many things, but are the majority of those

54:15

Catholics in Italy, are they just nominal Catholics by name only, or are they fervently religious and going to their masses and saying their rosaries, or are most people just secular who may have a very faint identity as a

54:33

Catholic? Yeah, I think most people are nominal Catholics. They don't know much about their own doctrines.

54:43

That's my experience, yeah. And so if you tell them you're a Protestant, they say, you know, good for you.

54:51

Basically they just thank you. You either don't like the Pope or you don't believe in Mary, and they see it as a very superficial difference, but there are a few that are more committed and they understand.

55:09

I mean, basically the church, the Roman Catholic Church, they created the separation with the condemned us as a curse, you know, anathema in the

55:26

Council of Trent. So most people don't know that, but if, you know, for the church, the

55:33

Catholic Church to, you know, for the church to reunite as some people hope we can do, they would have to change what they had declared in the

55:50

Council of Trent, and that would involve a lot because to them, councils are infallible, you know.

55:58

Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, it would be impossible for them to renounce the

56:04

Council of Trent without crumbling as an institution. They would have to reject papal infallibility and all kinds of things.

56:13

And one thing would lead to the other, like a domino effect. Right. In fact,

56:19

I often will tell my Catholic friends and family members who are ecumenical, when they get upset with me when

56:29

I say that their gospel is false and that they have a different gospel than I do, and when they get upset with me,

56:36

I point them to the fact that hundreds of years before I was born, the

56:41

Council of Trent declared what I believe today to be the gospel.

56:47

They declared it as something to be accursed, and they anathematized me before I was even born for believing in this.

56:55

So therefore, I am not the bad guy here. Your church, the Roman Catholic Church, already has said that the gospel of the

57:04

Reformation is a different gospel than theirs, and they declared our gospel false.

57:10

So therefore, we recognize that they do have a different gospel.

57:16

That's the only thing that we agree with Trent on in that regard. We believe that we, though, are the ones who have the true biblical gospel that Jesus Christ stood upon, and that they are the ones who have departed from the

57:32

Scriptures. Yeah. And so the Council of Trent, even though the

57:38

Pope, the current Pope Francis, is a very liberal Pope, he still has not renounced or overturned those strict and very harsh anathemas, has he?

57:50

No, he has not. He kind of ignores them, but they're there. I just read an article by someone else in the

58:01

Catholic Church, another church official, that actually, when the

58:07

Pope was saying he was kind of celebrating Luther on October 31st, this church official was saying, well, you know, what we believe about Luther is written in the

58:22

Council of Trent, so the Pope seems to forget or ignore it.

58:30

Well, we are going to our second hour now, and by the way,

58:36

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, if you're listening, we're switching subjects now, so if you have a question that you'd like to send us, on Rene of France, who is quite a fascinating figure from history, a very little -known figure, but quite a fascinating one,

58:53

I know that Tyler was wanting to ask a question about Luther, but if you would like to ask a question about Rene of France instead as our new topic now as we go into the second hour of the broadcast, we would love to hear from you, and we would love to hear from anybody out there who has a question for Simonetta Carr, at chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and please include your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

59:25

USA. Don't go away, we will be right back after these messages with Simonetta Carr.

59:32

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01:03:30

Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is

01:03:38

Simonetta Carr. The first hour we addressed her book on Martin Luther, and now we are addressing a second book of hers, which is a truly fascinating story of Renée of France.

01:03:53

And just to give you a little background, Renée of France is little known today, but this fascinating and often controversial woman was a correspondent of John Calvin.

01:04:05

She loved the Reformation, but in 16th century Italy, such a position could not be lightly held.

01:04:15

Add in a husband, the Duke of Ferrara, who served the Pope and was determined to oppose

01:04:22

Renée, plus the complexity and intrigues of Italian society of the time, and you have all the ingredients for a gripping biography.

01:04:32

Simonetta Carr has succeeded in making the reader of her fine book a contemporary, yes, even a close friend of Renée of France.

01:04:41

Based on the sources written with great quality and a pleasure to read, it is the fascinating story of this royal woman.

01:04:49

I look forward to more of such books, and that was a commendation by Professor Dr.

