Resources For Understanding Calvin

John Calvin (1509–64) was one of the most significant figures in the history of the West. He was among the major Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century. He contributed significantly to the Reformed wing of the Reformation. He was an industrious Bible commentators (50 vols). His correspondence fills volumes. He is most famous for his introductory handbook to Christian theology, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published in 1536 and revised continually, in Latin and French editions, until the early 1560s. He was, however, also a preacher and a pastor. Early in his ministry, when his health permitted, he preached not only twice on Sundays but several times during the week. He also taught what we would call a weekly Bible study, catechized the youth, and attended meetings with other pastors and elders. He had a controversial career in Geneva. After being compelled to stay in Geneva in 1536 by Guillaume Farel (1489–1565), he was exiled in 1538 after seeking to move control of church discipline away from the the city council and place it under the control of the pastors and elders (consistory). In 1541, however, Geneva recalled him from Strasbourg, where he happily and quietly served a French-language congregation. He spent the rest of his life and ministry in Geneva, receiving refugees from across the British Isles and Europe, preaching the law and the gospel, teaching, counseling the troubled, advising churches across Europe and the British Isles, and writing. Tragically, for many, he is only known for the Servetus affair, in which he played an important but not decisive role. In the sixteenth century it was illegal and a capital crime in Europe and the British Isles to advocate religious heresy (e.g., publicly denying the Trinity, as Servetus did and for which he was jailed before Geneva). In those cases it was the civil magistrate, in Geneva as in most other places, who prosecuted, convicted, and executed the death penalty upon heretics. The attention paid to Calvin (while ignoring all the other similar cases, in other places) over Servetus is no more than an attempt to smear his reputation, something that began in a hostile biography written during his life.

Select Bibliography
Popular Essays
Calvin Quotations
Podcasts And Lectures
Videos

Select Bibliography

Balke, W. Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals. Trans. W. J. Heynen. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981.
Clark. R. Scott. “‘Subtle Sacramentarian’ or Son? John Calvin’s Relationship to Martin Luther” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 21.4 (2018): 35–60.
Clark, R. Scott. “Calvin’s Principle of Worship,” in ed. David Hall, Tributes to John Calvin: A Celebration of his Quincentenary (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), 247–69.
Clark, R. Scott. “Calvin as Negative Boundary Marker in American Lutheran Self-Identity 1871–1934” in Johan de Niet, Herman Paul, and Bart Wallet, ed., Sober, Strict, and Scriptural: Collective Memories of John Calvin, 1800–2000 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 245–66.
Clark, R. Scott. “Election and Predestination: Sovereign Expressions of God,” in David Hall and Peter Lillback, ed. A Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institutes: Essays and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008), 90–122
Clark, R. Scott Clark. “Calvin and the Lex Naturalis,” Stulos Theological Journal 6 (1998): 1–22.
DeGreef. W. The Writings of John Calvin (expanded)
Ellis, Brannon. Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism and the Aseity of the Son. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Eire, Carlos M. N. War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Ganoczy, Alexandre. The Young Calvin. Trans. David Foxgrover and Wade Provo. Edinburgh: T & T Clark Ltd., 1987.
Godfrey, W. Robert. John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009.
Gordon, Bruce. Calvin. New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009.
Gordon, Bruce, and Carl R. Trueman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism, Oxford Handbooks(2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 14 July 2021).
Kuiper, Herman. Calvin on Common Grace. 1928: Smitter Book Co, 1928.
Manetsch, Scott M. Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Monter, E. William. Calvin’s Geneva. New York: Wiley, 1967.
Muller, Richard A. The Unaccommodated Calvin
Muller, Richard A. Calvin and the Reformed Tradition
Muller, Richard A. The Unaccommodated Calvin : Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University, 2000.
Muller, Richard A. Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology From Calvin to Perkins. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.
Parker, T. H. L. John Calvin: A Biography
Quistorp, Heinrich. Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things. Translated by Harold Knight. London: Lutterworth Press, 1955.
Selderhuis, Herman J., ed. The Calvin Handbook Grand Rapids: Eerdman, 2009.
Selderhuis, Herman J. Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Steinmetz, David C. Calvin in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Warfield, B. B. Calvin and Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1931.
Wendel, François. Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought. Trans. Philip Mairet. The Fontana Library, 1054 L. London: William Collins, Sons, 1965.
Willis, E. David. Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology. E. J. Brill, 1966.

The Heidelblog

Resources For Understanding Calvin

Table Of Contents

Select Bibliography

Popular Essays

Calvin Quotations On Various Topics

Podcasts and Lectures

Videos

Table Of Contents

Select Bibliography

Popular Essays

Calvin Quotations On Various Topics

Podcasts and Lectures

Videos

Subscribe to the Heidelblog today!