It should always be seen to that the song should not be light and frivolous, but that it have weight and majesty, as saith St. Augustine; and also that there is a great difference between the music that is employed for the . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Studies
Office Hours: Calvin And Reformed Ministry In Geneva
Few figures haunt the history and imagination of the West like John Calvin. In 2009 Geneva celebrated the 500th anniversary of his birth and yet late modern Europeans were clearly uncomfortable celebrating a figure whom they regarded as backward and unenlightened. Yet, . . . Continue reading →
Graphic Calvin
I get books in my mailbox regularly and it’s usually because someone wants me to say something about it on the HB. Today I received this in my mailbox and thought that you would want to know about it. It’s an illustrated life of . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: People Have Never Liked The Regulative Principle
I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by His Word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Shows Up In The Oddest Places
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Calvin Didn’t Say Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda
These participles, reformata and reformanda, were not constantly on Calvin’s tongue. However, it is clear enough that his pattern was to use reformata as an adjective to describe a church that is more or less free of liturgical and theological abuses, and . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Against Images Of Christ
God has forbidden two things [ cf. Exodus 20:4-5]. First, the making of any picture of Him…. The other is, that no image may be worshipped…. The setting up of images in churches, is a defiling . . . By and by, . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: God’s Accommodation No License For Images
God, indeed, from time to time showed the presence of his divine majesty by definite signs, so that he might be said to be looked upon face to face. But all the signs that he ever gave forth aptly conformed to his . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Who Is Faithful To The Church Fathers?
Moreover, they unjustly set the ancient fathers against us (I mean the ancient writers of a better age of the church) as if in them they had supporters of their own impiety. If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Horton On Calvin’s Doctrine Of The Christian Life
John Calvin is one of the most influential writers in the Reformed tradition, so much so that Richard Muller has argued that, in the modern period, Calvin has been over emphasized to the neglect of the rest of the Reformed tradition. Nevertheless, . . . Continue reading →
Was Calvin A Lutheran?
By this answer Christ declared that he did not deliver any other rule of life than that which had formerly been delivered in the law of the Lord. Thus he both bore testimony to the divine law, that it was a doctrine . . . Continue reading →
Did Luther And Calvin Favor Evangelical Monasticism?
I was clicking around the internets recently and (probably via Twitter) and found a fascinating essay by Greg Peters, Associate Professor of Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University. The burden of the essay is to introduce the reader to and to commend the . . . Continue reading →
Secularization Interrupted
it was becoming increasingly clear that at least on the street, the the veneer of Christianity was peeling away to reveal a canvas of various native (pre-Christian) folk paganisms. As Cambridge historian Patrick Collinson concludes, the Reformation was an “episode of re-Christianization . . . Continue reading →
Scott Manetsch On Calvin In His Context And Ours
Scott Manetsch is on campus this week through the kind offices of the Westminster Seminary California student association. He gave a convocation lecture this morning on Reforming ministry in Geneva and will conclude tomorrow. He also sat for an Office Hours interview . . . Continue reading →
The Reformation Of Worship In Geneva
The reformers did not hold back in their assault on the physical and sensory elements of traditional worship: all sacred objects such as crucifixes, statues of saints, and holy relics were removed from the temples.1 Most were systematically destroyed; a few were . . . Continue reading →
The Effects Of Reformation In Geneva
Daily religious life changed in significant ways in the first years following Geneva’s Reformation. The city churches—which the French reformers called temples—were reduced in number of rom seven to three, and the outlying parishes consolidated. A company of around fifteen Protestant pastors . . . Continue reading →
Justification And Sanctification: Conjoined, Coherent, But Distinct
For he means, that not an individual among mankind will be found in whom the promise of salvation may be accomplished, if it involves the condition of innocence; and that faith, if it is propped up by works, will instantly fall. This . . . Continue reading →
Useful Myths And Reformed Identity Markers
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) first provides multiple definitions of the word “myth.” The first says, “A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On Faith, Union With Christ, And Justification
10. Who died. From the design of Christ’s death he confirms what he has said, for if he died with this view—that he might make us partakers of his life, there is no reason why we should be in doubt as to . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Rome Is A Bird With Borrowed Feathers
Having ascertained Paul’s meaning, let us return to the Papists. First, by applying this eulogium to themselves, they act wickedly; because they deck themselves with borrowed feathers. For, granting that the Church were elevated above the third heaven, I maintain that it . . . Continue reading →