01:04:57

Herman J. Silderhus, Professor of Church History and the Church Polity at the

01:05:03

Theological University of Appeldoorn in the Netherlands, and author of several books on John Calvin.

01:05:11

But it's such a great pleasure to have you on for the full two hours today, Simonetta. I thank you for taking time out of your schedule to do this.

01:05:20

How did you first discover this obscure woman from history, Renée of France?

01:05:27

Well, of course I am very interested in the

01:05:32

Reformation in Italy, and being from Italy, I've been very interested in that.

01:05:39

So I read about different people that lived at that time, and I just studied how they reacted to the

01:05:50

Reformation. There were practically three, well, you know, apart from the staunch

01:06:00

Catholics, but, you know, people who were interested in the

01:06:07

Protestant doctrines, which were many because people were basically tired of the

01:06:14

Church and its corruption and abuses. So there were different reactions, but, you know, some people, they embraced fully the

01:06:27

Protestant teachings. Some people were only looking for a

01:06:33

Reformation of...a moral

01:06:38

Reformation, and, you know, they were tired of books that lovers and children accumulated huge amounts of money.

01:06:54

I mean, the abuses of the Church were countless at that time. So there were people who were trying to change that, and there were people who tried to...they

01:07:07

just, you know, went along with it and made fun of it. They were just very different reactions, but of the people who were the closest to the

01:07:19

Protestant doctrines, some people really understood the doctrinal justification by faith alone, which is the cornerstone of the

01:07:29

Reformation. And then, at that point, they had to either hide it and go and, you know, pretend that they were still

01:07:42

Catholic, and Calvin called them

01:07:47

Nicodemites, like they were like Nicodemus in his view.

01:07:55

And then others were...left

01:08:01

Italy, and there was a small group of other people who stayed in Italy, and many of them got killed or imprisoned for their faith.

01:08:13

So how did Renée wind up becoming the wife of the

01:08:19

Duke of Ferrara? Well, she was French by birth.

01:08:25

So she grew up in France, and in France, actually, she was introduced to Protestant doctrines by people around her.

01:08:38

The sister of the King of France was a

01:08:44

Protestant -leaning woman, Marguerite of Navarre, and then also other people around Renée, some of her servants, her nanny was actually

01:09:02

Protestant. So, yeah, she grew up learning

01:09:08

Protestant doctrines, but at that time, you know, she was involved in the political world of that time, so her father arranged her marriage with Duke Hercule of Ferrara, and, you know, at that time, women didn't have too much of a say, sometimes even men didn't have much of a say, if the family wanted you to marry someone, especially these noble families, they arranged marriages.

01:09:49

So she was already acquainted with the teachings of the

01:09:55

Protestant Reformation in France, and she was going into a marriage with somebody who was still very loyal to the

01:10:03

Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, and that was very common at that time.

01:10:09

And I'm not really sure why, but I found out that many women at that time were favorable to the

01:10:20

Protestant doctrines much more than the men. Huh, interesting. Yeah, I don't know why, especially in Italy and France.

01:10:29

Some people say it's because they had more time to read and study, because we're talking about the women of nobility, you know, so yeah, they definitely had more time, the men went to war.

01:10:42

I don't know if that's the only reason, but I really don't know the reason. It happened quite often, and Calvin had to address many of these problems, because there were many women,

01:10:57

Protestant women married to Catholic men, and Calvin and others had to think and pray and see how to resolve these situations.

01:11:11

He basically encouraged most of them to stay in their marriage unless the husband was abusive.

01:11:21

But, you know, there were different circumstances and people reacted as they were led.

01:11:31

And you describe her marriage to the Duke of Ferrara as a stormy one.

01:11:38

Tell us about that. Well, yeah, I don't think it's only because of her religious beliefs.

01:11:49

There were a few other things. I think Ernie was a big spender.

01:11:56

She spent a lot. She was also very generous, so much of her money went to help others.

01:12:08

But she came to Ferrara with her own court of French helpers, you know, her servants.

01:12:21

She had her own court, basically. Lots of people, they came from France with her, and she was very generous with them.

01:12:31

She gave them big salaries and everything. So that was one thing he didn't agree with.

01:12:39

In fact, he sent a few of them away after a while.

