Archive: Jul 13, 2013, 12:00 AM
Calvin: the Great Re-Former
John Calvin probably never heard of the Western Isles, and many in the Western Isles certainly wish they had never heard of him.
There’s no point in re-traversing the old familiar allegations of his baneful influence on the arts; nor is there any point in defending him from the charge that it was his fault that in the 1970s a man from Barvas had to trudge the seven miles to Galson if he wanted a ‘Christian drink’. What really bugs me is that scarcely a day passes but the phrase ‘a narrow Calvinism’ walks across my computer-screen.