The Kingdom of Christ is Spiritual: Calvin's Concept of the Restoration of the World

"The Kingdom of Christ is Spiritual: John Calvin's Concept of the Restoration of the World."  In this lecture, Mr. Tuininga seeks to overcome simplistic misunderstandings of Calvin's understanding of the "two kingdoms" through careful attention to the wide range of his writings.  Mr. Tuininga draws attention to the fundamentally eschatological character of the concept, which thus resists anthropological dualism or an anachronistic institutional dualism between church and state.  Nonetheless, he argues, it does have practical ramifications for how Calvin understood the tasks of church discipline and civil government, which should continue to inform Christian thinking on such matters today.

A talk from: The Convivium Calvinisticum is an annual event sponsored by the Davenant Trust. The Convivium brings together a small group of scholars, pastors, and students for fellowship and discussion each June. Our goal is to foster a network of men and women dedicated to historically-informed, irenic engagement with the challenges facing contemporary Protestantism and committed to civic engagement and renewal. The theme of the 2014 Convivium was "Creation, Redemption, and Neo-Calvinism," wrestling with the recurring dualities between Christ and culture, church and state, spiritual and temporal, sacred and secular, that have structured much of Christian and particularly Reformed theology. The full proceedings of the conference (of which only a sampling are made available here) will be published in a forthcoming volume, For the Healing of the Nations: Creation, Redemption, and Neo-Calvinism.