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John Calvin was a Frenchman, but he is being remembered in Geneva this week because it was here that he built Calvinism. Invited to reform the city in 1541, almost as what would now be called a management consultant, he formed an alliance with the city fathers. Over the next 20 years of preaching and pastoring they turned this tiny city, with a population then of only 10,000, into a model of church government and theology which has changed the world. His followers now form the third-largest Christian grouping in the world. The world alliance of reformed churches claims 75...

Do you believe in bringing children up with a strict education, in avoiding sumptuous food and unnecessary expense, and in holding to the values of hard work? If so, you have a good chance of being a Calvinist, according to an online quiz offered by a Dutch newspaper. The 25-question test on the Web site of Trouw was first launched in Dutch in January. It is now available in English and German and is one of the numerous projects and activities in the Netherlands and beyond to mark the 500th anniversary in 2009 of the birth of French-born Protestant leader...

Dutch people in their 20s are more likely to have a Calvinistic approach to life than any other age group, according to research by Trouw. Calvinism, named after the French religious reformer John Calvin, is associated with a sober, hardworking approach to life and stresses the rule of God in all things. Young people are more conservative than older people, they are more orthodox in their approach to religion and voted for the Calvinist CDA party at the last election, researcher Joke van Saane of Amsterdam's VU university told the paper. 'It is back to basics. Young people feel the...

 from The Institutes of Religion by John Calvin   BOOK II - CHAPTER  XVI. (The effects of the obedience and death of Christ)Sections 5-7. 5. Christ has redeemed us through his obedience, which he practiced throughout his lifeWhen it is asked then how Christ, by abolishing sin, removed the enmity between God and us, and purchased a righteousness which made him favourable and kind to us, it may be answered generally, that he accomplished this by the whole course of his obedience. This id proved by the testimony of Paul, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so...

IT'S A LONG WAY from Geneva, Switzerland, to Orlando, Florida -- but not if you are pioneers in classical Christian education. In 16th-century Geneva, John Calvin started a religious and educational revolution in his city's schools. Its key ingredients were Reformation theology, the sovereignty of Scripture, the teaching of Latin, and an emphasis on dialogue, dialectic, and rhetoric. Calvin's strategic purpose was to encourage young minds to grow beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge. He wanted to produce students who could use their intellects to reason, question, and challenge their contemporary world in the cause of Christian idealism. If you...

One filing cabinet held 500 years of history By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent Last Updated: 2:09am BST 04/06/2007 One of the greatest collections of historical letters ever amassed has been found in a laundry room. A Winston Churchill letter is valued at £10,000 Susannah Morris was called in to examine the hoard after the death of the secretive collector and was astonished to be led not into a library or a safe room but to the basement. In the laundry room, wedged between a washing machine and a tumble dryer, was a plain metal filing cabinet. Miss Morris, who works...

Conversion of the Will is the Effect of Divine Grace Inwardly Bestowed by John Calvin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following selection by John Calvin was taken from book 2, chapter 6-14 of The Institutes of The Christian Religion, translated by by Henry Beveridge, Esq. Chapter titles from John T. McNeill. A must read for all Christians who aspire to better understand the Bible's teaching on God's work in bringing a sinner to faith in Christ. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Men's inability to do good manifests itself above all in the work of redemption, which God does quite alone. On the other hand, it may...

CHAPTER 6. THE NEED OF SCRIPTURE, AS A GUIDE AND TEACHER, IN COMING TO GOD AS A CREATOR. Sections. 1. God gives his elect a better help to the knowledge of himself—viz. the Holy Scriptures. This he did from the very first. 2. First, By oracles and visions, and the ministry of the Patriarchs. Secondly, By the promulgation of the Law, and the preaching of the Prophets. Why the doctrines of religion are committed to writing. 3. This view confirmed, 1. By the depravity of our nature making it necessary in every one who would know God to have recourse...

http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps170.shtml Issue #170: A Love That Was Meant To Be: The Odd Romance of John and Idelette Calvin. John Calvin ­ French scholar and theologian and reluctant leader of the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland. It took a search committee to find him a wife. (17th century Dutch print) Someone once said that all Frenchmen are lovers. John Calvin seemed to be working hard to disprove that notion. As a 31-year-old bachelor, Calvin announced he was not one of “those insane lovers who embrace also the vices of those with whom they are in love, where they are smitten at first...

The Humanity of John Calvin   Gregory Edward Reynolds ________________________________________________________________________   Rarely has a man provoked such controversy as the man John Calvin.  He is often depicted as the cruel tyrant of Geneva.  The 1994 edition of the CD-ROM Webster's Concise Interactive Encyclopedia claims that Michael Servetus "was burned alive by the church reformer Calvin,"[1] and that Calvin "established a rigorous theocracy;"[2] all of which leaves the distinct impression that Calvin was something less than human.  It is my purpose in this article to demonstrate otherwise. The nineteenth century Lutheran church historian, Philip Schaff, asserted that Calvin "must be reckoned...

QUESTION: Is it true that 1 John 5:7 is not in any Greek manuscript before the 1600s? If it is true, why is it in the King James Bible?

Institutes of the Christian Religion Book I: The Knowledge of God the Creator Chapter 1: THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF OURSELVES MUTUALLY CONNECTED. - NATURE OF THIS CONNECTION. Section 1: Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place,...