01:12:45

And so there was a combination of that reason and the fact that many of them were

01:12:50

Protestant. So for him, it was... I think initially he didn't really care.

01:12:59

You know, you were talking about people being nominal Catholics. I think people were nominal

01:13:04

Catholics even at that time. And I don't think he cared too much, except when it became a political issue, because the

01:13:15

Pope started to say, you know, you have a group of Lutherans in your own home.

01:13:26

And that was not acceptable, obviously, to the Pope. And the

01:13:32

Pope at that time, I don't know how many people realize this, but he was a very powerful political figure.

01:13:40

Ferrara was a small country in Italy, and it was very easy for the

01:13:50

Pope, for the emperor, for just about anybody to take over Ferrara.

01:13:57

And in fact, they eventually did much later in history.

01:14:02

But the Duke of Ferrara had to build alliances in order to survive.

01:14:13

And that was very, very common at that time. And so that played into the equation, do you want to risk losing your rule, your country, or do you want to appease the

01:14:41

Pope and then survive? So most rulers said they want to survive.

01:14:49

Well, we have Bebe from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know how

01:14:55

Renée developed a personal relationship with John Calvin when she was in Italy married to a

01:15:04

Roman Catholic duke, and Calvin was by the time perhaps in Switzerland.

01:15:11

Yeah, Calvin had to leave France. He was originally from France, and he was living in France, but he had to leave because of persecution against the

01:15:28

Protestants. So he traveled for a while, and in his travels, he also went to Ferrara.

01:15:36

And most likely, from what we know, he went incognito.

01:15:45

He didn't say who he was, but he stayed at the court of Renée, so she was able to be in touch with him.

01:15:57

Oh, you said that he went there incognito, like in disguise or something, right? Well, not so much.

01:16:06

I mean, I don't think in those days they needed to so much disguise their appearance because they didn't have newspapers and Internet, but he just changed his name, yeah.

01:16:18

So he stayed with her for a while, and he had a big influence on her.

01:16:26

She respected him very much, and there were other things. They were both from France.

01:16:33

They were both pretty much the same age, so it was quite interesting to see their friendship, how it developed.

01:16:45

There was a mutual respect. Calvin always respected her, and he was always convinced that she had a strong faith, even if she fell very often and she didn't look strong at all.

01:17:03

But to me, that's very encouraging. He always believed that she was one of God's children.

01:17:12

Now, did Calvin know before going to her court to stay there for a time?

01:17:20

Did he know prior to that that Renée had some kind of affinity or affection towards the doctrine of the

01:17:29

Reformation? Yeah, I mean, we don't know. There's a lot that we don't know exactly, but I'm quite sure he knew, and most likely it was

01:17:41

Margaret of Navarre that referred him to Renée because Margaret was also a very close friend of Calvin.

01:17:54

And Bibi, if you give us your full mailing address in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, you're getting a free copy of Renée of France by our guest

01:18:03

Simonetta Carr, compliments of EP Books, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping that out to you at no charge to us or to you.

01:18:14

So CVBBS .com, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service dot com.

01:18:23

We look forward to shipping that out to you, and you should get that, God willing, within a week or so.

01:18:32

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know if Renée was actually risking her life by this correspondence with John Calvin in Italy, or was

01:18:46

Italy a safer place at this time to be conducting this kind of correspondence?

01:18:53

Yeah, Italy was not a safe place at all. A lot of people did risk their lives.

01:19:02

It depended also where you lived in some places more than others.

01:19:08

But she was a little more privileged than others just because of her status.

01:19:17

She was a Duchess. She was actually of higher nobility in France, so she had some support from her family in France, too.

01:19:31

Not so much religious support, but at least political support and protection.

01:19:38

So she was a little more privileged than other people who probably risked their lives even more.

01:19:47

But, yeah, even if she didn't completely risk her life, she risked in other ways, too, because at one point they took her daughters from her and told her she would never see them again.

01:20:04

So there were other ways that they used to coerce her and to deny her faith.

01:20:17

Now, I'm assuming that since you have described their marriage as stormy, partially not only because of her being somewhat of a spendthrift, but partially because of her theological views,

01:20:32

I'm assuming that she was very open with her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, about these theological differences.

