Life of John Calvin - Hardcover

McGrath, Alister E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631163980 ISBN 13: 9780631163985

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991

Synopsis

The first biography of John Calvin since 1975 and the only life of the great reformer to analyse his impact on subsequent generations of theologians, politicians, economists and philosophers. This biography is theologically unbiased and is written as much for historians and general readers as for those interested in Calvin the Church reformer.

About this title

About the Author

Alister E. McGrath is Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University. He is one of the worlds leading Protestant theologians and the author of numerous popular theology textbooks, including Christian Theology (Third Edition, 2001), The Christian Theology Reader, (Second Edition, 2001), Christian Spirituality (1999), Science and Religion (1998), Historical Theology (1998), and An Introduction to Christianity (1997), all available from Blackwell Publishing. He is also editor of The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (2003).

From the Back Cover

History occasionally produces figures whose influence on their own and successive generations is immense. Marx, Freud and Lenin had such an influence, and so, Alister McGrath argues, does John Calvin. This book provides a fresh and lucid exploration of Calvin's life and influence, his theology and his political thought, and his determining of the course of European history. It traces Calvin's remarkable impact on the development of modern Western attitudes to work, wealth, civil rights, capitalism and the natural sciences.

Published to wide critical acclaim in hardback and now available in paperback, this ground-breaking study of Calvin will be welcomed by all concerned with an understanding of the shaping of modern western culture.

Reviews

This biography by the young yet amazingly prolific scholar of the Reformation ably combines historical narrative and theological interpretation. McGrath refuses the reductionistic temptation to isolate one central doctrine within Calvin's thought (such as predestination), contending instead that the Reformer's humanistic sympathies eschewed such rigid systematizing. In compelling fashion he argues both that Calvin must be understood as primarily a religious thinker and that his world-affirming outlook launched an international social and economic revolution comparable only to Marxism of the 20th century. McGrath acknowledges that his subject is a private, enigmatic figure, but thanks to this study he is perhaps a little less so. A very readable book, far more balanced than William Bouwsma's more psychological profile, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait ( LJ 10/1/87).
- John R. Muether, Reformed Theological Seminary, Maitland, Fla.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631163980
• ISBN 13: 9780631163985
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352