Working on my new book … The Fight For Freedom

Not much time for blogging, as I am writing, writing, writing. Here’s the book I am working on:

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A Day in the Life of Calvin

It’s the 500th anniversary of the Geneva protestant reformer Jean Calvin, so I went to see the virtual exhibition “A Day in the Life of Calvin.”

Calvin pioneered freedom of speech, self-determination of peoples and individual responsibility – he installed clocks in public places and insisted citizens were punctual.

But the speeches and sermons which the exhibition cleverly presents are heavy going: rasping admonitions and complaints about his fellow human beings.

I finally got his idea of “predestination.” We are all sinners in the eye of God. But God’s grace saves some from perdition. ONLY God’s grace. It does not matter whether you are more virtuous than others.

This was a nice justification for his own autocratic powers. It certainly discouraged democratic questioning. His successors quietly dropped the idea not long after his death.