01:20:41

Was she challenging him? Was she evangelizing him? How would this manifest itself, these differences that turned the marriage into a stormy relationship?

01:20:53

Yeah, we don't really know everything. It's hard to say. There's not so much written about the relationship.

01:21:02

But, yeah, she was fairly open about it. Only around the end, when it became more hostile to her, she tried to hide some of the things she was doing.

01:21:19

He actually gave her a villa outside of Ferrara.

01:21:25

And, again, this was very common at that time for husbands to give a villa to their wives.

01:21:35

So, anyway, she had a villa somewhere else, and she was able to stay there a certain period of the year.

01:21:46

It was actually in a place that was terribly humid and hot in the summer, so I suspect she didn't stay there in the summer.

01:21:55

But she had more freedom there. The husband didn't go there as much, and she had a whole group of Protestants.

01:22:06

And one thing she was doing, she was receiving a lot of Protestants from other countries where they were more openly persecuted, and she kept them with her.

01:22:23

But all this came to the knowledge of the Church when the

01:22:28

Pope found out. Obviously, they were not happy about that. In 1542, the

01:22:38

Roman Catholic Church became especially fierce against the

01:22:44

Protestants. They reopened the Roman Inquisition, which had existed before but had been closed, and they reopened it, and they started to persecute people quite seriously.

01:23:02

So at that time, things became much more difficult for Renee.

01:23:10

So she was actually harboring Protestant refugees, for lack of a better term.

01:23:17

She was hiding them and protecting them as long as she could. Did they eventually have to flee from her because of the awareness that the

01:23:28

Vatican had of their existence and their location and so on? Yes, especially toward the end.

01:23:39

After 1542, when things started to get tighter for her too, then obviously the other people had to leave also.

01:23:51

And something that's very interesting to me at that time is that she was pretty much alone.

01:24:00

She didn't have a pastor. She didn't have a church. She had all these friends, but not a real organized church around her.

01:24:12

And Paul had sent a pastor to her at that time.

01:24:17

So basically, this pastor really risked his life by going to visit

01:24:23

Renee and to try to be of support, and especially to just preach the word regularly, as we all need, you know, because it's quite difficult.

01:24:40

It's practically impossible to be a law -abiding Christian. Yeah. So it was very difficult for her to keep her faith without a pastor to lead her and keep her on the straight way.

01:25:00

There were also a lot of, as you know, like it was a time you can't just define with black and white.

01:25:10

There was a lot of different views. There were different views, even within Protestants.

01:25:19

So not all of them were... Their faith was orthodox.

01:25:25

You know, you had people who were anti -Germanitarian. Some people rebelled against the church, and they went all the way to the point of becoming heretics.

01:25:41

So yeah, she needed guidance. She needed guidance, and I think it was very brave for this

01:25:49

French pastor to go, sent by Calvin, and just to go and stay with her, he really risked his life.

01:25:59

By the way, Harris in Mechanicsburg, if you give us your full mailing address, you'll also get a free copy of Renee of France by our guest,

01:26:08

Simonetta Carr, Compliments of EP Books, which stands for Evangelical Press, and this will be shipped out to you free of charge by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

01:26:22

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service dot com. We are going to our final station break right now, and we do have a couple of people still waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Simonetta, so we appreciate your patience.

01:26:40

We will get to you as soon as possible, but if anybody would like to join them to have your own question asked and answered on the air by Simonetta, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:26:54

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:27:04

USA. Don't go away, we are going to be right back with Simonetta Carr and more on Rene of France.

01:27:14

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

01:27:20

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01:27:28

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

01:27:34

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how

01:27:40

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01:27:48

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01:28:04

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01:28:27

that's ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

01:28:35

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

01:28:44

Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris' show,

01:28:58

Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called. Hoping that you can join

01:29:04

Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown. It is going to be a bang -up conference called the

01:29:13

G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A.

01:29:22

Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people. We hope to see you there.

01:29:27

Learn more at G3conference .com. G3conference .com. Thanks, Todd, I think.

01:29:36

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01:31:37

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. For the last 90 minutes and the next half hour to come, our guest has been and will continue to be

01:31:47

Simonetta Carr. The first hour of the program, we discussed her wonderful book on Martin Luther, with the title

01:31:56

Martin Luther, which is a part of the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series, published by Reformation Heritage Books.

