John Calvin Studies
Papers from the John Calvin Studies Colloquium, alongside reading paths for ministers and elders coming to Calvin for the first time or returning to him.
- Papers
- 95
- Volumes
- Calvin Studies I to XII
- Span
- 1982 to 2006
- Last added
Why Calvin still matters
Calvin’s vocation as a pastor and theologian in Geneva produced a body of work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, the biblical commentaries, the sermons, the catechisms, that continues to shape Reformed preaching, worship, and theology. To read Calvin is to be drawn into the church’s ongoing conversation about Scripture, the gospel, and the Christian life.
Recommended editions
For the Institutes, the Battles translation in the Library of Christian Classics remains the standard. The Beveridge translation is older but still widely used and freely available. For the commentaries, the Pringle / Calvin Translation Society edition is in the public domain; the Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries series edited by Torrance and Torrance is the modern English standard.
For sermons, the Banner of Truth volumes are accessible and well edited. For the catechisms and confessions, the Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries series edited by James Dennison is a comprehensive modern collection.
Reading paths
A first encounter with Calvin can be daunting. Each path is short: two to four primary works and a few secondary readings.
For the first-time reader
A gentle approach for ministers and elders new to Calvin.
- Institutes, Book III, chapters 1 to 2 (faith and the Spirit)
- Commentary on the Gospel of John, chapters 1 to 3
- Selected sermons on Ephesians, Banner of Truth edition
- Bruce Gordon, Calvin (Yale, 2009), as a biographical companion
For the returning reader
For those who have read Calvin before and wish to return with focus.
- Institutes, Book IV, on the church and the sacraments
- Commentary on the Psalms, with Calvin’s preface
- The 1545 Geneva Catechism
- John H. Leith, John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life
For Calvin on worship
A short course on Calvin’s liturgical theology and practice.
- Institutes, Book IV, chapters 14 to 19 (sacraments)
- The Strasbourg and Geneva orders of worship
- Hughes Oliphant Old, The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship
- Selected sermons on Deuteronomy 12 and 1 Corinthians 11
For Calvin on the Christian life
A path through Calvin’s pastoral and ethical theology.
- Institutes, Book III, chapters 6 to 10 (the Christian life, self-denial, the cross)
- The Golden Booklet of the Christian Life, a long-circulated extract
- John H. Leith, John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life
- Ronald Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life
Calvin Studies papers
Calvin Studies I
Published 19827 papers
Calvin’s Treatise Against the Anabaptists
Swezey examines the contemporary significance of Calvin’s 1544 Brief Instruction Against the Anabaptists, considering how Calvin identified his opponents and what his polemic still offers the church facing perennial questions of baptism and order.
Calvin’s Treatise Against the Libertines
Ben W. Farley examines the theology of Calvin’s 1545 polemic against the Libertines, a French-speaking Flemish sect (the Quintinists) whose mystical and antinomian views had taken root in the court of Margaret of Angouleme, tracing the correspondence and pastoral pressures that drew Calvin into the attack.
Calvin, Church, and College
Alexander McKelway argues that the genius of the Calvin Studies Society lies in joining church and academy, and he proposes three areas where both can learn from Calvin: the importance of good learning, the right relation of faith and knowledge, and the proper use of theological language.
Calvin’s Political Theory
Milner Ball examines the political significance of Calvin’s 1562 sermons on II Samuel, arguing that Calvin did not treat politics as a separate discipline but as one thread woven into the whole fabric of Christian life and obedience.
Background to Calvin’s Samuel Sermons
Kelly sets out the historical and textual background of Calvin’s sermons on II Samuel, describing Calvin’s Genevan preaching schedule, his extempore method, and the manuscript tradition behind the Samuel sermon corpus.
Calvin’s Sermon on I Samuel
Kelly translates a 1562 sermon from Calvin’s II Samuel series, in which Calvin expounds the death of Asahel at Abner’s hand and draws out the providential and pastoral instruction that the narrative offers the church.
Calvin’s Sermon on II Samuel
Kelly translates Calvin’s twenty-ninth sermon on I Samuel, in which Calvin expounds 1 Samuel 8 on Samuel’s warning about kingship, the limits of royal power, and the covenant binding kings and people to the just administration of law.
Calvin Studies II
Published 19849 papers
Calvin’s Church Polity
DeBevoise compares Calvin’s polity with Karl Barth’s practical theology of the church, arguing that for both Reformers the church’s order expresses its obedience and that polity is inseparable from the visible form of faith.
Church and Congregation in Calvin
Timothy George frames the sixteenth-century question of where the true church may be found, contrasting Luther’s ecclesia latens with Calvin’s structured congregation and tracing how the doctrine of justification by faith reshaped Reformation understandings of the church.
Calvinism as Theocentric Humanism
William J. Bouwsma reads Calvin as a child of the Renaissance, arguing that theology is a human activity deeply shaped by its historical moment and that Calvin’s thought becomes intelligible only when situated within the cultural circumstances of sixteenth-century Europe.
The Church and the Elect in Calvin
David N. Wiley argues that the doctrine of election is the foundation of Calvin’s ecclesiology, holding that while Calvin increasingly emphasized the visible marks of the church, the true church remains finally invisible, eternal, and invincible because grounded in God’s electing decree.
Calvin’s Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word
Leith examines Calvin’s doctrine of the proclamation of the Word in light of recent research, arguing that Calvin’s sermons, not only the Institutes, made Geneva what it became and that preaching was central to Calvin’s pastoral vocation.
Calvin’s Vision of the Church
John Walchenbach reconsiders the charge that Calvin sought to impose a theocracy on Geneva, asking instead whether Calvin’s vision of life and relationships governed by the will of God carries constructive implications for pastors serving churches under the separation of church and state.
A Response to Walchenbach
Armstrong responds to John Walchenbach’s paper, praising its generalist accessibility for the Colloquium’s mixed audience of academics, ministers, and church members, and pressing the wider question of how Calvin scholarship serves the church.
The Geneva Academy and Church Polity
Charles Raynal recounts the inauguration of the Geneva Academy on June 5, 1559, with Calvin presiding and Theodore Beza giving the founding address, and argues that the Academy stood as the crown of Calvin’s Genevan work and the model for Protestant education across Europe.
Calvin and Luther
Kelly translates and analyzes Calvin’s 1561 Congratulations to Gabriel of Saconay, a previously untranslated treatise in which Calvin defends Martin Luther against Catholic polemic and reflects on their shared evangelical confession.
Calvin Studies III
Published 198610 papers
On the Anniversary of the Reformation
Alexander J. McKelway opens the 1986 Calvin Colloquium at Davidson College by recalling the four-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Calvin’s arrival in Geneva, sketching the cold reception he met there and the modest reforms of 1537 that began his pastoral and disciplinary work.
Calvin’s Sermon on the Mount
Z. N. Holler examines Calvin’s exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount, noting Calvin’s disciplined brevity and clarity, his sparing use of patristic citation, and his recurring refutation of the papists in expounding the teaching of Jesus.
Narrative and Calvin’s Theology
George W. Stroup addresses the widespread confusion among Reformed Christians about the authority and use of the Bible, proposing that attention to the narrative shape of Scripture offers a way forward for a church increasingly biblically illiterate.
Calvin’s 1536 Institutes
McKee reflects on the 1536 first edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion at its 450th anniversary, drawing together familiar and less-familiar features to recover the book’s identity as the church’s book of doctrine and piety.
Calvin’s Central Doctrine
Partee returns to the long debate over a central dogma in Calvin’s theology, questioning the older consensus that the absolute sovereignty of God and double predestination form the heart of Calvin’s thought and weighing the textual evidence.
The Coherence of Calvin’s Theology
Jack Forstman returns nearly twenty-five years after his book Word and Spirit to reflect on coherence and incoherence in Calvin’s theology, treating the Institutes as a classic text and combining historical and systematic concerns to test his earlier reading.
Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Advice
Farley presents three previously untranslated documents from Calvin’s Consilia in the Corpus Reformatorum, illustrating the practical pastoral and ecclesiastical advice Calvin gave through letters to colleagues, churches, and civil authorities.
Calvin’s Prophetic Criticism of Worship
Old argues that Calvin’s theology of worship is shaped by the prophets’ insistence on true, obedient, and sincere worship, and that Calvin’s prophetic criticism gave new weight to scriptural passages that earlier Reformers had set aside.
The Presbyterian Church and Calvinism
Brian G. Armstrong assesses the state of the Presbyterian Church and its commitment to theological tradition, arguing that the post-war embrace of existentialism has produced a largely a-historical mindset in church and academy, and proposes practical steps for recovering Reformed heritage.
The Possibility of Renewal
Allen C. McSween, Jr. argues that the renewal of Reformed theology must begin not with theology itself but with a recovery of the awesome majesty of God, the conviction that gave rise to the tradition and that drove the reluctant Calvin into the work of reform.
