Calvin the Magistrate: His Political and Legal Legacy: 1 (Religion and Law)

The legal and political scenario of Calvins day involved upheavals deriving from the force of religion upon law. Whole cities provinces and states came under Reformation influence ranging from quiet individual conversions to Protestantism to the hysteria of community iconoclasm. The transformation of these societies however was not moving away from a religious worldview; rather the transformation was a movement of one religion to another. In Calvins day secularism pluralism and religious toleration were nonexistent. Europe was not in the thrall of the question Should religion in public life be tolerated? but rather Which religion should be enforced to the banning of all others? Calvin was a driven man but a valid question drove him: What is the true religion? And deriving from the central question were corollaries: What law is right law? and What government is right government? Calvins trek would lead him to answers. Calvin concluded that substantively a correct political and legal system derives from the Bible and procedurally the system is applied by democratically elected officials checking and balancing one another--and his views were consistent with a Reformation consensus.