The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (492 page)

Calvinism
.

The religious ideas of bodies and individuals who were profoundly influenced by the 16th-cent. church reformer John
Calvin
, or by his writings. In Calvinism there is typically a strong stress on the sovereignty of God over every area of life, and on the supremacy of
scripture
as the sole rule of faith and practice, an authority confirmed by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of
predestination
was never a leading axiom of Calvin's thought. But many of Calvin's early followers (e.g. Theodore
Beza
) were quick to establish the divine ‘decree’ (to eternal life and death) as the principle from which all other ideas were derived, and on this basis elaborated logically rigorous theological systems. Calvinist theology reached powerful expression in the
Helvetic Confession
(1566) and at the Synod of Dort (1618–19). The latter expounded the so-called ‘five points’ of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited
atonement
, irresistible
grace
, and the final perseverance of the
saints
.

 
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Calvinistic Methodists
.

Those members of the Church in Wales who responded to the revivalistic preaching of Griffith Jones (1684–1761), Howel Harris (1714–73), and Daniel Rowland (1713–90). Now known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales, the denomination has a membership of about 80,000.

 
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(etym. uncertain, perhaps from
campus Romualdi
, ‘field of Romuald’). A Christian monastic order derived from the reforms of Romuald (
c.
920–1027), who did penance for his father in Ravenna, and came into contact with monastic life of various kinds. He founded a number of communities, including the hermitage of Camaldoli in the mountains near Arezzo, below which developed the monastery which became the centre of the Camaldolese Order.
The Life of the Five Brothers
, by St Bruno-Boniface, was written before Romuald died and contains the short rule of Romuald. The Congregation of Camaldoli is part of the Benedictine (see
BENEDICT
) confederation.

 
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Cambridge Platonists
.

A group of Anglican philosophical theologians who flourished between 1633 and 1688. Prominent among them were Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83), John Smith (1618–52), Henry More (1614–87), and Ralph Cudworth (1617–88). They found in Platonism and the Greek Fathers a rational philosophical structure that enabled them to distance themselves from contemporary enthusiasm, whether
Puritan
or
High Church
, by submitting the claims of revelation to the bar of reason by which we participate directly in God's
Logos
(word, reason).

 
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Camisard revolt
:

see
HUGUENOTS
.

 
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(1788–1866).
Founder of the ‘Campbellites’ or ‘Disciples of Christ’, and the
Churches of Christ
. A voluminous writer, Campbell rejected all credal formulas, being persuaded that Christianity's only demands are personal confession of Christ in baptism.

 
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