October 16 to November 14, 2009

Picturing the Reformer: Images of John Calvin

An exhibit of portraits, medals, and other visual imagery of John Calvin, located in the Center Art Gallery on the lower level of the Spoelhof Center.

October 30, 2009

Meeter Center Reformation Day Open House

On Friday, October 30, to mark Reformation Day, the Meeter Center will host an Open House. Come by and visit on the 4th floor of the library, admire our rare books, take the John Calvin Birthday quiz (all new!) and stay for a presentation at 11 am on rare books (led by Paul Fields, Curator) or an afternoon presentation at 2 PM (the Top Ten Things You Should Know About John Calvin, led by Karin Maag, Director).

The Open House will last from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM and all are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

The Heart in the Hand

As part of the Reformation Day festivities, at 3:30 PM in Spoelhof Center 150, Barbara Carvill, emeritus Professor of German, will lecture on the Heart and Hand motif in Calvin's iconography.

A Symphony of Psalms, honoring John Calvin, featuring the Boston Camerata as part of the Artist Series Concerts.

Founded in 1954, the Boston Camerata preserves and reawakens human memory as expressed through the art of music. It accomplishes this mission through live, historically informed, professional performances of European and American music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras. Camerata has toured since the mid-70s and has maintained an international presence ever since. The Camerata last appeared at Calvin in 2005 to high acclaim. This concert is presented as part of the celebration of the 500th anniversary year of John Calvin, featuring post-Reformation Psalm settings. The seventeen musicians of the Camerata will be joined by the Calvin Capella.

The performance will take place at 8:00 PM on October 30, 2009, in the Calvin College Chapel. A pre-concert lecture will be given by Dr. Timothy Steele of the Calvin College Music Department at 7:00 PM in the Chapel Choir Room. For tickets call the Calvin Box Office at 1-616-526-6282.

November 4 - 5, 2009

John Calvin: Reshaping Christian Tradition in Reformation Europe

Stob Lectures at Calvin Theological Seminary by David Steinmetz, Amos Reagan Kearns Distinguished Professor of the History of Christianity, Emeritus, from Duke Divinity School.

For further details, click here

November 12, 2009

"Polish Calvinism in Crisis: the Emergence of the Antitrinitarian Theology in the 16th Century"

Given by Dr. Piotr Wilczek, Professor Ordinarius at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies “Artes Liberales” and Head of the Collegium Artes Liberales - the Honors College at the University of Warsaw,
Poland.

The lecture will be devoted to the situation of Polish Calvinism vs. Antitrinitarianism in the second half of the 16th century with special emphasis on the emergence of the Church of the Polish Brethren which was established in the 16th century as the result of a split in the Calvinist church. During numerous synods of this church there were many disputes and debates on theological issues. Many Polish members of the church wanted to introduce changes into the recent teaching of John Calvin, who himself was very concerned about the situation, but his interventions were fruitless. The theologian Gregorius Paulus started to call into question the idea of the Holy Trinity and was supported by others, including some educated Italian and German refugees. They established the so-called „minor church” (the Calvinist majority remained in the so-called „major church”). It all happened in the period of 3 years, between 1562 and 1565. Radically following the Reformation rule „by the Scripture alone”, the Polish Brethren interpreted the Bible in their own way and rejected some basic beliefs accepted by all other churches - both Roman Catholic and Protestant: the idea of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ and of the co-equal Deity of Christ and the Father. They rejected infant baptism and denied also a number of generally accepted beliefs, such as original sin, predestination, and justification by faith. In this presentation an attempt will be made to reconstruct major ideas of the Antitrinitarian theology and its relations to the Calvinist theology.