The Calvinist International
“Natura abhorret a vacuo” Nature abhors a vacuum, and so every people constituted as a political body is going to have a schedule of sacred observances, of holy days–days marked out as special in some way, whether because of their perceived relation to a polity’s foundation or to its preservation. This calendar never has been, […]
Though it triggers some Presbyterians to say so out loud, John Calvin was not a Sabbatarian. He did have a strict Sunday practice (and thus he most likely did not go lawn bowling on that day…), but this was always explained as a matter of human and not divine law. In fact, Calvin argues that […]
Donald Macleod gives us a rather interesting new take on the no true Scotsman here. He argues that, contrary to an overwhelming number of popular assumptions, Scotland is not and has never been a “Calvinistic” culture. There are some good points to consider, of course, chiefly the fact that ideas, however powerful and popular, rarely […]
John Calvin’s position on the 4th Commandment has been perplexing to many for the last 300 years, at least. As Richard Gaffin explains, Calvin seems to be a non-Sabbatarian in conviction but a Sabbatarian in practice. Calvin states that the meaning of the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ, that we are now to “rest” […]