Category: John Calvin

(1509–64). When John Calvin was a boy in France, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Two decades later Calvin became the second of the great 16th-century reformers. His work and teachings had a profound impact on the development of Christianity.

John Calvin was born in Noyon, France, on July 10, 1509. His father was a lay administrator in the church. In his youth Calvin studied in Paris for the priesthood, but later he turned to law. From 1528 to 1531 he studied in the law schools of Orléans and Bourges before returning to Paris. During this period Calvin became involved with a radical movement that sought to reform church and society. Above all the movement emphasized salvation by grace rather than by good works and ceremonies.

Government intolerance of the reform movement led Calvin to leave Paris in 1533. Eventually he settled in Basel, Switzerland, where he studied theology intensively. In 1536 he published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, which made clear his break from Roman Catholicism. In subsequent revisions, the Institutes became the single most important statement of Protestant belief.
As Calvin gained a reputation among Protestant leaders, he went to Geneva to help establish Protestantism in that city. His uncompromising nature led to his expulsion from the city in 1538, but he was invited back in 1541. Under Calvin’s iron will, Protestantism became the dominant force in Geneva. In the city’s social life, Calvin enforced the ideals of purity, simplicity, and devout religious faith. He was consulted in all civic as well as religious matters. Calvin made Geneva one of the most influential cities in Europe. He died in Geneva on May 27, 1564.

Calvin’s theology was further developed by his followers. Calvin’s successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza, emphasized the doctrine of double predestination much more than Calvin had. This doctrine holds that God long ago chose some people to be saved and others to be damned. Beza also stressed the literal truth of the Bible. Calvinism became the basis of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches and spread among the Huguenots of France, the Protestants of the Netherlands and Scotland, and the Puritans of England. The English Calvinists, unable to practice their religion at home, came to the New World in the 17th century. They laid the foundation for Calvinism in the United States.

“Calvin, John,” Encyclopedia Britannica Noet Edition (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2015).

October 12, 2018October 10, 2018

Rick Wilcox

Prudence

On Reading Well
Karen Swallow Prior

Chapter One
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
By Henry Fielding

I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence;
I possess knowledge and discretion.

Proverbs 8:12

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin wrote:

We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them.

So are people good or evil? Is it possible to be totally depraved, yet a bearer of God’s image? In her book On Reading Well, Karen Swallow Prior explores this quandary in Chapter One.

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September 26, 2018September 26, 2018

Rick Wilcox

The Other Side Of Silence

Walking On Water

Reflections on Faith & Art

Chapter 11

When I am writing, on the other side of silence, as it were, and I am interrupted, there is an incredible shock as I am shoved through the sound barrier, the light barrier, out of the real world and into what seems, at least for the first few moments, a less real world. The same thing is true in prayer, in meditation. For the disciplines of the creative process and Christian contemplation are almost identical.

~Madeline L’Engle

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September 24, 2018

Rick Wilcox

The Journey Homeward

Walking On Water

Reflections on Faith & Art

Chapter 10

Artists have always been drawn to the wild, wide elements they cannot control or understand—the sea, mountains, fire. To be an artist means to approach the light, and that means to let go our control, to allow our whole selves to be placed with absolute faith in that which is greater than we are. The novel we sit down to write and the one we end up writing may be very different, just as the Jesus we grasp and the Jesus who grasps us may also differ.

~Madeline L’Engle

Continue reading “The Journey Homeward” →

Prudence

On Reading Well Karen Swallow Prior

The Other Side Of Silence

Walking On Water

Reflections on Faith & Art

The Journey Homeward

Walking On Water

Reflections on Faith & Art

On Reading Well
Karen Swallow Prior