Calvin comes to Sydney

If you’re in Sydney later this month, you might like to come along to our Calvin quincentenary conference: Calvin500: Calvin Goes Public. You can see the conference flyer here, and the registration details here.

Speakers will include Randall Zachman, Ian Breward, Peter Matheson, Val Webb, Graham Hughes, Clive Pearson, William Emilsen, Damian Palmer, and me. There will be papers on Calvin and the natural sciences, Calvin and materiality, Calvin and the public, Calvin and education, Calvin and women, Calvin in Korea, Calvin in Australasia, Calvin and Islam – and my own paper will be on Calvin and political theology. It will be especially exciting to hear from the leading Calvin scholar, Randall Zachman (who was also featured in a recent radio interview, discussing Calvin and aesthetics).

And speaking of Calvin and politics, be sure to check out the latest issue of Political Theology, which includes an excellent series of articles on Calvin and politics, with an editorial by Marilynne Robinson. And prolific Aussie scholar Roland Boer also has a new book, Political Grace: The Revolutionary Theology of John Calvin (WJKP 2009).

There’s more to come next in Sydney month as well: Moore Theological College is also holding a Calvin conference, featuring Oliver Crisp, Paul Helm and others.

As you reflect for a moment on Calvin’s political significance, I leave you with this picture of two of our decisive political thinkers, Calvin and Hobbes: