27. - Calvin and Calvinism

Summary

Jean Calvin was a French theologian and minister and one of the most important and influential advocates for Reformation in the generation after Martin Luther. Calvin was not trained as a theologian or minister. His initial publications were philological and reflect his legal education as well as the influence of Desiderius Erasmus and other humanists who imagined their work in opposition to the “scholasticism” of the universities and the innovations and corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church. Calvin made his most thorough and enduring contributions to Reformation at Geneva, where he lived (save for an exile in Strasbourg from 1538 to 1541) from 1536 until his death in 1564. And while his 1559 Institutio Christianae Religionis may serve as the most complete introduction to his theology, he often offers his most detailed treatments of topics in his commentaries, sermons, responses to adversaries, and local interventions in Geneva. For instance, in Geneva Calvin backed the creation of a consistory of ministers and elders that would mete out discipline in ecclesiastical matters. Depending upon the scope and definition of “ecclesiastical matters,” such a consistory could readily challenge the authority of civil magistrates or competing congregations.