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Randall C. Zachman is associate professor of Reformation studies at the University of Notre Dame.

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The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (2004) — Medewerker — 41 exemplaren

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Randall Zachman is undoubtedly one of the best living Calvin scholars. He is careful and nuanced. John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian is a collection of his essays on John Calvin’s work and ministry. The book covers everything from Calvin and Melanchthon’s relationship to a consideration of what kind of book is Calvin’s Institutes, to an analysis of Calvin’s sermons on the book of Ephesians, to a comparison of image and word in Luther and Calvin.

All of that to say, while John Calvin is well written, the argument of the book is almost indiscernible. One feels that in Zachman’s conclusion where he finishes his book with these words, “this study has been attempted… in order to understand [his best-known writings’] place in the curriculum Calvin tirelessly created for the school of Christ.” Like the good academic he is, Zachman is not going after sweeping pronouncements, but fine tweaks on the interpretation of the place of Calvin’s works.

While helpful as a resource for those who are waist-deep in Calvin studies, then, the book is much less helpful for the lay reader. There is no attempt to re-work Zachman’s essays into a larger argument, or even provide a progression in the midst of those essays. For that reason, I would recommend that the reader pick up the book and read essays they have a particular interest in instead of working one’s way through the entire book.

My favorite of Zachman’s essays was his lively essay “The Universe as the Living Image of God” where he takes on those who name Calvin among those who are responsible for current ecological exploitation. On the contrary, Zachman argues, “According to Calvin, God excludes no creature from God’s care ,and neither should we.” In Calvin’s own words, “Moreover, that this economy and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us; let every one regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.”

Even given my esteem for Zachman, unless you have a strongly academic bent in your interest in Calvin, I would look elsewhere for a book on Calvin’s preaching and teaching.
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johnbeeson | Feb 21, 2018 |
This book grew out of a 2007 Colloquium Conference jointly sponsored by the Calvin Studies Society and was held at the University of Notre Dame on April 12-14, 2007. The list of contributors, and editor Randall C. Zachman who is associate professor of Reformation studies at the University of Notre Dame, have a great deal to offer readers with regard Calvin studies during the Reformation era in this collection of essays.

These informative essays offer a new approach to the study of John Calvin. The authors move beyond traditional approaches to consider the influential reformer within the broader context of the Roman Catholic Church and his complicated relationship to it. Several themes emerge in these studies one being that Calvin saw himself as intending not to form a new tradition but to reform the Catholic Church to its true form. Another theme is Calvin’s engagement with contemporaries who remained within the Roman Catholic Church, some of whom were evangelical in their theology. Finally, this volume attempts to illustrate that some of the best contemporary research on Calvin is being done by Roman Catholics and that the Catholic and Protestant traditions have much to learn from each other.

This in turn provides a new appreciation of Calvin's catholicity and a better understanding of the Catholic culture in which the reformer lived and worked despite the distinct differences between Calvin and his Roman Catholic contemporaries. After all Calvin was born a Roman Catholic, and engagement with Roman Catholicism is fundamental to his theology and understanding the Reformation era.
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moses917 | Mar 5, 2010 |

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