Reforming Geneva : Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin's Geneva

The Calvinist Reformation is characterized above all by a focus on church
discipline enforced by church courts known as consistories. The Geneva
consistory served as the model and mother institution throughout the Calvinist
world. In this book, Robert M. Kingdon surveys the theoretical underpinnings
of the Calvinist emphasis on discipline and how theory was put into practice
by John Calvin in Reformation Geneva. Professor Kingdon looks in turn at how
the Geneva consistory and the pastors and councilors who staffed it reformed
religious practice, religious education and marriage practices. Finally,
Robert M. Kingdon uses the emotion of hatred as a lens to examine how Calvin
and his colleagues attempted to reform emotions. He delves into the way in
which Calvin and his colleagues employed the consistory to attenuate
interpersonal hatred, while employing propaganda to whip up interconfessional
hatred.