John Calvin
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 Luther's. Calvin's 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 M
artin Luther. He studied Luther's 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. Another of Calvin's problems with the Catholic Church was the seven sacraments. He thought that there was no need for seven because it brought things that weren't taught in the Bible into the religion. Calvin brought this number of seven sacraments to two, baptism and the Lord's Supper. Calvin described the Lord's Supper as "a spiritual banquet, in which Christ testifies himself to be the bread of life, to feed our souls for a true and blessed immorality" (Calvin 641). He believed that the bread feed the people so then Christ would feed the souls of the people who received the Supper. John Calvin believed in predestination also. Predestination says that only certain people are "saved" while the others have no chance at salvation because God has already picked these people who were saved. Calvin believed that God chooses us and that there are only a certain number saved and after this is filled by God nobody else will be chosen. This brings us to the Puritans in New England at this time. They believed that the people who were saved were the people who had things to show for their work. Therefore they worked hard during the day so
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Approximate Word count = 889
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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