Predestination Policy and Polemic

This important work refutes a currently fashionable consensus that maintains that the English Civil War can be seen as primarily the result of a Laudian and Arminian assault on a previously predominant Calvinism. According to this picture the isolation of the court from Calvinist opinions and the aggressive Arminian policies pursued during the reign of Charles I ultimately drove previously law-abiding Calvinists into counter-resistance to the king and the church hierarchy. Arguing against sharp polarities Peter White denies the existence of any sharply-defined Calvinist consensus into which Arminianism made deep and fateful inroads. The doctrinal evolution of the English Church is thus seen as a story to which theologians of contrasting churchmanship both contributed.