Randy Blacketer Profile picture
Dr Raymond A. Blacketer. Reformation historian. Translating John Calvin’s Institutes. Anti patriarchy. Pro Democracy. Reformed but not that kind.
May 16 15 tweets 3 min read
CW: Academic ramblings. For anyone interested in the process of translating and adding historical footnotes, I offer the following rabbit hole: #Calvin Institutes 3.24.10. Calvin makes this statement:

1/ Image “Now, regarding those who dream that some sort of seed of election was implanted in their hearts from their very birth, by virtue of which they are always inclined toward godliness and the fear of God,

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Jan 27, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
#Calvin on false teachers who claim #anxiety is a sin, Inst. 3.8.9 #Translating

"Today among Christians there are also new Stoics who consider it a fault not only to moan or cry but also to be sad or worried.

1/6 But these paradoxes, of course, generally come from people who, having more practice with speculation than action, are not capable of doing anything but supplying us with such paradoxes.

2/6
Jan 27, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
#Calvin on contemptuous & patronizing charity, an attitude common among Christians today who think their wealth is due to their own merit. Inst. 3.7.7

"Yes, it can happen that a person may fully perform what they ought to do as far as external duties are concerned,

1/5 yet within they may be far from the true way of performing them. You see some people who appear to be profoundly generous, yet they never give anything without projecting disapproval, either through their prideful expression or even through arrogant words.

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Jan 26, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
#Calvin on arrogance & love of conflict, Inst. 3.7.4 #Translating

"So, every person, in flattering themselves, carries a sort of kingdom in their heart. Unduly attributing to themselves the things that they find pleasing, they criticize the character and habits of others.

1/4 Image And if they get into a conflict, then their venom bursts out. Yes, many people put on a show of some gentleness as long as they find everything pleasant and congenial, but how few of them will maintain that same tone of moderation when they are annoyed and irritated?

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Jan 26, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
#Calvin on Christians in name only, Institutes 3.6.4 #AmTranslating

"And here is the place to rebuke those who possess nothing more than the label and badge of Christ and yet want to be called 'Christians.' Where do they get the audacity to boast in his holy name? ...
1/6 Image Therefore, let them either stop boasting of being what they are not, which is an affront to God, or show themselves to be worthy students of Christ their schoolmaster.

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Nov 17, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
John #Calvin on how to esteem and interact with others, Institutes 3.7.4 #AmTranslating

"So, every person, in flattering themselves, carries a sort of kingdom in their heart.

1/11 Unduly attributing the things that they find pleasing to themselves, they criticize the character and habits of others. And if they get into a conflict, then their venom bursts out.

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Nov 17, 2022 6 tweets 4 min read
Images from a presentation I'm preparing on the #Calvin Institutes translation.
France in Calvin's Day. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples. French humanist Guillaume Budé. Melchior Wolmar. Calvin's commentary on the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca's "On Clemency." It didn't sell. Calvin decides to focus elsewhere. His first theological work, Psychopannychia, which his friends urged him not to publish, and which he delayed until 1542.
Nov 16, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
#Calvin on self-denial as #pilgrimage Institutes 3.7.3 #AmTranslating

"So, with respect to both tables of the law, [Paul] directs us to put off our own nature and reject whatever our reason and will dictate. Next, he distills all of life’s actions into three parts:

1/7 Image soberness, righteousness [or justice], and godliness. Of these, soberness obviously refers to both chastity and moderation as well as to a pure and sparing use of temporal goods and patience in poverty.

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Oct 8, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
#KatherineBushnell vs #evangelical #purityculture 🧵
@kkdumez #ANewGospelForWomen

“…in opposition to the perceived promiscuity of contemporary society, which they attribute to the influences of modern feminism and its sexual ethic of liberation,

1/7 many evangelicals have attempted to resurrect the nineteenth-century idealization of female purity. Through an elaborate “purity culture” consisting of scripted purity pledges, father-daughter balls, purity rings, and the rhetoric of warriors and princesses,

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