Compier, Don H.

About the author: Don H. Compier is Dean of Community of Christ Seminary, Graceland University, Independence, MO. He is the author of What is Rhetorical Theology? Textual Practice and Public Discourse (Trinity Press International), and is a member of the Workgroup on Constructive Theology.

John Calvin’s Rhetorical Doctrine of Sin

2001 0-7734-7618-0
This is the first book in more than sixty years to offer a scholarly account of Calvin’s perspectives on human fault. Through a careful reading of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, the author argues that Calvin writes with the specific political purpose of defending persecuted Protestants in France. The study demonstrates that his humanist education prepared Calvin for practical argumentation on behalf of social change. Calvin is depicted as an engaged political actor, thoroughly attuned to the practical requirements of his age. His theology then becomes an important precedent for a thoroughly contextual understanding of Christian doctrinal reflection.