When there are few conversions under the ministrations of the church, and souls are perishing around her, unpitied and unhelped; when there is an evident suspension or withdrawal of those spiritual influences that are alone efficient to convince or to comfort; when there is a visible defection from acknowledged principle, or from attained piety, and a lukewarm formality usurping the place of a generous, devoted, living Christianity we say a revival is required.
John MacNaughtan

John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin
1509-1564
Founder of Calvinism. John Calvin, a French scholar who became a leading preacher and dominant force in the Reformation of the 16th Century, studied at the University of Paris and at the University of Orleans. He became dissatisfied with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and allied himself with the cause of the Protestant Reformation in 1532.

When the king of France decided to settle the religious question in his country in favor of the Catholics, Calvin fled to Geneva, Switzerland, where his writings and lectures made Geneva the Rome of Protestantism. His institutes of the Christian religion became the basis for the Presbyterian way of thought and church life. Calvinism is the main doctrine of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.

ARTIST’S NOTE: The lack of warmth in the colors indicates the hard, disciplined, cold theology that characterized his writings.

Ruckman ’66