01:32:04

Now, in our second hour, we have been discussing René of France, which has been published by EP Books, or Evangelical Press, as it's also known.

01:32:15

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question about René of France, our email address is

01:32:22

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:32:27

Before I return to our discussion, I just want to remind you that our friends at the

01:32:32

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals are going to be hosting the Doctrines of Grace conference this weekend,

01:32:40

Friday and Saturday, November 11th and 12th, in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and I intend to be there.

01:32:48

So I hope to meet many of you in the Iron Sharpens Iron audience who also attend this conference.

01:32:55

The speakers include Dr. Joel Beeky, who I'm sure Simonetta Carr must know who

01:33:01

Dr. Beeky is, since the book on Martin Luther that she wrote was published by Reformation Heritage Books, the very publisher that was founded by Dr.

01:33:12

Joel Beeky. He is going to be there. He's the president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

01:33:20

He's a prolific writer, and he's been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron many times, one of my favorite guests, one of my favorite of all -time preachers.

01:33:29

Another speaker who we've had on Iron Sharpens Iron who will be at the Doctrines of Grace conference is

01:33:35

Anthony Carter. Toni Morita will also be there, who I have not yet met or spoken to.

01:33:41

I'm looking forward to meeting him. And Richard Taylor and Timothy Whitmer. If you'd like to find out more information on how to register for this conference, go to AllianceNet .org.

01:33:54

That's AllianceNet .org. You can go to the very top of the page and click on Events, and the very first event will be the

01:34:04

Doctrines of Grace conference, November 11th and the 12th in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. It's being held at the

01:34:09

Grace Bible Fellowship Church on 1811 Old Bethlehem Pike North in Quaker Town.

01:34:17

Go to AllianceNet .org to register, and please mention

01:34:22

Iron Sharpens Iron when you register, and let them know that we are the ones that referred you to the

01:34:29

Doctrines of Grace conference. And we thank Bob Brady and the whole gang over there at the

01:34:36

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals for hosting such really important and wonderful Bible conferences.

01:34:44

And as I said before, if you'd like to join us on the air for the next 25 minutes or so, we are going to be continuing our discussion on Rene of France with our guest,

01:34:54

Simonetta Carr. And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:35:02

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, wants to know, Simonetta, if Rene of France ever regained a relationship with her children and was able to teach them the doctrines of the

01:35:18

Reformation as well, and if there was any fruit born out of that in their lives.

01:35:25

In other words, did they ever become faithful Bible -believing Christians, also known as theologically faithful Protestants?

01:35:37

Yeah, that's kind of a sad story in some ways.

01:35:44

I mean, Rene didn't have much authority over the education of the boys.

01:35:54

Traditionally at that time, the boys were educated by the father.

01:36:01

The father would choose tutors for them and address them. And certainly the way they...

01:36:10

the decisions they made in life were largely determined by the father.

01:36:16

So the oldest son was going to be the heir of the duchy.

01:36:27

And then the youngest son, as was very common at that time, was sent to a ecclesiastical career.

01:36:42

So he became a priest and then continued his career in the church, in the

01:36:49

Catholic Church. So she didn't have much say about that. Actually, I think she had no say about that.

01:36:57

She just had to accept it. She had more influence on the girls. She had three girls, and the oldest one stayed in the

01:37:09

Protestant faith. The other two, we don't know much about them, but they did marry.

01:37:18

All three of them actually married Catholics. And again,

01:37:24

Rene didn't have much say in the situation. So anyway, she did influence her daughters, and we don't know completely how they turned out.

01:37:37

As for the oldest one, we know she stayed Protestant. Well, thank you very much for that email and give us your full mailing address, and you will also receive a free copy of this book,

01:37:55

Rene of France by Simonetta Carr, complements of Evangelical Press or EP Books, and also of CVBBS .com.

01:38:03

We'll be shipping that out to you. Thank you very much, Arnie, in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

01:38:10

So did Rene live out a long life being spared of physical persecution and execution?

01:38:21

What became of her after being a well -known rebel against the Church of Rome?

