As contribuições de João Calvino para uma teologia pública contemporânea

Abstract

Currently in brazilian society, and all western civilization, faces a strong ideological polarization and social fragmentation. The Evangelical Church, which should be a promoter of reconciliation and unity in the public sphere, in its various denominational branches, faces similar polarization and fragmentation. This reality demonstrates the need for contributions to the constitution of a contemporary public theology that faces this challenge. Starting from the doctrinal pressupositions of Reformed Theology, this monograph investigates as a hypothesis whether João Calvin would have contributions to make for a contemporary public theology. Using content analysis and literature review methods, a qualitative research was carried out on the final chapter of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, the reformer's magnum opus. In the content analysis it was found that there are possible contributions from João Calvino in the areas of Political Theory, Legislative Proposition and Citizenship. After using the literature review, the data were interpreted from a doctrinal and historical point of view. The chapters are the data collected and interpreted, and demonstrate contributions on specific topics, namely, the relationship between Religion and Politics, the theological value of Politics, form of government, relationship between Church and State, moral law, jurisprudence, law constitutional resistance and civil resistance. It was concluded that in fact João Calvino has contributions to make for a contemporary public theology, despite its distinct historical context.