Have You Ever Wanted to Read Calvin's Institutes?

Porter, Steven L.

McKim, Donald K., Ed. (2001)

Calvin's Institutes: Abridged Edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Soft-cover. xxi + 189 pages. $16.95. ISBN 0-664-22298-6.

Reviewed by STEVEN L. PORTER

Donald K. McKim is editor of Academic and Reference Books with Westminster John Knox Press. He is the author/editor of more than 20 books, including the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, and Theological Turning Points.

It likely is too late to write a review of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, originally written in Latin in 1559. For the general public--even the more theologically inclined--it is daunting to even consider reading an English translation of Calvin's Institutes (well-over 1,500 pages). It is precisely for this reason that Donald McKim has done readers a tremendous favor by editing an abridgement of Ford Lewis Battles' translation, which was published in 1960, of Calvin's Institutes.

For the theologically uninitiated, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is commonly regarded as a classic and brilliant development of Protestant theology. One finds in the Institutes not merely the wellspring for "Calvinist" or "Reformed" theology, but more importantly a clear statement of orthodox Christian thought and an approach to theologizing from which much is to be learned. Calvin divides the Institutes into four books, following the Apostles' Creed in treating first God, next Christ, then the Holy Spirit, and lastly, the church. McKim's abridgement remains true to this original organization, helpfully including Calvin's main headings and sub-headings even in the surprisingly rare cases in which no actual excerpt from a certain section of the Institutes exists in the abridgment. The inclusion of these headings gives the reader a sense of the flow of Calvin's thought and alerts the reader to the general type of content that is being omitted in the abridgment (often some sense can be made as to the editorial decision to bypass certain sections simply by reading the topical headings that are included).

McKim's faithfulness to the original organization of the Institutes gives this particular abridgment its unique value. It should be mentioned that Hugh Thomson Kerr's abridgment, Calvin's Institutes: A New Compend (1989), is another useful summarization of the Institutes, in that it arranges its excerpts according to modern day theological topics. In comparison to Kerr's work, McKim correctly judges his abridgment as

more of a 'road map' to the Institutes. It provides a picture of the whole structure of the book. It accounts for all the topics with which Calvin dealt in the course of his eighty chapters. In this way, the historical integrity of the work is maintained. Readers get a 'macro' view of the whole shape of the Institutes as well as a 'micro' view in the selections from Calvin chosen for inclusion. (p. xii)

For those interested in the historical development of Protestant thought, a better grasp of theology as a whole, and a spiritually edifying experience, McKim's abridged edition of Calvin's Institutes is highly recommended.

REFERENCE

Kerr, H. T. (1989). Calvin's Institutes: A new compend. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.