01:38:28

Yes, she actually did live a long life. She risked her life a few other times.

01:38:36

She moved to France, and France was not a peaceful country either.

01:38:42

She moved there after her husband died, because at that time she was obviously free from any...

01:38:52

She didn't have to answer to him anymore. So she went to France.

01:38:59

She lived in a castle there of noble birth, and the same thing in France.

01:39:11

She also helped many Protestants. But France had its own problems at that time.

01:39:18

There were the conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants. So in France, it actually turned into a war.

01:39:33

So she was in the middle of all that. So she lived that difficult situation.

01:39:42

She actually was in Paris at the time of St. Bartholomew's Massacre when the

01:39:51

Protestants were killed. So she risked her life at that time too, because she was right there.

01:39:59

But she managed to leave and go back to her castle. They were very difficult times.

01:40:08

It was very difficult. She managed to survive also.

01:40:16

At one point, she denied her fate, and that's one part of the book that actually...

01:40:23

It's obviously disappointing, but that's one of the reasons why

01:40:29

I was interested in writing this book, because we have some books about other

01:40:35

Protestants of that time. There were glowing stories of strong faith, like the daughter of Margaret of Navarre, Jeanne of Navarre.

01:40:53

She was a strong Protestant, and there were others at that time.

01:41:03

Renee, actually, her fate faltered, and she did deny her fate at one point.

01:41:09

Later, she went back to it. And to me, that was interesting.

01:41:15

It was interesting for different things. One of the reasons was, like I mentioned before, that Calvin never gave up on her, and he always believed that the

01:41:30

Spirit was still working in her, that she was still a child of God. And to me, that was very comforting, just to see that.

01:41:39

And in fact, she did die a Protestant. Sometimes we need to see some of those stories too, stories of people who fall, and then they get up again.

01:41:53

Oh yeah, definitely. Like, for instance, that's one of the reasons why the life of Thomas Cranmer is very fascinating to me.

01:42:02

He wrote the 39 Articles of Religion for the Church of England when they were going through the

01:42:08

English Reformation, a very Calvinist creed, the 39

01:42:14

Articles, and Thomas Cranmer was very Calvinistic in his theological leanings.

01:42:20

And when King Henry VIII died, and the

01:42:25

Church of England went back to being under Roman Catholic control, his life was threatened, and he, out of fear for his life, recanted his

01:42:39

Protestant faith, but then later recanted his recantation. And when he was being executed, he was being burned alive, he asked that the hand that signed his initial recantation of Protestantism be burned first, as a sign that he repented and regretted ever having signed the recantation of Protestantism to begin with, and they granted his request, and they did burn his hand first before consuming his entire body with flames.

01:43:12

But a very fascinating story. Now, what were the circumstances that you know of that would cause

01:43:19

Renee to recant her faith? Was it fear of her life, or was it just something else?

01:43:26

Yeah, I think it was fear. I don't know if so much of her life,

01:43:33

I don't know if the husband could have killed her, and again, she was of a certain status, and she had somewhat the protection of France, being from a noble family in France, and she was related to the

01:43:55

King of France, actually. But I think partially it was the fact that, like I said, they took her daughters away from her, and she could not see them again, although they were not children, but still, you know, for a mother, that's very difficult.

01:44:16

And then also, they just didn't leave her alone.

01:44:22

They had somebody going to her every day, basically telling her, you have to recant, you have to recant, and they tried everything to make her...

01:44:34

What they wanted her to do is go back to attend the

01:44:40

Roman Catholic Mass and just at least outwardly agree with it and then confess, go to a confession, and they would have been happy just with a very formal idea to the

01:45:00

Roman Catholic Church. So she finally gave up and did it, but it was very sad.

01:45:12

Many other Protestants denounced her for it, and Calvin continued to write to her, and that was, to me, very comforting and very encouraging.

01:45:25

CJ from Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York, wants to know if the husband of Renée of France, the

01:45:35

Duke of Ferrara, was truly in love with Renée in spite of their differences because of the fact that she remained alive and died of an old age rather than being executed.

01:45:49

I mean, did the Duke of Ferrara protect her, even though he was angry with her and disputed with her over their differences?

