HIS 218 & REL 218 Church History II: Reformation to the Present

During the French Renaissance, young John Calvin experienced a profound conversion to the faith of the Reformation. He lived out the implications of that and became a major figure of the Reformation. Calvin's vision of the Christian religion has inspired volumes of analysis, but this biography examines his life. Bruce Gordon presents Calvin as a man at once brilliant, arrogant, charismatic, unforgiving, generous, and shrewd. The book explores with particular insight Calvin's view of himself as prophet for his age and his struggle to tame a sense of his own superiority, perceived by others as arrogance.

John Calvin was one of the main Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. His thought spread worldwide, and today he is still looked to for theological insights. Willem van 't Spijker, provides a compact guide to Calvin's life and his thought. Van 't Spijker bases this work on the best contemporary scholarship. By tracing Calvin's influence, he shows the development of Calvin's thought and how it was important in his time and later.

Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin and his colleagues were much more than "talking heads," dispensing theological information to the people in their congregations. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to a significant degree theirdaily work as pastors and preachers. This careful study of religious life in Geneva from 1536 to 1609 also shows that the clerical office in Geneva changed in subtle ways during the half-century after Calvin's death, even as the Company of Pastors remained committed to the reformer's pastoralvision.

An international array of major Calvin scholars considers aspects of Calvin's theological thought and influence. Historians as well as theologians present the major themes in his writings in addition to discussing the ways in which his thought spread and has increasing importance today.