Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism [Hardcover]

Professor Philip Benedict (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

A synthetic history of Calvinism. It tells the story of the Reformed tradition from its birth in the cities of Switzerland to the unravelling of orthodoxy amid the new intellectual currents of the 17th century. As befits a pan-European movement, Philip Benedict's canvas stretches from the British Isles to Eastern Europe. The course and causes of Calvinism's remarkable expansion, the inner workings of the diverse national churches, and the theological debates that shaped Reformed doctrine all receive attention. The English Reformation is situated within the history of continental Protestantism in a way that is designed to reveal the international significance of English developments. An examination of Calvinist worship, piety and discipline permits an assessment of the classic theories linking Calvinism to capitalism and democracy. Benedict aims to paint a vivid picture of the greatest early spokesmen of the cause, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, and to restore many lesser-known figures to their rightful place. His work offers a model of how to think about the history and significance of religious change across the long Reformation era.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] thoughtful, learned, and lucid synthesis of Calvinism's beginnings, development, successes, and limits. . . . an important book of lasting value." -- Choice

From the Inside Flap

"This is a rare and great achievement: a broad survey text that is at once a gripping narrative and a fresh interpretation of the subject, as masterful with the small details as with the big picture." - Carlos Eire, Yale University --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300088124
• ISBN-13: 978-0300088120
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,404,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Subtitle is a Bit Misleading., March 24, 2006

By 

Collin S. Garbarino (Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (Paperback)

Thankfully, this book is not social history in the sense that it is concerned with lots of numbers and the lives of non-elites. Instead, Philip Benedict's Christ's Churches Purely Reformed is a magnificent survey of the Reformed movement in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this work, Benedict discusses both how the movement shaped Europe and how Europe shaped the Reformed movement. The book focuses not only on the main actors and thinkers of this time, but also shows how Reformed thinking affected the everyday lives of those living in the lands in which it took hold.

A reoccurring theme of Christ's Churches Purely Reformed is that Reformed thought is not monolithic. Benedict interestingly asserts that because Reformed thought allowed for a diversity of ecclesiologies, the central ideas disseminated more effectively. This unity among diversity allowed for the various churches in Switzerland, Britain, and France to all claim the same tradition, but have very different manifestations. Notably, the Presbyterian-synod system, which most Reformed churches would later adopt, was developed in France. Thus, from the beginning Reformed theology and ecclesiology was a work in progress. Benedict's discussion of this evolution of the Reformed traditional was helpful because it corrects the myth common among many Reformed denominations that their version of Reformed ecclesiology and manners sprung full-formed from the head of Calvin. However, Benedict notes that even though the differences were often strong, a sense of solidarity and commonality of tradition united the various national churches. "Although the very term Reformed church was infused with ambiguities around 1600, the sense of fellowship and solidarity among these churches was powerful" (291). Most notably, these churches were willing to take communion with one another, the true witness to perceived Christian unity.

Benedict's thoughtful critiques of democracy and capitalism's origins in Calvinism were the high points of this book. Without being dogmatic, Benedict calls into question the supposed connections between these ideologies and the theology. Speaking specifically of Weber's thesis, Benedict writes, "His ideas exaggerate the extent to which they characterized the faith as a whole and attribute them too simply to a single cause" (541). Ultimately he concludes that while one can draw superficial and common-sensical parallels, the evidence for placing democracy and capitalism at the feet of Calvinism is very weak. In fact, Benedict notes that many of the characteristics of the Calvinist mind, which would lead to democracy or capitalism, were also present in the minds of Europeans not engaged in Reformed worship. However, Benedict honestly admits that many of his findings regarding the sociological impact of Calvinism "are more tentative and more likely to be revised by future research" than his historical chronology (432).

In this work, Benedict attempts to strike a scholarly balance between not overemphasizing the importance of the Reformed tradition in Western thought and acknowledging its contribution. He writes, "If the fatal flaw of theories crediting Calvinism with distinctive consequences for economic behavior or political development is that they exaggerate the spillover effects of religious doctrine outside the religious domain, the great shortcoming of the recent emphasis on the parallel consequences of the Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic Reformations is that it downplays each faith's distinctiveness within the domain of culture and religious life" (544). On the whole, Christ's Churches Purely Reformed is a scholarly contribution which may bring a sense of balance to the field.