Martin Luther King as compared to John Calvin.

Essay by BanettiUniversity, Bachelor'sA, December 2002

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Martin Luther and John Calvin


John Calvin was born in 1509 and lived until 1564. He created patterns and thoughts that would dominate Western culture throughout the modern period. The way Americans act and the culture is also on the basics of Calvin's ideas. His thoughts basically came from the Northern Renaissance. He really was dedicated to reforming the church. He had his big chance when Geneva citizens revolted against their rulers in the 1520's (1). Geneva had been under the rule of the House of Savoy. The people successfully overthrew the Savoy's and the bishop of Geneva in the 1520's.

"The Geneva's, however, unlike the citizens of Zurich, Bern, Basel, and other cities that became Protestant in the 1520's, were not German-speakers but primarily French speakers (1)." Since this, they did not have close connections with the reformed churches in Germany and Switzerland. The Protestant canton of Bern, was determined to see Protestantism spread throughout Switzerland.

Calvin was invited to Geneva to do a reform on the church because he was known that he said that the early reformers didn't know what they where doing (1). His most important work involved the organization of church governance and the social organization of the church and the city. "He was the first major political thinker to model social organization entirely on biblical principles"(2). At first his reforms did not go as well as he planed. He made the issue of church governance by creating leaders within the...