Calvin Studies IV
Published 19887 papers
Calvin and Natural Law
Klempa enters the long debate over natural law in Calvin, weighing the two main camps of twentieth-century scholarship and arguing for a measured reading that locates natural law within Calvin’s social, ethical, and political thought.
Calvin and Zurich
George examines the 1549 Consensus Tigurinus between Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper, tracing its negotiation, its sacramental compromise, and its lasting significance for the unity of the Reformed churches of Switzerland.
Calvin’s Illnesses
Charles Cooke, a physician, surveys Calvin’s lifelong medical afflictions and considers how his persistent illness and exhaustion shaped his sense of Christian vocation, drawing on Bouwsma and earlier biographical scholarship.
Calvin’s Language
Frye examines Calvin’s theological use of figurative language, beginning with Calvin’s warning against measuring God’s immensity by human standards, and locates Calvin within the catholic tradition of learned ignorance from Augustine to Cusa.
Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms
Mays approaches Calvin’s commentary on the Psalms through the preface as introduction, reading Calvin as a resource for Psalm interpretation today and noting where his exegesis remains in conversation with modern critical scholarship.
Piety and the Confession of Sin
Carlos M. N. Eire argues that Reformation scholarship has under-attended the Reformed attack on idolatry, contending that Calvin’s polemic against Catholic worship was no transitional concern but a central animating issue shaping the formation of Protestant theology and piety.
Calvin’s Understanding of the Elder
Elsie Anne McKee traces the New Testament texts Calvin cites in the Institutes to establish the office of elder, showing how his exegesis of passages such as I Corinthians 12:28, Romans 12:8, and 1 Timothy 5:17 shaped a coherent biblical account of church order and discipline.
Calvin Studies V
Published 199011 papers
A Brief History of the John Calvin Studies Colloquium
Leith recounts the founding and early years of the John Calvin Studies Colloquium at Davidson College, tracing its origins to 1982, listing the inaugural papers and respondents, and reflecting on the gathering’s distinctive Reformed conversation.
The Trinity in Calvin’s Theology
Thomas F. Torrance traces the close affinity between Gregory of Nazianzen and Calvin on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, arguing that Calvin’s teaching draws more deeply on Gregory and Athanasius than on Augustine and forms a bridge in Christian doctrine between East and West.
Calvin Congresses and Calvin Research
Neuser surveys the history and future of the International Congress for Calvin Research, beginning with the 1974 European meeting at the Free University of Amsterdam, and outlines the publishing and research agenda of subsequent congresses.
Calvin’s Concept of the Law and the Spirit
Hesselink examines a neglected facet of Calvin’s pneumatology: how the Holy Spirit leads, guides, governs, and rules in the life of the believer, and how the Spirit’s work is inseparable from the law as a guide for Christian living.
Bullinger as Theologian
Dowey introduces Heinrich Bullinger as a theologian, focusing not on the content but the method of his thought, and characterizes his work as thematic, comprehensive, and schematic in ways that distinguish him from Calvin.
Apocalypticism in Calvin
E. Randolph Daniel surveys the spread of apocalyptic expectation across Europe from 1100 to 1500, arguing that the breadth of late-medieval apocalyptic thought made it nearly impossible for Calvin to reject the apocalyptic frame outright.
Calvin’s Doctrine of Eternal Life
Charles Raynal traces Calvin’s teaching on eternal life as it entered the 1539 Institutes through the call to self-denial and cross-bearing, showing how Calvin held together the proximate use of earthly things and the ultimate hope of heaven.
Calvin: Constructive Revolutionary
W. Fred Graham revisits his 1971 book The Constructive Revolutionary in light of two decades of Calvin and Geneva scholarship, reflecting on what he would now revise about his treatment of Calvin’s social and economic thought and the Weber thesis on Calvinism and capitalism.
The Body in Calvin’s Theology
James C. Goodloe IV examines what Calvin teaches about the human body, focusing on two clusters of texts in the Institutes, the body created in Book One and the body resurrected in Book Three, while engaging Niesel, Torrance, Partee, Miles, and Bouwsma on the question of Platonic dualism.
Calvin’s Approach to Evangelism
Merwyn Johnson develops five interactive theses from Calvin’s theology bearing on contemporary evangelism, organized around the priority of grace, and argues that Calvin’s view of grace would significantly alter current Reformed evangelistic practice.
A Geneva Primer
Peter examines a brief 1562 Genevan catechism, Instruction for Christians, printed by Francois Jaquy as a primer for households and schools, and considers how it summarized Calvin’s doctrine for ordinary readers.