01:45:57

He obviously didn't turn her over to the Roman Catholic Church for persecution.

01:46:05

Yeah, I'm not sure. It's very hard to tell. I mean, obviously there was some love at some point.

01:46:16

I am just not really sure how much, but I don't know if she would have died.

01:46:26

Not so much because of her husband, but just because to kill a person like a duchess, and she was actually a

01:46:36

French princess, that would have been a very big step for the

01:46:41

Catholic Church. I don't think they ever did at that time. Well, they did it in England.

01:46:49

They did it in England. In England, yes. In England, definitely. Yeah, it was different. Yeah, I don't think in Italy or France, actually, it ever happened.

01:47:02

So I don't know. I don't know if it was the fact that she was a princess that saved her or their husband maybe did have some love for her.

01:47:17

Thank you, CJ, and you also have won a free copy of Rene of France by Simonetta Carr, published by EP Books, and God willing, you'll be getting that in the mail shortly.

01:47:32

We are once again getting a question from Lam Lam in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York.

01:47:39

As with any other books, one will first look at the table of contents and the comments in the back of the book.

01:47:49

As looking into the content, the titles of the first chapter and the last might create some sort of confusion or false impression on the relationship of Rene of France and Calvin, which might mislead readers to ideas other than the doctrinal, theological, and Reformation.

01:48:07

Can you describe a little more about the last chapter and what is her contribution or influence to the country in terms of Reformation in history?

01:48:17

I think that she may be implying that it may have looked like a romantic relationship.

01:48:23

I may be putting words in Lam Lam's mouth, but did anybody suspect there being some kind of a romantic connection between Calvin and Rene?

01:48:34

No, I don't think anybody ever suspected, no. Okay, and anything else you would like to comment?

01:48:42

Calvin had many women friends, and it was very common at that time.

01:48:52

Like I said, there were so many women that were

01:48:58

Protestant, and so men like Calvin or other pastors, they had to spend a lot of time corresponding with them and helping them and guiding them.

01:49:11

And so it was quite common. To my knowledge, no, there was never any talk that went beyond a simple friendship.

01:49:28

Even more than friendship, it was the pastor and a sheep, basically.

01:49:36

He was pastoring her. And who... Go ahead, I'm sorry.

01:49:42

No, I was just saying that their relationship was mostly...

01:49:50

She needed his encouragement throughout her life because she was very much by herself, even if she was surrounded by other

01:50:01

Protestants. There were people who came and left. Her husband sent many of her closest friends away because he thought they were having too much of an influence on her.

01:50:16

So these letters by Calvin were very important to her.

01:50:23

And who passed into glory first? Was it Renee or John Calvin, as far as who died, who entered into heaven first?

01:50:36

I died first, John Calvin. Okay, and did he always, until his death, have some kind of connection or correspondence with Renee?

01:50:46

Yes, he kept corresponding until the end. To me, this is very, very encouraging.

01:50:53

His letters are wonderful. I couldn't include them all.

01:51:00

I included only certain excerpts, but if anybody can read them...

01:51:07

Actually, they are online. You can read all of Calvin's letters. They're very encouraging.

01:51:17

Well, I want you to make sure our listeners know what you primarily want etched in their hearts and minds about Renee of France before they leave this program today.

01:51:31

I think the main thing I want readers to get from this book is how much

01:51:40

God continues to work in our hearts, and the

01:51:46

Spirit works in our hearts. God doesn't give up on His children, and just to be encouraged and to just keep going.

01:51:56

And that's what John Calvin told Renee, that even if you fall, you just get up and keep going.

01:52:05

Amen. And what other books have you written that we can perhaps do interviews on in the future?

01:52:12

I know that one we already mentioned before is the story of Lady Jane Grey. If you could give us a little information about that.

01:52:21

Yeah. Well, I wrote 10 books for Reformation Heritage Books, and Martin Luther is the 10th of the series.

01:52:36

Lady Jane, I think it was the fifth one, and that's also a very important character in the

01:52:45

Reformation. She was Queen of England for only a very short time, less than two weeks.

01:52:58

So basically, right now we call her Lady Jane. We don't even call her

01:53:04

Queen Jane. But she was a queen. She was the Queen of England at that time, and she was right at the time when

01:53:13

King Edward was ruling and then died, and then his sister

01:53:21

Mary took over. She's famous as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants.

