The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin's Geneva

The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin's Geneva
Author: Jeffrey R. Watt
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2020-11-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9781648250040

Examines the most successful institution of social discipline in Reformation Europe: the Consistory of Geneva during the time of John Calvin

Adultery and Divorce in Calvin's Geneva

Adultery and Divorce in Calvin's Geneva
Author: Robert McCune Kingdon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1994
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780674005211

In Calvin's Geneva, the changes associated with the Reformation were particularly abrupt and far-reaching, in large part owing to John Calvin himself. Adultery and Divorce in Calvin's Geneva makes two major contributions to our understanding of this time. The first is to the history of divorce. The second is in illustrating the operations of the Consistory of Geneva--an institution designed to control in all its variety the behavior of the entire population--which was established at Calvin's insistence in 1541. This mandate came shortly after the city officially adopted Protestantism in 1536, a time when divorce became legally possible for the first time in centuries. Robert Kingdon illustrates the changes that accompanied the earliest Calvinist divorces by examining in depth a few of the most dramatic cases and showing how divorce affected real individuals. He considers first, and in the most detail, divorce for adultery, the best-known grounds for divorce and the best documented. He also covers the only other generally accepted grounds for these early divorces--desertion. The second contribution of the book, to show the work of the Consistory of Geneva, is a first step toward a fuller study of the institution. Kingdon has supervised the first accurate and complete transcription of the twenty-one volumes of registers of the Consistory and has made the first extended use of these materials, as well as other documents that have never before been so fully utilized.

Calvin's Company of Pastors

Calvin's Company of Pastors
Author: Scott M. Manetsch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2015
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190224479

In Calvin's Company of Pastors, Scott Manetsch examines the pastoral theology and practical ministry activities of Geneva's reformed ministers from the time of Calvin's arrival in Geneva until the beginning of the seventeenth century. During these seven decades, more than 130 men were enrolled in Geneva's Venerable Company of Pastors (as it was called), including notable reformed leaders such as Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, and Jean Diodati. Aside from these better-known epigones, Geneva's pastors from this period remain hidden from view, cloaked in Calvin's long shadow, even though they played a strategic role in preserving and reshaping Calvin's pastoral legacy. Making extensive use of archival materials, published sermons, catechisms, prayer books, personal correspondence, and theological writings, Manetsch offers an engaging and vivid portrait of pastoral life in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Geneva, exploring the manner in which Geneva's ministers conceived of their pastoral office and performed their daily responsibilities of preaching, public worship, moral discipline, catechesis, administering the sacraments, and pastoral care. Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin and his colleagues were much more than ivory tower theologians or "quasi-agents of the state," concerned primarily with dispensing theological information to their congregations or enforcing magisterial authority. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to a significant degree their daily work as pastors and preachers.

Calvin, Geneva and the Reformation

Calvin, Geneva and the Reformation
Author: Ronald Wallace
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 321
Release: 1998-01-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1579100996

This book comprises a series of essays on Calvin's work and on the thought and devotion applied to it. The author includes an account of John Calvin's early life and the important events of his struggle and triumphs in Geneva

John Calvin, Myth and Reality

John Calvin, Myth and Reality
Author: Amy N. Burnett
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2011-05-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1621891976

The chapters in this volume were originally presented as papers at the 2009 colloquium of the Calvin Studies Society, held to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of John Calvin's birth. They offer a fresh evaluation of Calvin's ideas and achievements, and describe how others--from his contemporaries to the present--have responded to or built upon the Calvinist heritage. This book dispels popular misperceptions about Calvin and Calvinism, allowing readers to make a more accurate assessment of Calvin's importance as a theologian and historical figure. Contributions address areas in which Calvin's legacy has been most controversial or misunderstood, such as his attitude toward women, his advocacy of church discipline, and his understanding of predestination. These essays also give a nuanced picture of the impact of Calvinism by taking account of both the positive and negative reactions to it from the early modern period to the present. Part 1: Calvin: The Man and His Work Part 2: Appeal of and Responses to Calvinism Part 3: The Impact of Calvin's Ideas

A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva

A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva
Author: Jon Balserak
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004404392

A description of the course of the Protestant Reformation in the city of Geneva from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Sex, Marriage, and Family in John Calvin's Geneva

Sex, Marriage, and Family in John Calvin's Geneva
Author: Jr. Witte, John
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2005-10-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780802848031

You would not expect this from his dour reputation, but John Calvin transformed the Western understanding of sex, marriage, and family life. In this fascinating, even sensational, volume John Witte and Robert Kingdon treat comprehensively the new theology and law of domestic life that Calvin and his fellow reformers established in sixteenth-century Geneva. Bringing to light and life hundreds of newly discovered cases and theological texts, Witte and Kingdon trace the subtle historical forms and norms of sex, marriage, and family life that still shape us today.

Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin: 1542-1544

Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin: 1542-1544
Author: Eglise de Genève. Consistoire
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This critical edition of the Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the time of Calvin reveals what life was like during the Protestant Reformation in a city where ecclesiastical discipline affected many. These valuable primary source documents- the great bulk of which have remained unknown to most modern researchers- are of capital importance for study of this seminal period in church history. Volume 1 records the activity of the Consistory between 1542 and 1544. Arbitration of disputes, surveillance of morals, repression of the vestiges of the Catholic cult, promotion of the Reformed mode of living, resolution of matrimonial cases- this is a general sketch of the Consistory's work during its earliest days. Rich in details pertaining to daily life and piety in Geneva, these noteworthy historical documents testify to the immense role played by the church in society at the beginning of the Reformation.

Christ's Churches Purely Reformed

Christ's Churches Purely Reformed
Author: Philip Benedict
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 696
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300127227

This sweeping and eminently readable book is the first synthetic history of Calvinism in almost fifty years. It tells the story of the Reformed tradition from its birth in the cities of Switzerland to the unraveling of orthodoxy amid the new intellectual currents of the seventeenth century. As befits a pan-European movement, Benedict’s canvas stretches from the British Isles to Eastern Europe. The course and causes of Calvinism’s remarkable expansion, the inner workings of the diverse national churches, and the theological debates that shaped Reformed doctrine all receive ample attention. The English Reformation is situated within the history of continental Protestantism in a way that reveals the international significance of English developments. A fresh examination of Calvinist worship, piety, and discipline permits an up-to-date assessment of the classic theories linking Calvinism to capitalism and democracy. Benedict not only paints a vivid picture of the greatest early spokesmen of the cause, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, but also restores many lesser-known figures to their rightful place. Ambitious in conception, attentive to detail, this book offers a model of how to think about the history and significance of religious change across the long Reformation era.

John Calvin in Context

John Calvin in Context
Author: R. Ward Holder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-09-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108621953

John Calvin in Context offers a comprehensive overview of Calvin's world. Including essays from social, cultural, feminist, and intellectual historians, each specially commissioned for this volume, the book considers the various early modern contexts in which Calvin worked and wrote. It captures his concerns for Northern humanism, his deep involvement in the politics of Geneva, his relationships with contemporaries, and the polemic necessities of responding to developments in Rome and other Protestant sects, notably Lutheran and Anabaptist. The volume also explores Calvin's tasks as a pastor and doctor of the church, who was constantly explicating the text of scripture and applying it to the context of sixteenth-century Geneva, as well as the reception of his role in the Reformation and beyond. Demonstrating the complexity of the world in which Calvin lived, John Calvin in Context serves as an essential research tool for scholars and students of early modern Europe.