Calvin Studies VI
Published 199210 papers
John Calvin: The Impact of His Theology
Heiko A. Oberman asks why Calvin’s voice resonated so widely beyond Geneva, exploring six aspects of his message and the mood of the sixteenth century that turned a trained jurist and bookish scholar into a Reformer heard throughout Europe.
The Pietist Sermon
Iain S. Maclean introduces and translates a Communion sermon by the seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Pietist Jodocus van Lodenstein, situating Reformed Pietism in relation to Calvin, Ames, Voetius, and Cocceius and to medieval traditions of mysticism and spiritual life.
Calvin’s Understanding of Worship
Ross J. Miller defends Calvin’s austere reliance on unaccompanied congregational psalm-singing in the Genevan liturgy, arguing against the caricature drawn by Douen and others that this restraint flowed not from a dour spirit but from Calvin’s settled conviction that vernacular psalmody served as a means of grace.
Music and the Spirit in Reformed Worship
Ross J. Miller examines psalm-singing in Calvin’s Genevan liturgy, arguing that the Reformer included vernacular psalmody both because he believed it was the practice of the apostolic church and because he saw it as a powerful external means by which the Holy Spirit sanctifies believers.
Calvin’s Catechetics
Achtemeier reflects on Calvin’s catechetical work, drawing on Calvin’s deathbed insistence that the catechism and the discipline must be kept together, and situates the 1545 Geneva Catechism within Calvin’s labors as pastor and teacher.
Intermediate Brilliance: Calvin and the Lord’s Supper
Thomas J. Davis argues that the Words of Institution sit at the heart of Calvin’s eucharistic theology, framing the bread and wine as an accommodated instrument of knowledge that gives believers the clearest possible assurance of their union with Christ.
Death and Funerals in Calvin’s Geneva
Donald K. McKim engages William Bouwsma’s portrait of Calvin as a man riddled with anxiety about death, then offers a fuller account of how Calvin’s theology of death, funerals, and prayers for the dead in Geneva places dying within the wider network of Christian doctrine and worship.
Theatrical Trifles and the Reformed Conscience
Richard A. Ray traces Calvin’s critique of theatrical trifles in worship, situating it against the late medieval Devotio Moderna and its mystical authors, then applying it to contemporary liturgical practices such as elaborate baptismal pageantry and Pentecost color displays.
Biblical Wisdom and Reformed Worship
Old argues that biblical wisdom theology decisively shaped Calvin’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper, drawing out a wisdom dimension alongside the covenantal, kerygmatic, and eucharistic strands of Calvin’s sacramental thought.
Pastoral Care in the Reformed Tradition
David Willis-Watkins works from Calvin’s commentary on John 10 to recover what the Reformer himself meant by pastoral care, showing how Christ remains the only shepherd while pastors serve in a subordinate role, and drawing constructive implications for contemporary ministry.
Calvin Studies VII
Published 19946 papers
Christ’s Ministry and the Church
Philip W. Butin draws on his Duke dissertation on Calvin’s Trinity to argue that the economic perichoresis of Son and Spirit binds Christ’s threefold office to the ministry of the whole people of God, equipping the church to face the challenges of secularization and pluralism.
Reformed Theology in the Sixteenth Century
David Wright contrasts the sixteenth-century Reformed vision of an integrally Christian city with the experience of minority churches in pluralist Western society, asking how Calvin’s account of corporate Christian commitment translates into settings where the church is one option among many.
Barth as Churchly Scholar
Klempa traces Karl Barth’s lifelong engagement with Calvin, beginning with his 1922 Gottingen lectures, and shows how Barth read Calvin as a churchly scholar whose dogmatic work served preaching and pastoral care.
Calvin as Evangelist
Old argues that Calvin had a distinct evangelistic ministry centered on the preparatory services for Easter Communion, where his sermons called hearers to covenant renewal and culminated in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Reformed Spirituality and the Psalms
Hughes Oliphant Old returns to the question of what Reformed spirituality is, arguing that the Reformation reformed devotion as much as doctrine by moving piety out of the cloister and into the daily callings of family, field, workshop, and kitchen.
Matthew Henry and Reformed Piety
Hughes Oliphant Old turns to Matthew Henry’s writings, especially A Church in the House and A Method of Prayer, to recover the Puritan discipline of daily family prayer, comparing the rhythm of Puritan household devotion with the medieval liturgy of the hours.
