Calvin

May 15, 2009
Most books on John Calvin have concentrated on specific aspects of his life or teaching or have approached him from a certain bias. Through the Puritans and their descendants, he influenced much of American history, chiefly by way of his doctrine of predestination. In this 500th year of Calvin's birth, Gordon (Reformation history, Yale Divinity Sch.; "The Swiss Reformation") has produced a scholarly yet accessible study that is not hagiography but an honest assessment of a man who had great talent and great faith and also great flaws. While writing from a Reformed perspective, Gordon offers a balanced view. Given Calvin's significance in American church history, this would be an important purchase for all but the smallest libraries and an essential purchase for academic libraries and all larger libraries with theological collections. With a good chapter-by-chapter bibliography.Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2009
Deviser of the doctrine of predestination, Calvin vaulted to intellectual prominence in the Protestant Reformation through his rigorous scriptural exegesis. The network of friends and enemies he engendered therewith is one motif of Gordons portrait of the Genevan. Another arises from extraction of the fundamental tenets of Calvinist theology from the mans torrential written output. The religio-political vicissitudes that launched Calvin into exilefirst from his native France, later from Switzerlandalso figure prominently in Gordons narrative of Calvins progress from precocious law student to theocrat of sixteenth-century Geneva. Besides value for serious scholars, Gordon provides abundant insight into Calvins personality for anyone seeking it, thanks to his reliance on the wealth of Calvins letters about himself. For example, Calvin once listed the qualities he wanted in a prospective wife. Needless to say, Gordon sardonically comments, the woman vanished. Calvin married somebody else, enjoyed a cup of wine, and was more sociable than his reputation as heretic-hunting fanatic has suggested. Humanizing Calvin and setting him in historical context, Gordon turns in a solid biography.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)