The year 2009 marked Calvin's 500th birthday. This volume collects papers initially written as the plenary addresses for the largest international scholarly conference held in connection with this anniversary, organized in Geneva by the Institute of Reformation History. The organizers chose as theme for the conference ''Calvin and His Influence 1509-2009, '' hoping to stimulate reflection about what Calvin's ideas and example have meant across the five centuries since his lifetime, as well as about how much validity the classic interpretations that have linked his legacy to fundamental features of modernity such as democracy, capitalism, or science still retain. In brief, the story that emerges from the book is as follows: In the generations immediately after Calvin's death, he became an authority whose writings were widely cited by leading ''Calvinist'' theologians, but he was in fact just one of several Reformed theologians of his generation who were much appreciated by these theologians. In the eighteenth century, his writings began to be far less frequently cited. Even in Reformed circles what was now most frequently recalled was his action during the Servetus affair, so that he now started to be widely criticized in those quarters of the Reformed tradition that were now attached to the idea of toleration or the ideal of a free church. In the nineteenth century, his theology was recovered again in a variety of different contexts, while scholars established the monument to his life and work that was the Opera Calvini and undertook major studies of his life and times. Church movements now claimed the label ''Calvinist'' for themselves with increasing insistence and pride. (The term had largely been a derogatory label in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.) The movements that identified themselves as Calvinist or were identified as such by contemporaries nonetheless varied considerably in the manner in which they drew upon and understood Calvin's thought. Calvin and His Influence should become the starting point for further scholarly reflection about the history of Calvinism, from its origin to the present.

The idea of freedom of religion was developed in Europe in the 16th and 17th century in the context of religious diversity as an alternative for religious wars. The concept requires reconsideration in the current globalized culture: religious plurality has increased as has the awareness of the religious potential for social cohesion and for sectarian division and violence. In this volume, legal experts, sociologists, theologians, and philosophers clarify the historical development of the concept, and analyze the present situation in various countries with religious tensions. They propose possible models and solutions, and discuss the fundamental question of whether the Western model of human rights with its separation of religion and state and freedom of religion can be conceived as universal.

Although "God loves you" is a common paraphrase of Christian teaching and preaching, a close reading of the Bible and attention to the Christian tradition will reveal passages of Scripture and Christian doctrines-- particularly John Calvin's doctrine of predestination--that seem to undermine confidence in God's love for all people. For many theologians, not only in the Reformed tradition, the secret decree of Calvin's God to save some and condemn others seems completely to undercut any assurance of salvation and the ability to trust in and worship God. However, pastor and scholar John Calvin confidently spoke of God as a loving Father throughout his teaching and preaching. In Uncovering Calvin's God, Forrest H. Buckner unearths Calvin's teaching about the God of love who reigns sovereign over predestination. Drawing upon sources from across Calvin's corpus, Buckner examines Calvin's teaching on the knowledge of God and the doctrine of predestination to provide a more robust and cohesive understanding of Calvin's theology, which Buckner then confirms through an extensive examination of Calvin's preaching in Geneva. He then offers a critical comparison of Calvin's approach with the teaching of Luther, Zwingli, Bullinger, Arminius, and Barth. Using Calvin's system as a starting point, this book helps readers perceive the essentials and trade-offs of any doctrine of predestination that takes seriously both the Bible and the loving God revealed in Jesus Christ.

This title includes essays and examples of theological commentary on biblical passages from leading scholars in the field. This volume will contain examples of theological commentary written by systematic or biblical theologians who share deep concern for the Reformed scripture principle. Within the guild of dogmatic theology careful engagement with the biblical text and, furthermore, with biblical theology and historical exegesis in a consistent and faithful manner is a crying need of the hour. To spur on theologians to biblically-shaped thinking and to encourage biblical scholars to consider dogmatic implications of texts read within the church's traditions, this volume will include essays on critical passages related to a number of key doctrinal loci (e.g., Colossians 3 and deification, Exodus 3 and divine transcendence). Contributors have been and will be solicited for their proven ability to integrate biblical exegesis and dogmatic extrapolation. Inevitably, chapters will vary in emphasis and according to the talents and interests of their authors. Nevertheless, a continual conversation between Bible, tradition, and constructive formulation will mark each essay. This multi-author collection, then, will combine strong thematic coherence with individual variety.

Randall C. Zachman places Calvin in conversation with theologians such as Pascal, Kierkegaard, Ezra the Scribe, Julian of Norwich and Karl Barth, and attends to themes in Calvin's theology which are often overlooked. Zachman draws out Calvin's use of astronomy and great concern to see ourselves in comparison to the immensity of the universe, acknowledging in wonder and awe our nothingness before God. Throughout, Zachman presents a Calvin who seeks a route out of self-deception to self-knowledge, though Kierkegaard shows that it is love, and not judgment, that most deeply reveals us to ourselves. The book discusses Calvin's understanding of the election of the Jews and their relationship to God, and further reconsiders Calvin's understanding of judgment and how the call to love our neighbour is undermined by the formation of alliances.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. The English Puritans, written by John Brown and first published in 1910, presents an historical overview of the rise, growth and decline of the Puritan movement in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This book offers a new interpretation of political reform in the settler colonies of Britain's empire in the early nineteenth century. It examines the influence of Scottish Presbyterian dissenting churches and their political values. It re-evaluates five notorious Scottish reformers and unpacks the Presbyterian foundation to their political ideas: Thomas Pringle (1789-1834), a poet in Cape Town; Thomas McCulloch (1776-1843), an educator in Pictou; John Dunmore Lang (1799-1878), a church minister in Sydney; William Lyon Mackenzie (1795-1861), a rebel in Toronto; and Samuel McDonald Martin (1805?-1848), a journalist in Auckland. The book weaves the five migrants' stories together for the first time and demonstrates how the campaigns they led came to be intertwined. The book will appeal to historians of Scotland, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the British Empire and the Scottish diaspora.

