Mark J Larson – författare

Conflict and war were common during the Reformation era. Throughout the sixteenth century, rising religious and political tensions led to frequent conflict and culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) that devastated much of Germany and killed one-third of its population. Some of the warfare, as in central and southern Europe, was between Christians and Muslims. Other warfare, in central and northwestern Europe, was confessional warfare between Catholics and Protestants. Religion was not the only cause of war during the period. Revolts, territorial ambitions, and the beginnings of the contemporary nation-state system and international order that emerged after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) also fueled the trauma and tragedy of war. In many ways, the world of the Reformers and Protestant Reformation was a violent world, and it was within such a sociopolitical framework that the Reformers and their followers lived, worked, and died. This book introduces the teachings of the Protestant Reformers on war and peace, in their context, before offering relevant primary source readings.

Students of Reformed theology recognize that Abraham Kuyper was one of the premier theologians of the last two centuries. He was also a notable politician, founding the Antirevolutionary Party and serving as a member of the Dutch Parliament and eventually becoming prime minister of the Netherlands. He produced a body of neo-Calvinist political thought that has enduring value for the political engagement of the Christian community in our time. His political theory stands in continuity with John Calvin''s doctrine of the church and social reformation, even as the current James Madison''s teaching on church and state impacted it. While contemporary Kuyperians at times reflect a leftward political orientation, Kuyper was a champion of political conservatism who stood in the trajectory of fundamental conservative principles affirmed by Edmund Burke and more recently by Ronald Reagan. He believed that the conservative emphasis upon natural law, the need for limited government, and the importance of freedom was rooted in biblical revelation and was therefore valid for all nations at all times.

Contemporary treatments of Calvin''s political views often imply that he embraced a theocratic civil polity and that he was committed to holy war doctrine. On the basis of the primary sources, the first half of this volume argues that neither position is correct. Calvin, in his political thought, maintained the superiority of a republic as a civil polity. In addition, he placed himself firmly within the medieval just war tradition that was established by Augustine of Hippo and later reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas. In terms of his commitment to classical just war teaching, Calvin stood in continuity with Martin Luther, even while he distanced himself from the holy war perspective of the Zurich Reformers Henry Bullinger and Peter Martyr Vermigli. In the thinking of Calvin, a war could only be authorized by the state, not the church. War had to be prosecuted with humanity and restraint, and not in the tradition of the medieval crusade. The second half of the book sets forth what Calvin actually believed on the matter of government and war. Here we examine his teaching on parliamentary resistance to monarchical tyranny and the full dimensions of his commitment to justice of war categories. Unlike Luther and Bullinger, Calvin provided a parliamentary remedy for the perennial evil of tyranny. With Vermigli and Theodore Beza siding with Calvin on this right, a body of Reformed doctrine was established to which succeeding generations could appeal for teaching, direction, and justification for taking up arms. It is clear that Calvin''s political legacy is profoundly evident in the American Revolutionary War and in the constitutional determination for a republic in the United States of America. Calvin''s ecclesiastical republicanism, as it came to fruition in Presbyterian church government, was a powerful impetus toward the creation of republican institutions in civil government.