Afternoon Prayer & Church History

McNiell, John Thomas. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Calvin is involved in rewriting and codifying Geneva’s law which were passed at the three levels of magistracy—Council of 200, Council of 20, and the 4 Syndics (186). He pursued centralized authority, yet advocated for 1 vote for each citizen. Greg Allison’s “Historical Theology:” 18. The Atonement, 389-410. The atonement has been understood variously: payment to the Devil, restoration due to an offended honor, moral exemplar, government theory and penal, substitutionary atonement. The early church connected the Levitical sacrifices and the Passover to penal and substitutionary atonement. Harry Fosdick hated the penal view as an enthusiast for modernity and a man without standards. Fosdick called himself an heretic. Edward Cairns’s “Christianity Through the Centuries:” Modern Church, 1517 and After: Reformation and Counter Reformation, 1517-1648. Chapter 26. The Background of the Reformation. Mystics, monastic renewal efforts, Wycliffe, Hus, reformatory councils, humanists and others set the stage for the Reformation. Widening geographic knowledge occurred from 1492-1600. Millard Erickson’s “Christian Theology:” Erickson introduces transcendence with Isaianic and Psalter references (312). Justo Gonzalez’s “History of Christianity: Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation:” Prof. Gonzalez comments on Augustine’s anti-Donatism and anti-Pelagianism (248).