Conservative Book Talk

This book purports to be an overview of John Calvin’s life from a fresh perspective, taking into account Calvin’s historical and theological influence on the modern world. Unfortunately, the book lives up to neither expectation. I’m working on finding a good in-depth Calvin biography. This is the worst sample I’ve found.

The good: Good explanation of some of he errors that histroians of Calvin’s life have been prone to, that introduction. Accurate overview of the events in his life, part of the first chapter. And blatantly secular humanist worldview is (while claimed to be neutral), open and obvious. Otherwise, um, the writing style is nice?

The bad: Bouwsma spends the entire introduction talking about how many historians have ignored or abused John Calvin’s memory in favor of their own agendas. Then he spends the entire book making Calvin out to be a caricature worthy of modern political cartoons. To this author, Calvin might as well have been Erasmus’s long lost twin brother who went off his meds and spent his life depressed, craving a father figure he never found in the papacy. The level of scholarship is pretty sad: both of the author’s main contentions fall flat.

The first contention of “A Sixteenth Century Portrait” argues John Calvin was a humanist, and that he agreed with Erasmus on every point (“Erasmus this” and “Erasmus that” gets really old by chapter two. The title really should have been “Erasmus, a 16th Century Portrait”). The logic behind this accusation is Calvin’s practical applications in his sermons. Applying the gospel to everyday life does not a humanist make. John Calvin’s practical streak was entirely bent on bringing the light of G_d’s Word to the people where they were, not on some academic plane but at home or in the marketplace.

Second, the author tries to argue that Calvin’s theological bent was a result of severe depression. The evidence cited is Calvin’s letters to a close freind back home, which are full of sorrows and complaints about his life in Geneva. No doubt, Geneva was a trial for John Calvin, and his calling there brought him little worldly pleasure. Its entirely possible to complain and rant about trials in one’s life and still be a very happy personality. Many college students, for example, feel called to complete their degree and use it in a career for G_d’s glory: this doesn’t preclude them from arguing about the high cost of textbooks, or complaining when a professor is perpetually late. Calvin may have been a weak vessel, but theological works and venting to friends are not evidence for a depressed soul.

Finally, its worth noting that the author also tries to make passing psychological evaluations of Calvin, his need for a father figure in G_d driving his break with Rome, etc. These are superficially made and unfair to Calvin as a person, historical importance aside.

Overall: You know you’ve hit rock bottom as a writer when your entire set up for the character of your book is based on someone else. Calvin was a complex but important historical figure who deserves more than a broadly stroked comparison: I was sorely disappointed by this book.

For a short but accurate overview of John Calvin’s life from a theological perspective, see “Five Leading Reformers”, by Christopher Catherwood. It includes Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Cranmer, and Knox.

Tags: biography, History, John Calvin, Sincerelyornot, William J. Bouwsma

Christ in the Camp deals with revivals in the Army of Northern Virginia.

It describes the work of the Lord in great detail as the author drew not only from his own experiences as a chaplain, but also from letters he received from other chaplains. The grace of God is very evident in this writing. I had no idea that there was any type of large scale revival in the Southern Camp – thousands were converted! The book is 460 pages long with a 164 page appendix which deals with revivals in other armies of the South among other things. I was greatly encouraged by this book, especially since I am very interested in that time period. This is not a book that you could read casually as it is rather long.

Positive: This has been encouraging, informative, and uplifting to read of all the men brought to Christ through this war. Army camps were and are considered veritable pits of sin, and this is one of the very few times that there was an exception. Also, if you’re a Yankee, the author scrupulously avoids mentioning why the South was right (with very few exceptions).

Negative: It took some discipline to read as it was rather repetitive (not a bad thing considering the circumstances, i.e. revival); other than that, nothing.

Overall: Definitely worth the read. This is not for those who cannot handle 500+ page books, but other than that, I heartily recommend it.

Tags: biography, Christ in the Camp, History, Johann Van De Leeuw, Religious

800 pages is more than enough for a deeply thought out biography… but this one covers six biographies spanning one of the most important periods in English history. The book gets boring only because the author insists on three points so often. 1) Religion is an effort to accumulate power where otherwise there is none; 2) fate is inescapable and people are 100% consistent in their motivations 100% of the time; 3) most historians have the Tudor chronology all wrong because of a lack of sources from the era; and thus, this version of events is in a different order with different motivations. The second point, ironically, is the most annoying, because we are reminded of it 100% of the time.

Plot: Biographical sketches of all six of Henry’s wives. Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Katherine, and Katherine. And even at 800 pages, it only skims the surface of most of these women. The author has a lot of “new” theories and twists on the historical chronology that make for a more spicy story (which reads like a series of dates-gone-wrong on “Saved By The Bell”). Also covers the political intrigue on the Spanish side of things, with many excerpts from ambassadorial letters (alongside tavern ballads).

Positive: Little details like badges and livery colors, plays, ballads, and court jousting tournaments, keep things interesting. And the constant referral to the Spanish ambassador’s perspective makes for a “Cinderella-as-told-by-the-stepmother” twist to everything that is funny, in a morbid sort of way. (okay, so he’s serious, and unlike the Disney reversal books, few people know enough about this story to find the differences. The reason that’s in the positive section; now I want to learn more, so that I can detect more nuances of error in the future!) And really, it IS funny to think of Anne of Cleves desiring to marry Henry again. She had land, money, power and a nice position in court for the first time in her life; he had just beheaded wife #5 for no good reason. No one wanted to marry Henry by then; not even wife #6! Also, most of his sources are not usually quoted in other works, so, again, to read another side of the story can be good.

Negative: Starsky insists that he has new research to break up the existing schools of thought regarding the Tudor era. Therefore, he claims, much of the chronology given to Henry VIII’s reign is wrong, due to partisanship of the historians and the lack of evidence from the period itself. So, the six wives are reinterpreted from David Starsky’s contemporary, atheistic, and “courtly love” (which in revisionist terms means a mix of the gothic ideal of pining away for a “true love” who is married and the hippie “free love” movement) perspective. Its pretty much a reversal of the history, right down to casting Henry’s 5th wife as the “normal” Tudor-era woman and the best wife of the lot. I disagree with all of the above, but on one point especially I would like to make a case; the Tudor period is one of the most well-documented eras in history. Journalism, journaling, record-keeping, and letter-writing all exploded as fashionable activity during the beginning of Henry VIII’s reign. All this correspondence and availability of records naturally saw an increase in espionage; so if English records aren’t enough, there are often French, Austrian, Spanish, and other countries whose spies recorded the same information in letters to their own country, each other, and often other countries as well via ambassadorial instructions and papers. Tudor history is so well known precisely because of the wealth of records available.

Overall: not recommended, except as a counterpoint to a better biography. I enjoyed the facts as a historian, but as a reader, his style is boring. He says what will happen in the beginning of the chapter, then forecasts it again and again and again with words like “inevitably”, and “a palatable feeling of doom”, etc. When the end of the chapter comes along, instead of giving more detail to make the “yeah-the-guy-was-right-again” part interesting, he gives less detail than even we’ve read so far. He needs some writing lessons, the guy does. E.B. White has a book on writing that’s so good its worth just plain reading (now that’s superior writing skills for you!)

Tags: biography, David Starsky, Sincerelyornot, Six WIves of Henry VIII