At the end of the ‘Calvin-Year’, in which Christians all over the world celebrate Calvin’s 500th birthday, this books emphasizes Calvin’s role for establishing a Protestant mission theology which later led to a worldwide expansion of Protestant Christianity. The book present major articles on the topic through 125 years of history and from different viewpoints from 1882 to 2002. Some of the articles discuss Calvin and his writings and thinking on mission alone. Some add the question, what kind of mission has been organized from Geneva during Calvins time, because Calvin did not only speak about evangelism and mission, but also helped establish it in reality, even though on a quite small scale compared to later centuries. Some articles go further, and follow the students and followers of Calvin and their relation ti mission through history. Thus sometimes the wider topic of ‘Calvinism and Mission’ is included. This book has not been edited to defend ‘Calvinism’ and its dogmatic system. This has – even from Calvinism’s own firm position – to be done on exegetical grounds. Nevertheless some of the authors wrote their articles as a defense of Calvinism or at least as very convinced Calvinists. Others write more from a neutral point of view as historical researchers. Thomas Schirrmacher (*1960) earned doctorates in Theology (Dr. theol., 1985, Netherlands), in Cultural Anthropology (PhD, 1989, USA), in Ethics (ThD, 1996, USA), and in Sociology of Religions (Dr. phil., 2007, Germany) and received two honorary doctorates in Theology (DD, 1997, USA) and International Development (DD, 2006, India). He is professor of ethics and of world mission at Martin Bucer European Theological Seminary and Research Institutes (Bonn, Zurich, Innsbruck, Prague, Istanbul) as well as professor of the sociology of religion at the State University of Oradea in Romania. As an international human rights expert he is board member of the International Society for Human Rights, spokesman for human rights of the World Evangelical Alliance and director of the International Institute for Religious Freedom (Bonn, Cape Town, Colombo).
