Calvin's Tormentors: Understanding the Conflicts That Shaped the Reformer

Calvin’s Tormentors offers a unique approach to John Calvin by introducing the individuals and groups who, through their opposition to Calvin’s theology and politics, helped shape the reformer, his theology, and his historical and religious legacy.

Respected church historian Gary Jenkins details how the polemical struggles that dominated the Reformation characterized Calvin to such a degree that understanding his interlocutors helps to better understand Calvin himself in all his foibles, frailties, brilliance, and candor. Jenkins shows how Calvin had to defend or rethink his theology in light of his tormentors’ challenges and reveals Calvin as a subtle thinker whose intellectual life wore the marks of the controversies he endured, giving readers a more nuanced view of Calvin’s life and thought. The book highlights the central theological ideas of the Swiss Reformation and introduces figures and movements often excluded from standard texts, making it an outstanding textbook for courses on Calvin and the Protestant Reformation.