The translator has done a truly excellent job of putting Calvin's work into a very readable English format. If you have ever wanted to read Calvin, here is your chance. Frankly, one might compare the study of Calvin to the opportunity to either sit with Christ on the mount or later to hear Matthew retell the story. Why go to a secondary source when Calvin is so easy to understand and so readily available in this edition? These pages bring Calvin right into your living room, where you learn the reformed faith first hand. To sum it up: Pastor, student, or layman, if you don't have this work in your study collection, such a collection is incomplete. Complete enough to suit the demands of the scholar, written so the average layman can understand, here is John Calvin. This is a terrific tool in understanding our Reformed faith from the very father of the reformation that led to the Presbyterian Church.

Gift and Promise shows that the theology of the Augsburg Confession is as much a gift to the world today as it Was when first presented in 1530. Building on a book started by Ed Schroeder (three chapters are presented in the first part), nine of his students present the theology of the Augsburg Confession in language that makes it accessible to those without a scholarly background, including pastors, students, and lay people interested in Lutheran history and theology. Gift and Promise establishes the theological "hub" of the Augsburg Confession- what the Confession itself calls the "central teaching of the Christian faith" -in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That hub is traced to its source in Luther's theology of the cross. Each chapter presents how that central hub is articulated in the articles of faith that comprise the Ausgburg Confession. Lucid, powerful, and insightful, the expositions in this volume are written by expert theologians, historians, and scholars who aim to present the crucial and practical message of the Christian life in the Augsburg Confession for all.

This book explores one of the great paradoxes of our era. Western culture has almost imperceptibly come to secularize the sacred, while at the same time sacralizing the secular. The authors endeavor to show the debilitating effects that this paradox has had on the foundations of Christian worship with special reference to the history of worship and in particular the Presbyterian Church in Australia. The authors show how the theological predilection for 'minimization' has become inextricably woven into the fabric of what we call 'the theory of transformative subjugation' which drives the rationale for religious secularization. The book argues that it is necessary to consider a serious reconstruction of theological education in which its framework is located in a specific Christian theory of knowledge which engenders the Lordship of Christ and encourages a spirit of transformative love and connectedness. It is only in this context that the theology of worship and the beauty and usefulness of liturgical forms can be appreciated.

Most biographers of Luther are faced with a choice-focus on Luther's life or focus on his thought. The choice, though real, is false. Luther's thought was inextricably bound up with his life. In this short, engaging volume, Hans Schwarz succeeds in blending the two-creating a volume that introduces Luther's thought in the context of his life story. The book meets the need for a clear and concise introduction to the life and teachings of the great church reformer, Martin Luther. After a brief overview of his life, the book devotes chapters to Luther's thoughts on key areas of the Christian faith and life, including the knowledge of God, church and sacraments, the Scriptures, marriage and parenthood, and vocation. The author incorporates quotations from Luther's own writings to show how Luther's insights have relevance for all Christians today. With questions for reflection and discussion, the book can be used as a study resource for individuals, church groups, or college and seminary classes. For this revised edition, Schwarz has thoroughly reviewed the text and added important new sections on Luther and music, Luther and the economy, Luther and the Jews, and more.

Bringing together a rich range of primary sources - images, liturgies, sermons, letters, eyewitness accounts, and Genevan consistory records - this book examines worship as it was taught and practiced in John Calvin's Geneva. Several of these primary sources are translated into English for the first time, offering new resources for studying Calvin and his context. Karin Maag uses Geneva as a case study for investigating the theology and practice of worship in the Reformation era. Covering the period from 1541 to 1564, the year of Calvin's death, Lifting Hearts to the Lord captures both Calvin's signal contribution to Reformation worship and the voices of ordinary Genevans as they navigated - and debated, even fought about - the changes in worship resulting from the Reformation.

Recent decades have witnessed much scholarly reassessment of late-sixteenth through eighteenth-century Reformed theology. It was common to view the theology of this period-typically labelled 'orthodoxy'-as sterile, speculative, and rationalistic, and to represent it as significantly discontinuous with the more humanistic, practical, and biblical thought of the early reformers. Recent scholars have taken a more balanced approach, examining orthodoxy on its own terms and subsequently highlighting points of continuity between orthodoxy and both Reformation and pre-Reformation theologies, in terms of form as well as content. Until now Scottish theology and theologians have figured relatively minimally in works reassessing orthodoxy, and thus many of the older stereotypes concerning post-Reformation Reformed theology in a Scottish context persist. This collection of essays aims to redress that failure by purposely examining post-Reformation Scottish theology/theologians through a lens provided by the gains made in recent scholarly evaluations of Reformed orthodoxy, and by highlighting, in that process, the significant contribution which Scottish divines of the orthodox era made to Reformed theology as an international intellectual phenomenon.