Calvin Studies VIII
Published 19968 papers
The Westminster Confession in American Presbyterianism
John H. Leith sets the Westminster Confession within its historical, social, and political context, tracing the conflict between Stuart kings and Puritan preachers, the Bishops’ Wars, and the Long Parliament that issued in the Westminster Assembly.
Man’s Salvation and God’s Glory in Calvin
Richard A. Muller examines the doctrine of Scripture in the Westminster Confession, defending its place within the heritage of Reformed orthodoxy against critics who treat it as the sterile dogmatism of scholastic Princeton theology rather than a faithful summation of confessional belief.
Baptists and the Westminster Confession
George traces the Westminster Confession’s place in Baptist history, weighing three competing accounts of Baptist origins and showing how Baptists adapted, revised, and contested the Confession in their own confessional statements.
The Westminster Confession in America
James C. Goodloe IV considers the influence of the Westminster Confession of Faith on American culture, weighing Robert Bork’s lament over cultural decline and asking how heirs of the confession should reckon with both the credit and the burden of that long-standing influence.
Bullinger and the Covenant
Baker responds to critics of his earlier work on Bullinger’s federal theology, returning to Bullinger’s writings to defend a fourfold covenantal focus and to clarify Bullinger’s distinct place within the Reformed tradition.
Baptism and the Westminster Confession
Wright examines how the Westminster Assembly treated baptism, surveying the divines’ often heated debates, their continuity with Reformed sacramental theology, and the wider neglect of baptism in modern ecumenical discussion.
The Westminster Directory of Worship
Stanley R. Hall reads the Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God as a classic Reformed formulation that calls heirs of the Assembly to a common worship marked by theological integrity, spiritual depth, and forms that invite participation.
Spirituality and the Church
D. G. Hart examines the doctrine of the spirituality of the church as articulated in the Westminster Standards and in nineteenth-century American Presbyterianism, contrasting H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology of Lutheran and Calvinist views on the relation of church and civil order.
Calvin Studies IX
Published 19987 papers
Calvin and the Psalms
Selderhuis examines Calvin’s theology of the Psalms with particular attention to the hiddenness of God, an aspect of Calvin’s doctrine often overlooked, and shows how it shaped Calvin’s account of faith under trial.
Bondage and Liberation of the Will in Calvin
Lane examines Calvin’s 1543 treatise against Albert Pighius on the bondage and liberation of the will, situating it within the dispute over free choice and tracing Calvin’s reply to Pighius’s first six books of objections.
Calvin’s Rhetorical Method
Wright weighs whether Calvin can rightly be called a rhetorical theologian, surveying Serene Jones, Olivier Millet, and William Bouwsma on Calvin and rhetoric, and asking how Calvin’s humanist training shaped his doctrine and piety.
Directions for Research in Calvin Studies
Richard A. Muller surveys current directions in Calvin research, classifying recent literature into biographical, socio-political, doctrinal, exegetical, and rhetorical studies, and distinguishing textual and contextual scholarship from more dogmatic or ideological presentations of the Reformer.
Calvin as Prophet
Engammare considers how Theodore Beza and the Genevans portrayed Calvin as a prophet of God at his death, then asks what kind of prophetic office Calvin actually claimed and exercised in his preaching and exegesis.
Reflections on the Reformed Tradition in Europe
Gerhard Sauter reflects on the state of Reformed theology in Central Europe, beginning with an editor’s telling question about who counts as a serious Reformed theologian in Germany and tracing the careers of Moltmann, Staedtke, Kraus, Busch, and others.
Efforts at Social Control in Calvin’s Geneva
Robert M. Kingdon argues that the Reformed emphasis on discipline, often overlooked in recent Lutheran-Reformed dialogue, was constitutive for Calvin’s Geneva, and he examines the Consistory’s efforts to control hate and resolve personal conflicts as a defining mark of the true church.
Calvin Studies X
Published 20005 papers
Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith
Selderhuis reads Calvin’s doctrine of faith as reflected in his Commentary on the Psalms, presenting Calvin not as an unshakable rock but as a man caught between God and the devil, whose account of faith is forged in weakness and assault.
Peter Martyr Vermigli and the Reformed Tradition
Frank A. James III introduces the life and legacy of Peter Martyr Vermigli, the Florentine Augustinian canon who became a leading Protestant Reformer, and describes the Peter Martyr Library translation project bringing his works into modern English.
Calvin and Barth on the Lord’s Supper
Hunsinger sets Calvin and Barth side by side on justification and sanctification, addressing von Balthasar’s claim that Barth has no room for growth in the Christian life and arguing for a doubled simultaneity that holds both Reformers together.
