About
This is the most memorable quincentenary of your (and my) lifetime. If, within a millennium or two, we see another five hundredth year even half as portentous as this one, we’ll count ourselves doubly blessed.
John Calvin, in the first rank of doctors of the Christian faith in general, and the Christian faith of the Reformation in particular, is 500 this year–an event that has not gone entirely unnoticed, despite President Obama’s uncalled for inaugural one-up-manship.
Calvin was a withdrawn sort, and is not one of intellectual history’s life-of-the-party-get-to-know-you-in-five-minutes-everybody-thinks-you-rock kind of guy. He was, however, an intellectual giant; he still towers in history for the contributions he made to the Christian faith and Western society. Over time, this blog will point you to some of the better Calvin resources on the web. Along the way, this blog will offer a glimpse of Calvin from a less well known vantage point. Calvin was a funny man and could not hide it, although he tried. So, this site will be offering some of the best and perhaps least known (and more or less true) Calvin stories gleaned during the reading and research of an ardent amateur Calvinologist.
So, welcome to the lighter side of Calvin. Go Calvin, it’s your birthday!
PS. Did you know that Calvin was the one who coined the term quincentenary for a five hundredth year observance? The first documented use of this term occurs in Calvin’s 1554 all-but-forgotten tractate on the Catholic-Orthodox Schism of 1054, Illi Invicem Mereuntur, which begins with the line “This is the 500th year since those prating babblers . . .”
