This work is a series of sermons produced by Emeritus Professor Hans Mol, and based on Biblical texts, the Commentaries of John Calvin on these texts, and on Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Mol is Australia's pre-eminent scholar in the sociology of religion, particularly in Australia. His 1971 volume, Religion in Australia, was the first attempt at statistical analysis of religion in Australia, which was also internationally significant. Parallel to Mol's interest in the sociology of religion has been his interest in Calvin. Indeed the theological basis of his life has been as a Calvinist. Here in this volume he brings both of these interests together. His sermons, preached over the years in Canberra, seek to apply the teachings of Calvin to a world-view in which the scientific study of religion, and indeed the wider study of sociology, are of central significance. In these sermons, he succeeds considerably in this. The volume is a substantial contribution to scholarship, in that the combination of these two factors has only rarely been attempted. Thus, the volume has originality and will have enduring value. It is especially appropriate that it should be published at this time, in preparation for the 500th Anniversary of Calvin's birth (1509-2009).

" ... conferences were sponsored during 2009 ... the papers that were presented in Calvin's own quarters July 6-9, 2009 ... the chapters comprising this book were presented at (or written by presenters of) Calvin 500 at the Auditoire in Geneva's Old Town" --Pref.

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on.

Deriving insights from the life of Jesus in the Gospels, Klaus Issler uncovers the dynamics involved in truly becoming more Christlike. He shows how you can forge much deeper connections with Jesus. The result is a closer alignment between what you want to do as a follower of Jesus, what you actually do and who you are becoming in him.

Contemporary treatments of Calvin's political views often imply that he embraced a theocratic civil polity and that he was committed to holy war doctrine. On the basis of the primary sources, the first half of this volume argues that neither position is correct. Calvin, in his political thought, maintained the superiority of a republic as a civil polity. In addition, he placed himself firmly within the medieval just war tradition that was established by Augustine of Hippo and later reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas. In terms of his commitment to classical just war teaching, Calvin stood in continuity with Martin Luther, even while he distanced himself from the holy war perspective of the Zurich Reformers Henry Bullinger and Peter Martyr Vermigli. In the thinking of Calvin, a war could only be authorized by the state, not the church. War had to be prosecuted with humanity and restraint, and not in the tradition of the medieval crusade. The second half of the book sets forth what Calvin actually believed on the matter of government and war. Here we examine his teaching on parliamentary resistance to monarchical tyranny and the full dimensions of his commitment to justice of war categories. Unlike Luther and Bullinger, Calvin provided a parliamentary remedy for the perennial evil of tyranny. With Vermigli and Theodore Beza siding with Calvin on this right, a body of Reformed doctrine was established to which succeeding generations could appeal for teaching, direction, and justification for taking up arms. It is clear that Calvin's political legacy is profoundly evident in the American Revolutionary War and in the constitutional determination for a republic in the United States of America. Calvin's ecclesiastical republicanism, as it came to fruition in Presbyterian church government, was a powerful impetus toward the creation of republican institutions in civil government.

This 5th volume in the Calvin 500 series will analyze the impact of Calvins ideas on business/economics/ finance/industry. Calvinism and the Spirit of Business (co-editor, Matthew Burton of the Invisible Hand Foundation, a private charitable foundation), will both articulate fundamental economic realities and gather business leaders and experts to show how Calvinism leads to strengths and advantages in market economies.