"The Reformation thinker John Calvin had significant and unusual things to say about life in public encounter, things which both anticipate modern thinking and, says William Stevenson, can serve as important antidotes to some of modern thinking's broader pretensions. Although much has been written about Calvin's political theory, a coherent picture has yet to emerge.

He has been seen variously as a proto-liberal democrat, a reckless revolutionary, a "constructive" revolutionary, an unforgiving authoritarian, and an intransigent traditionalist. Can these pictures be reconciled?" "This study attempts such a reconciliation by following the stream that flows from Calvin's fascinating short essay "On Christian Freedom," one chapter in the magisterial Institutes of the Christian Religion."--BOOK JACKET.