Bucer and Calvin
Van’t Spijker traces the doctrine of sealing with the Holy Spirit from Martin Bucer’s 1527 Ephesians commentary into Calvin’s mature sacramental and pneumatological thought, showing the close exegetical and pastoral bond between the two Reformers.
Presbyterian Worship and the Reformed Tradition
Darryl G. Hart examines the irony of contemporary Presbyterian worship, observing how Praise and Worship movements within evangelicalism celebrate the very anti-creedal, anti-ritualistic impulses that older Reformed worship had set itself against, and asking what this means for confessional identity.
Calvin Studies XI
Published 20026 papers
Calvin’s Commentary on Acts
Wright compares Calvin’s commentary and sermons on Acts 1 through 7, treating Calvin’s parallel work as exegete and preacher and showing how the two genres illuminate Calvin’s reading of the apostolic narrative.
Calvin’s Commentary on Ephesians
Zachman examines Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians as a distinct vehicle for expounding and applying Scripture, distinguishing the homiletic work from the commentaries and showing how Calvin united exegesis with pastoral address.
Calvin and the Sensus Literalis
Burnett responds to Gary Hansen’s thesis on Calvin’s non-literal interpretation, arguing that Calvin’s occasional allegorical readings do not violate the literal sense but extend it within a richer Reformed account of biblical meaning.
Calvin’s Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture
Hansen confronts an apparent contradiction in Calvin’s exegesis, that he denounces allegory yet practices it, and argues that Calvin’s occasional non-literal readings conform to his own principles and show his living tie to medieval interpretation.
Calvin’s Understanding of Christian Identity
Merwyn Johnson argues that Calvin’s insistence on reforming all of life by Scripture, expressed in the Word preached and sacraments rightly administered, gives the Reformed tradition its distinctive pattern of Christian identity, walking with God through every moment under the Lordship of Christ.
Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification
Lane expounds Calvin’s doctrine of justification with particular attention to the role of Scripture, surveying the main features of Calvin’s teaching and engaging the wider literature on justification and sanctification in Reformed theology.
Calvin Studies XII
Published 20068 papers
The Acts of God and the Humanity of Christ
E. David Willis honors the memory of John Leith and works from a representative passage in Institutes 1.5.9 to examine the conjunction between acts attributed to God and their social consequences, addressing what he calls an epistemological docetism in current theology.
Luther’s Acceptance and Calvin’s Rejection
Alasdair Heron tracks the eucharistic controversy through Calvin’s correspondence up to 1546, following the young Reformer’s independent stance on the Supper between Luther and Zwingli and his hope, expressed in 1539, that Luther might accept the Reformed party with their confession.
The Covenantal Dimension of Calvin’s Eucharistic Theology
Hughes Oliphant Old argues that the covenantal dimension is essential to Calvin’s eucharistic theology, drawing on selected passages to show how the biblical concept of covenant shapes Calvin’s account of the Lord’s Supper without simply collapsing him into later federal theology.
The Heidelberg Faculty and Reformed Orthodoxy
Herman J. Selderhuis examines the Heidelberg theological faculty between 1583 and 1622, showing how its largely Melanchthonian professors resisted the Calvinist label while answering a long list of Lutheran charges about predestination, Christology, and the sacraments.
Calvin’s Epistemology
Partee examines the question of Calvin’s epistemology, arguing that the famous opening of the Institutes on the knowledge of God and self is better treated as theological prolegomena than as a strictly philosophical theory of knowledge.
Calvin’s Preaching: An Introduction to His Sermons
McKee surveys the renewed twentieth-century attention to Calvin’s sermons, including the manuscript volumes discarded as old paper in 1806, and introduces the unique character of Calvin’s preaching alongside his Institutes and commentaries.
Postmodern Perspectives on Church Polity
G. Christopher Scruggs draws on Calvin’s ecclesiology to suggest how Reformed churches, particularly the PCUSA facing declining membership, might recover the church as the visible mother of believers and adapt their polity to the conditions of post-modern witness.
Was Calvin a Zwinglian?
Anthony N. S. Lane revisits the charge that Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is essentially Zwinglian teaching dressed in Lutheran language, marshaling Calvin’s own statements to show how he positioned his eucharistic theology as a via media between Luther and Zwingli.
Other papers
1 paper
The Book of Common Prayer and the Westminster Confession: Parallels
Scholarly paper presented at the John Calvin Studies Colloquium and published in Calvin Studies.
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