The Impact of the Reformation on America

Rev. David Hall outlines the standard theory of politics up to the time of John Calvin, which mandated the unqualified submission of citizens to divinely appointed monarchs, and shows how the Reformation’s exposition of a biblical theory of civil government, specifically elaborated in the anti-tyrannical writings of Calvin’s disciple Theodore Beza, was a necessary condition for both the American War for Independence and the establishment of biblical republicanism in America.