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

Professor Philip Benedict (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2004 | ISBN-10: 030010507X | ISBN-13: 978-0300105070

This sweeping book tells the story of Calvinism’s origins, expansion, and impact across Europe from the upheavals of the early Reformation to the end of the seventeenth century. The faith’s fundamental doctrines, diverse ecclesiastical institutions, and significant consequences for lived experience are all explored, revealing the ongoing interplay between a dynamic religious tradition and the worlds in which it took root.

"This is a rare and great achievement: a broad survey . . . 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

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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. It supersedes all of its precursors.”—Carlos Eire, Yale University

"[This book] is a thoughtful, learned, and lucid synthesis of Calvinism's beginnings, development, successes, and limits. . . . To say that Benedict succeeds in these goals is an understatement; this is an important book of lasting value. Some of the bibliographic material in the endnotes indicates the depth and brilliance of his work. Highly recommended. All levels."—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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030010507X
• ISBN-13: 978-0300105070
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #527,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

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

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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.