The Canon · No. 071
Calvinism
Reformed Christianity; Presbyterianism
1536 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · Switzerland, Netherlands, Scotland, US, South Korea, Nigeria, Hungary
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
How many
Roughly 60–80 million in Reformed and Presbyterian churches; the theology's influence reaches far wider, including into much of evangelicalism.
Who began it
John Calvin (1509–1564), a French lawyer turned theologian who ran Geneva; building on Huldrych Zwingli of Zurich.
What it is for
The glory of God as the point of everything — soli Deo gloria. Calvin's system is organised around God's absolute sovereignty rather than around human need.
What it worships
The Trinity, worshipped without images. Reformed churches stripped their buildings of statues, stained glass and often instruments, on the reading that the second commandment forbids them.
What it holds
Predestination: God elects who will be saved, before creation, on no basis in the person. Calvin's double predestination extends this to reprobation. Systematised at the Synod of Dort as the five points, remembered by the acronym TULIP: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. Covenant theology structures the whole Bible. The Eucharist is a spiritual presence — Christ is truly received but the elements are not changed, a middle position between Luther and Zwingli. Regulative principle: worship may include only what scripture positively commands.
What it does
Preaching-centred worship, plain buildings, psalm singing. Presbyterian government by elected elders in graded courts rather than by bishops — a structure with obvious constitutional implications, which is why Reformed regions kept producing republics. Strict sabbath observance. Church discipline; Geneva's consistory supervised private conduct closely.
After death
Resurrection and judgment, with the outcome already settled by election. The pastoral problem this creates — how do I know I am elect? — drove the Puritan practice of intense self-examination and, on Max Weber's famous argument, indirectly encouraged disciplined work and reinvestment as evidence of election. Weber's thesis is much disputed and still worth reading.
Its texts
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536, expanded to 1559). The Westminster Confession (1646) and its catechisms. Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort (1619).
Its branches
Presbyterian, Continental Reformed, Congregationalist, Reformed Baptist, and the Arminian dissent that broke away and shaped Methodism.
Of note
Calvinism's political legacy is larger than its theological reach: representative church government, resistance theory against tyrants, and near-universal literacy in Reformed regions because everyone had to read scripture.
Its timeline
- 1519–31 CE Zwingli's reformation in Zurich.
- 1536 CE Calvin publishes the Institutes and is persuaded to stay in Geneva.
- <strong>1553 CE</strong> Michael Servetus burned at Geneva for denying the Trinity, with Calvin's approval. It became the standard case against Protestant claims to liberty of conscience, and Geneva erected a monument of expiation in 1903.
- 1560 CE John Knox leads the Scottish Reformation.
- 1618–19 CE Synod of Dort; the five points defined against the Arminians.
- 1620–1691 CE Puritan New England; Massachusetts Bay as a covenanted commonwealth.
- 1643–49 CE Westminster Assembly.
- 1692 CE Salem witch trials.
- 1730s–40s CE The First Great Awakening; Jonathan Edwards.
- 1834–1930s CE Dutch Reformed theology develops apartheid's theological justification in South Africa; the Dutch Reformed Church declares apartheid a sin in 1986 and confesses its guilt in 1990.
- 1884–1920 CE Abraham Kuyper's neo-Calvinism: every sphere of life under God's sovereignty.
- 1934 CE Karl Barth reorients Reformed theology in the twentieth century.
- Present South Korea has become one of the world's Presbyterian heartlands.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.