Matthew Myer Boulton

Contemplates Calvin's Institutes as practical spiritual theology For many today, John Calvin is best known as an austere, strictly intellectual teacher of Protestant doctrine. But Matthew Myer Boulton reads him very differently, arguing that for Calvin, Christian theology is properly conceived and articulated primarily for the sake of everyday, practical formation through the church's treasury of spiritual disciplines. Although Calvin famously opposed the cloister, Boulton shows that his purpose was not the eradication but rather the democratization of spiritual disciplines often associated with monasticism. Ordinary disciples, too, Calvin insisted, should embrace such formative practices as close scriptural study, daily prayer and worship, regular Psalm singing, and frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper. This deeply formational approach to Christian doctrine provides a fruitful template for Protestant theology today -- and tomorrow.

This volume outlines a Christian theology that takes worship as its basic framework, as the occasion of not only an approach toward God in piety but also separation from God in sin. Drawing on Luther, Calvin, and especially Karl Barth, Matthew Myer Boulton builds a Reformed liturgical theology, maintaining that the God of Jesus Christ is a -God against religion, - one who saves human beings from religion by entering it, transforming it, and ultimately ending it.