George Smith (1833 1919) spent many years in India as an educator and editor of the Calcutta Review. He was a great supporter of missionary work and became secretary of the foreign mission committee of the Free Church of Scotland in 1870. He also wrote popular books of missionary biography including this two-volume Life of Alexander Duff (1879). Duff (1806 1878) was the first foreign missionary of the Church of Scotland and a leading figure in promoting Christian education in India. Duff pioneered what he called 'downward filter theory' which centred on educating India's upper caste through English in the hope that this elite group would then take responsibility for the evangelisation and modernisation of South Asia. Volume 1 describes Duff's life until 1843, covering his education in Scotland, his arrival in Calcutta and the founding of his school, the General Assembly Institution.

George Smith (1833 1919) spent many years in India as an educator and editor of the Calcutta Review. He was a great supporter of missionary work and became secretary of the foreign mission committee of the Free Church of Scotland in 1870. He also wrote popular books of missionary biography including this two-volume Life of Alexander Duff (1879). Duff (1806 1878) was the first foreign missionary of the Church of Scotland and a leading figure in promoting Christian education in India. Duff pioneered what he called 'downward filter theory' which centred on educating India's upper caste through English in the hope that this elite group would then take responsibility for the evangelisation and modernisation of South Asia. Volume 2 describes Duff's life from 1843 until his death in 1878, covering his contribution to the 1854 educational reforms in India and the founding of the University of Calcutta.

Alan Sell maintains that systematic and constructive theology are best understood as the product of a conversation with the biblical writers, the heritage of Christian thought and the current intellectual environment. The conversation will benefit if the voices of hinterland writers are heard as well as those of the theological and philosophical 'giants'. In this book, ten hinterland theologians associated with English Dissent are introduced and their writings are discussed. Thomas Ridgley, Abraham Taylor and Samuel Chandler wrote in the wake of the Toleration Act of 1689; George Payne and Richard Alliott responded to the Enlightenment and the Evangelical Revival; D. W. Simon, T. Vincent Tymms and Walter F. Adeney took account of modern biblical criticism, and Robert S. Franks and Charles S. Duthie respectively lived through and followed the heyday of liberal theology. The study reveals both adjustments and time-lags in theology, and shows how hinterland theologians can stimulate the ongoing conversation concerning theological method, philosophico-theological relations, the Trinity, the atonement and ecumenism.

The Reformation thinker John Calvin had significant and unusual things to say about life in public encounter, things which both anticipate modern thinking and, says William Stevenson, can serve as important antidotes to some of modern thinking's broader pretensions. This study attempts to give a coherent picture of Calvin's political theory by following the stream that flows from Calvin's fascinating short essay "On Christian Freedom," which constitutes one coherent chapter in Book Three of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Stevenson argues that a full examination of this essay yields not only a more thorough explication of Calvin's political ideas proper but also a more complete and coherent picture of their theological underpinnings.

Originally published in 1988, and the companion book to The Puritan Gentry, covering the period of the Civil War, the English republic and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, this book gives an account of how the godly interest of the Puritans dissolved into faction and impotence. The fissures among the Puritan gentry stemmed, as the book shows, from a conflict between their zeal in religion and the conservative instincts which owed much to their wealth and status.

Creation is the theater of God's glory. Scripture is like a pair of glasses that clarifies our vision of God. Justification is the hinge on which religion turns. These and other affirmations are often associated with John Calvin, the 16th-century French Protestant Reformer best known for his ministry in Geneva and his authorship of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Over the course of his lifetime and through several editions, Calvin expanded the Institutes from a brief study to a four-volume book that covers the main doctrines of the Christian faith and continues to shape the theology of the Reformed tradition. In this volume, Reformed theologian Yudha Thianto guides readers through a careful study of Calvin's Institutes. After setting Calvin and his writing in their historical context, he outlines the most significant aspects of Calvin's theology, guiding those who would know more about his work and, through it, the God who inspired him. Books in the Explorer's Guide series are accessible guidebooks for those studying the great Christian texts and theologians from church history, helping readers explore the context in which these texts were written and navigate the rich yet complex terrain of Christian theology.

Originally published in 1988, this was the first full and scholarly account of the formal Elizabethan and Jacobean debates between Presbyterians and conformists concerning the government of the church. This book shed new light on the crucial disagreements between puritans and conformists and the importance of these divisions for political processes within both the church and wider society. The originality and complexity of Richard Hooker's thought is discussed and the extent to which Hooker redefined the essence of English Protestantism. The book will be of interest to historians of the late 16th and 17th Centuries and to those interested in church history and the development of Protestantism.

On Theology: Herman Bavinck's Academic Orations presents four previously untranslated works by Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). These works offer important insights into Bavinck's conceptualisation of the discipline of theology, its place in the modern university, and the relation in which theology stands to religion. In the introductory essay, Bruce R. Pass draws attention to the way these speeches shed light on the development of Bavinck's thought across his tenure at the Kampen Theological School and the Free University of Amsterdam as well as the complex relationship in which Bavinck's thought stands to that of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Explore the Bible alongside daily insights from pastor-teacher Dr. John MacArthur.

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