Overview

In Nicodemism and the English Calvin Kenneth J. Woo reassesses John Calvin's decades-long attack against Nicodemism, which Calvin described as evangelicals playing Catholic to avoid hardship or persecution. Frequently portrayed as a static argument varying little over time, the reformer's anti-Nicodemite polemic actually was adapted to shifting contexts and diverse audiences. Calvin's strategic approach to Nicodemism was not lost on readers, influencing its reception in England. Quatre sermons (1552) presents Calvin's anti-Nicodemism in the only sermons he personally prepared for publication. By setting this work in its original context and examining its reception in five sixteenth-century English editions, Woo demonstrates how Calvin and others deployed his rhetoric against Nicodemism to address concerns having little to do with religious dissimulation.

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make[s an] important contribution to our understanding of Nicodemism and the Reformation. A valuable conclusion to draw from his book (...) is that as a concept, Nicodemism offered almost unlimited possibilities for the denunciation of enemies, real or imagined. Susan Wabuda, Fordham University, in: Renaissance Quarterly Volume LXXIV.2 (2021). Woo splendidly shows that 'Calvin's adaptive use of Nicodemism resulted in attractive opportunities for deploying his rhetoric and reputation in similarly strategic ways not lost on his English readers'. This is an excellent work of scholarship. , Donald K. McKim, Germantown, Tennessee, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Volume 70.4 (2019).

Author Information

Kenneth J. Woo, Th.D. (2015), Duke University, is Assistant Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His publications on Reformation history and theology include articles in Church History and Religious Culture and Martin Luther in Context (Cambridge, 2018).

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