Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface and acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations and references
- Introduction
- 1 Moderate (religious) liberty in the theology of John Calvin: The original Genevan experiment
- 2 The duties of conscience and the free exercise of Christian liberty: Theodore Beza and the rise of Calvinist rights and resistance theory
- 3 Natural rights, popular sovereignty, and covenant politics: Johannes Althusius and the Dutch Revolt and Republic
- 4 Prophets, priests, and kings of liberty: John Milton and the rights and liberties of Englishmen
- 5 How to govern a city on a hill: Covenant liberty in Puritan New England
- 6 Concluding reflections: The biography and biology of liberty in early modern Calvinism
- Bibliography
- Index to biblical sources
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface and acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations and references
- Introduction
- 1 Moderate (religious) liberty in the theology of John Calvin: The original Genevan experiment
- 2 The duties of conscience and the free exercise of Christian liberty: Theodore Beza and the rise of Calvinist rights and resistance theory
- 3 Natural rights, popular sovereignty, and covenant politics: Johannes Althusius and the Dutch Revolt and Republic
- 4 Prophets, priests, and kings of liberty: John Milton and the rights and liberties of Englishmen
- 5 How to govern a city on a hill: Covenant liberty in Puritan New England
- 6 Concluding reflections: The biography and biology of liberty in early modern Calvinism
- Bibliography
- Index to biblical sources
- Index
Summary
In his Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952), J. L. Talmon described the French Revolution as the harbinger of modern forms of both liberal democracy and totalitarian fascism. The political ideas of the French Revolution, said Talmon, were sufficiently “protean” and “provocative” to guide these juxtaposed political movements along paths that the philosophes could never have anticipated. A Lincoln and a Marx, a Roosevelt and a Mussolini could all take inspiration from the core teachings of the French Revolution.
An analogous claim can be made about the Calvinist Reformation. This Protestant movement first broke out in Geneva under the leadership of the French theologian and jurist, John Calvin (1509–1564), and then swept over large parts of France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and North America in the next 250 years. Calvin's original political ideas were also sufficiently “protean” and “provocative” to inspire a wide range of both totalitarian and democratic tendencies. It is easy enough to expose the totalitarian tendencies of many leading Calvinists – Calvin himself, Theodore Beza, Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Rutherford, John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and their ample modern progeny. It is easy enough to compile an ample list of victims who were reviled, censored, imprisoned, tortured, banished, and even executed by Calvinists for their religious beliefs – Michael Servetus, Jean Morély, Jacob Arminius, Hugo Grotius, Richard Overton, John Lilburne, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson, to name a few.
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- Information
- The Reformation of RightsLaw, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism, pp. 1 - 38Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008