The man behind the nameBorn July 10, 1509 in Noyon, France, Jean Calvin was raised in a staunch Roman Catholic family. The local bishop employed Calvin’s father as an administrator in the town’s ...

So wrote Theodore Beza of the passing of John Calvin four hundred years ago, on May 27, 1564. ... But again, the whole of Calvin’s life speaks powerfully to us today.

Calvin’s own life was a witness to the sincerity of his social concern. He himself was a poor man. In the Rue des Chanoines the great preacher of God’s Word lived in the utmost simplicity.

John Calvin strides through the Western imagination as a figure of certainty – willing to abandon the church of his youth, burn a heretic, and proclaim double predestination that consigned millions to ...