The Calvinist International
A little over a year ago, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, I commented in a short piece on the salutary effect that event had on education. The general historical picture is clear enough without detailed statistical analysis; but statistical evidence can help to contribute to a thicker, more complete […]
21 March marks the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and architect of the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, by being burned alive at the hands of Queen Mary I in 1556. The most famous account of his death is that found in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Foxe writes: But when he came to the […]
Since everyone knows that Martin Luther caused the modern capitalist order, we thought we’d lean right into that bad boy and use today’s date to unveil the Davenant Institute’s latest publishing endeavor! Behold, we present to you Reformation Theology: A Reader of Primary Sources with Introductions. Get your copy here. This thing is pretty sweet. Basically, […]
In a truly bizarre thread on Twitter yesterday–the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation–started by our own Steven Wedgeworth, a number of traditionalist Roman Catholics speculated as to whether it would be a good thing for the church to take up the cause of burning heretics at the stake again, even if the […]
I’ve been thinking about pursuing an experiment and today is perhaps a better day than any to announce it. I intend to read through the Reformation along with Luther. By this I mean that beginning this year I want to read through the major works of Luther’s along with him, roughly as he wrote them. […]
It’s 2017, and so we should remember that there were several, not just one or two, important facets of the project of Reformation undertaken in the sixteenth century. One of these was to exalt the estate of marriage as a high and holy one, and not simply an option for second-class Christians who can’t control […]
Today marks the anniversary of the birth of the term “Protestant,” but its origin is frequently unknown or ignored. The term does not come from the camp of theologians, but from that of magistrates acting as the heads of their realms. It is a term, in other words, that reminds us of the importance of […]
So back in February, Peter Leithart responded to my response on his essay on Protestants and writing. I meant to respond again, but never did. It’s probably good though, because the conversation needs to be bigger than just any one article– and certainly bigger than personalities. I really did think his original essay shined a […]
Many of John Calvin’s references to Aristotelian cosmology occur during his later years, representing his mature theology. Christopher Kaiser has shown that Calvin viewed the universe through the lens of Aristotelian natural philosophy. He accepted such ideas as the concept of natural place (the earth is the center of the spheres due to its weight), […]
The Reformers, as humanists with a concern for the plain meaning of texts, consistently opposed the interpretive license of Medieval exegetes, who often glossed over the literal, grammatical, and historical context of biblical passages in order to present a moral, spiritual, or symbolic lesson. This posture of opposition should not, however, be stressed to the extreme, as […]