Church History: Dr. McNiell, Dr. Greg Allison, Dr. Earle Cairns

McNiell, John Thomas. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Chapter 15. The Reformed Church in France, 237-254. Prof. McNiell covers the period of Henry II, the Guises, the Medicis, the rise of the Huguenots in terms of congregational growth, political and military cloud, and brings us down to the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre, 24 Aug 1572. He also delves into the Synodical governance structures. It’s national like England, not small-scale like Geneva. Yet, Calvin’s lectures, writings and students criss-cross the nation with dozens and dozens of churches. Greg Allison’s “Historical Theology:” 20. The Holy Spirit: Prof. Allison handles Calvin’s connection of Word and Spirit, Inspirer of Scriptures but the Same Person as the Illuminator of Scriptures. The fanatics thought that they “graduated” from the Word to the Spirit without the Word, e.g., late Quakers. Allison will now move forward to the modern period with Wesley, Barth, and the Pentecostals. Edward Cairns’s “Christianity Through the Centuries:” Chapter 27: Luther and the German Reformation. Cairns retails Luther’s time in Wartburg Castle (May 1521 to March 1522), the Zwickau prophets and millennial fevers, and the rejection of Luther by Erasmus by 1524, Erasmus realizing a rupture with Rome was coming (318). Prof. Cairns brings us up to 1529 and Luther’s unhelpful and unedifying t