01:53:29

And so Lady Jane was in the middle of all that, and she did give her life for her faith, and she was only 16, 17 at that time.

01:53:43

So I think that was a character that can really encourage young readers.

01:53:53

Well, you have quite a lineup of books that I would love to eventually interview you on all of them.

01:53:59

You have John Calvin you've written on. You've written on Augustine of Hippo.

01:54:05

As we've already discussed, Martin Luther today on this program. Marie Durand.

01:54:12

We have Lady Jane Grey that we just mentioned. John Knox. We have

01:54:18

Jonathan Edwards and Athanasius, who I mentioned earlier. Athanasius against the world,

01:54:26

Athanasius Contramundum, I think is the phrase, when he was battling against the entire church nearly that had succumbed to Arianism.

01:54:36

John Owen, the great Puritan writer. Anselm of Canterbury.

01:54:43

And the list goes on. You've got quite an impressive list of books, and I hope to have you back on the program very soon.

01:54:53

I hope so too. And we do have one more questioner, a listener in the audience, who is, let's see, this is

01:55:08

RJ from White Plains, New York. And he wants to know, how did you become such a prolific writer coming from Italy and entering here in the

01:55:19

United States? You seem to have really captured the attention of some impressive reform publishing companies.

01:55:26

That's a very good question. I don't know.

01:55:34

Quick answer, I don't know. When I wrote

01:55:41

John Calvin, that was my first book, I didn't even think

01:55:46

I would write books. It didn't come into my mind I would ever write a book. I just thought the book needed to be written.

01:55:57

And I asked, in fact, I asked another person in my church, a student at Westminster Seminary who had studied church history,

01:56:07

I wanted him to write it, because he gave some Sunday school lectures on church history, and I said, why don't you write this series of books?

01:56:19

And he kept saying no. And so finally he said, why don't you try?

01:56:25

And I did. So, you know, quite honestly, I really don't know how it happened.

01:56:32

I think, you know, God wanted it to happen, and Reformation Heritage said yes.

01:56:39

So that's how I started, and that's how I've been going since then.

01:56:46

Well, praise God for that. And, well, I want to make sure that our listeners also have the websites of these publishers.

01:56:57

We have heritagebooks .org is the website for Reformation Heritage books.

01:57:04

Any of you who either didn't win a book today, or you want to, even if you won, you want to get more copies for your family, friends, and loved ones, especially with Christmas coming up, heritagebooks .org,

01:57:18

and just type Simonetta in the search engine. There are not too many people named

01:57:24

Simonetta. In fact, Simonetta, that is my guest today, is the first Simonetta I have ever spoken with, and I'm sure all of her books that they publish will come up.

01:57:35

And there's also EP Books, which is Evangelical Press, epbooks .org,

01:57:43

E -P for Evangelical Press, books .org, and you could do a search on Simonetta Carr, C -A -R -R, there as well.

01:57:52

You could also go to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services website, C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for Bible Book Service, that's

01:58:03

C -V, B -B -S, dot com, for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And do you have any personal contact information that you care to share?

01:58:14

Yeah, if you do, I have a website, it's www .simonetta

01:58:22

-carr .com, and you can find my books there too.

01:58:29

So that's Simonetta, S -I -M -O -N -E -T -T -A dash

01:58:35

C -A -R -R dot com. And so I hope that all of you will go to that website and frequent it and get to know

01:58:48

Simonetta. And I hope to have you back on the program, Simonetta, because I've found it an absolute joy to have you on the program today.

01:58:59

Thank you. Thank you for putting up with my accent. Well, I hope I did an adequate job on my end, because I think

01:59:07

I kept up with you fairly well, understanding what you were saying. I don't recall you saying anything that I didn't understand.

01:59:13

Oh, that's great. Well, I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write questions.

01:59:21

I hope to see many of you at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conference in Quaker Town.

01:59:28

Remember to go to AllianceNet .org, AllianceNet .org, to look up information on that conference this

01:59:35

Friday and Saturday. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:42

Savior than you are a sinner. God bless you all, and I look forward to hearing from you with your questions.