Remembering Calvin’s Birthday

Lots of things have happened on July 10th. For instance: Dublin, Ireland was founded on July 10th, 988 CE; Death Valley, CA (USA) recorded the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United States on July 10th, 1913; John D. Rockefeller III died on July 10th, 1978; and Jessica Simpson (yes, that Jessica Simpson) was born on July 10th, 1980. Still, of all the things that have occurred on July 10th, the one for which I’m most thankful is the birth of John Calvin in 1509.

As those of you who have been readers of DET for any significant length of time know, I’m a big Calvin fan. This doesn’t mean that I consider myself a “Calvinist” in the usual sense of the term (I suspect that most “Calvinists” wouldn’t want to include me in their club, anyway), my theological thinking has been deeply impacted by Calvin. I have only become more interested in him as I have studied him over the past 8 years or so, and every new facet of him that I become acquainted with – whether it is his commentaries, his sermons, his biography, his civic accomplishments, etc – only serves to pull me in deeper.

There are a number of conferences and events taking place this summer to commemorate this 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth. Information on such things is not hard to find. For my own part, I have written two pieces on Calvin and preaching for the two most recent issues of Homiletics, which I – of course – would be most vainly gratified if you happened to look up in your local theological library. But, I also wanted to take this opportunity to point you to some of the resources on Calvin to be found here at DET:
I look forward to posting more about Calvin in the future. For now, let’s all be sure to take some time out today and raise a glass of wine in Calvin’s memory!

P.S. My friend and colleague Darren is posting a series on Calvin’s christology in commemoration of this event. Be sure to check it out.

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