John Calvin essays

John Calvin essays From ancient Egypt to the Christian Church ruling over the majority of Europe theocratic governments had one great ideal in common: political ideologies were not just from the church, they were the church. John Calvin had his own, unique version of a theocracy, which he outlined in his novel The Institutes on Christian Piety. Calvin had a great distaste of the Catholic papacy so he made the Protestant theocracy by separating civil government from spiritual government. His ideas of reformation were different from any others ideas, even Luthers. Calvins ideas were used in the Genevan reformation and they were evident throughout Europe and even noticeable in the early colonies of New England. John Calvin was born in France in July 1509 (Walker 26). He was very liberally educated throughout his youth. He was sent to the University of Paris at the age of fourteen to study Theology (Walker 29). Eventually his specialty would change to Law because his father viewed it as the surest way to wealth and honors (Walker 44). So John studied Law until his father died and then he switched back to Theology and he eventually received his degree in this. While he was in Paris John was introduced to the writings of Martin Luther. He studied Luthers ideas and those of the Catholic Church until he realized that he would need to move away from the Church to find his place with God. Calvin was forced to flee Paris after he gave a speech demanding church reform. He wandered around Europe until he found himself in Geneva where he would work for reform of the Genevan Church (Walker 182). He went about this reformation by using the basis of his ideas from his now completed novel The Institutes on Christian Piety (Walker 228). Calvin began by assigning the Church the responsibility of caring for the magistrate. He did this but although he allowed the Church to be associated with the government, i ...