Sober, Strict, and Scriptural: Collective Memories of John Calvin, 1800-2000

Calvinism’s influence and reputation have received ample scholarly attention. But how John Calvin himself - his person, character, and deeds - was remembered, commemorated, and memorialized, is a question few historians have addressed. Focussing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this volume aims to open up the subject with chapters on Calvin’s monumentalization in statues and museums, his appearance in novels, children’s books, and travel writing, his iconic function for Hungarian nationalists and Presbyterian missionaries to China, his reputation among Mormons and freethinkers, and his rivalry with Michael Servetus in French Protestant memory. The result is a fresh contribution to the field of religious memory studies and an invitation to further comparative research.

Contributors include: R. Bryan Bademan, Patrick Cabanel, R. Scott Clark, Thomas J. Davis, Stephen S. Francis, Joe B. Fulton, Botond Gaal, Stefan Laube, Johan de Niet, Herman Paul, James Rigney, Michele Sacquin, Jonathan Seitz, Robert Vosloo, Bart Wallet, and Valentine Zuber.