After giving us a whirlwind history of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, John W. de Gruchy concluded his remarks by demonstrating from the recent history of his country how Calvinism both supported and eventually refuted Apartheid, by reclaiming some of Calvin’s social justice mandates.
Kathy Dawson
Herman Selderhuis, President of the International Calvin Congress is concluding his remarks on “Survival of the Fittest? A Brief History of the Reception of Calvin’s Theology.” The gist of his paper was that Calvin’s works were not particularly well accepted when first published, but have stood the test of time partially because his theology seems to have avoided some of the polarity of the time and worked well with governing powers.
Kathy Dawson
We’re sitting here in the CICG conference with all the Calvinites awaiting the start of the International Calvin and His Influence Conference in Geneva. Our room looks like a United Nations set up with Smart tables and chairs, headsets for translation and a large panel table on the podium up front. There are people from many different parts of the world including a good representation of Presbyterians from the United States.
We’ll be live blogging here from the conference once it begins. We– being Columbia Theological Seminary students and faculty in attendance.
Kathy Dawson
Collin Hansen interviews Robert Godfrey on his recent book John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor.
Here’s a snippet:
I hope people will not neglect to read Calvin himself. The best places to begin are with his sermons and his commentaries. He is very accessible. His Genevan Catechism and his Reply to Sadoleto are also good beginning points. The Institutes of the Christian Religion is, of course, his greatest single work, but in its final form it was intended for theology students. It is heavier and more polemic than some of his other work, but certainly well worth reading.
Read the whole interview.
HT: Mike Bird
