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Unmitigated lies.
Calvin journeyed into Roman territory, at the risk of his own life, to plead with Servitus not to return to Geneva.
The Roman Catholic church wanted to burn Servitus as well, but he got to Geneva first.
Now, you want to talk about the Roman Catholic persecution of the Jews during the same time frame?
Dang, looks like Calvin learned a whole lot from the violent Popes!
Hey, if we are going to dredge up late medieval era bad behavior why not start with this:
http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/home.html
This is an intentionally negative piece written about John Calvin that doesn’t place him in the context of his times.
His weren’t the only beheadings, the only stake-burnings, and the only burdensome rules and restrictions.
But, this kind of propaganda hit job is designed to further someone’s agenda; someone who thinks they gain by running down another Christian brother.
And it goes the same when directed from the Calvinist side toward their non-Calvinist brethren.
Jesus prayed for our unity. It’s sad when we make it harder for people to believe in Jesus because of our disunity.
Shoot, it’s not like the Catholics weren’t a bunch of murderous scumbags, too.
A pox on both their houses.
I respect you greatly. But this post serves no edifying purpose. Please let our charity and faith by our witness for the Catholic faith. We do not need to tear down others or give air to scandal in order to be assured we have the fullness of Truth as revealed by God and protected by the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church.
There are many decent, good and faithful non Catholic Christians for whom such posts are very hurtful. In the spirit of Advent Joy let us not play the game a small minority of posters play. Instead let us celebrate the coming of Christmas with mutual wonder at His great saving Love.
Darn. I was hoping this would be a thread about Calvin and Hobbes snowmen.
Would it be too much to ask for correct punctuation in the headline?
“Thus the State issued dogmatic decrees, the force of which had been anticipated earlier, as when Jacques Gruet, a known opponent of Calvin, was arrested, tortured for a month and beheaded on July 26, 1547, for placing a letter in Calvin’s pulpit calling him a hypocrite.”
Who authorized the torture? Who authorized the death? Who did the killing? You are implying it was John Calvin. Is that true? Or did it just happen in “Calvin’s Geneva?”
The Arian heresy had been around since at least the 300’s AD when the Constantine’s bishops declared it heresy in 325 AD. There was there after a century of wars in the Roman empire between trinitarians and arians. Most of North africa was arian under the vandals. they gave almost no resistance to the moslems when the moslems conquered Africa in the 8th century. A century later arian bishops in spain invited the moors to Spain to fight against their trinitarian adversaries. Given the Arian’s afinity to Islam its small wonder the catholic church took a dim view of such Arian offshoots as the 12 century Albigensians.
The problem with Servetus/Arian view of Christ is that if Jesus is just a man, a created being—then what you have as the central mystery ... is a human sacrifice. This is really creepy. In any case a mere man is no more effectual for the forgiveness of sins than a chicken or pig.
God’s wrath is not turned away.
Nor was Servetus the last Arian. In fact after about 1680 aruanism began its long march through christendom with the Unitarians in England and their champion Sir Issac Newton.
The first Unitarian pastor was brought to the USA by Benjamin Franklin and some of the first presidents were unitarians including Adams and Jefferson. Unitarianism was all the rage in the northeastern liberal colleges in the 1830’s to 60’s. Great writers like Herman Melville began attending a Unitarian church after he finished moby dick. But the Unitarian church lacked a moral spring of its own—as would be the case with a human sacrifice as the central mystery. The morality of the Unitarians was just a reflection of the general culture. when the surrounding culture went bad —the Unitarians went bad too. these days the Unitarians embrace not just homosexuality in the priesthood but polyamorism among the the lay.
On the continent the more successful theological school called “Higher Criticism” became dominant in the European protestant seminaries after about 1848. Their success in the seminaries was chronicled by Nietzsche whose father was a pastor. In less than 100 years the higher criticism school in Europe has successfully killed the European protestant churches. As in old Spain of the 700’s they have paved the way for moslem interventions. The higher criticism school jumped the pond after 1890 and successfully took over most of the American liberal mainline protestant seminaries by about 1940. Again the higher criticism school is working its magic on the churches it touches by destroying them. The membership of American liberal denominations who embraced this heresy are in steep decline:,,,let’s be clear: “higher criticism”, Unitarianism, arians, Servetus all embrace the low view of Jesus. That he is after all just a man.
Look to 1 Corinthians 15:16-19 so that you can see what happens when you forget the resurrection.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
Yet several million Americans are hell-bent on establishing religious tribal dictatorships across the USA, should the opportunity present itself.
Religious tyranny is no better than any other sort.
“Since Calvinism falsely teaches that God forces the elect to believe, it is no wonder that Calvin thought he could also force the citizens of Geneva to all become the elect. “
This is a gross misrepresentation of the doctrine of election.
The Bible teaches that mankind are totally depraved. From the Fall to the Valley of Dry Bones, to clear cut statements such as
“As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
To Jesus’ instruction that we must be born again (do we give birth to ourselves?) we know with certainty that we are dead in our sins.
To say that God FORCES us to believe by BLESSING us by making us born again is a gross corruption of this most amazing grace.
Furthermore, no Calvinist thinks you can force someone to convert. I would it were so. Could I truly force someone to get saved I would do so without apology. I wish.
God alone saves, and that is what Calvinists teach and believe. To call his mercy “FORCE” is really nasty.
I think Calvinism can be defeated on pure theological grounds.
Talke about blank looks — just ask a staunch Calvinist if they believe in “Sola Scriptura” and that the bible is the Word of God. Then ask why are the “five points” needed if the teaching can be found clearly in the bible.
You really can’t reason with “devout” Calvinists, I have found.
How to tell if you are dealing with a Calvinist — 90% of the time, they also don’t recognize the special relationship of the Jewish people to God as His Chosen - which is somewhat ironic considering the 5 points of Calvinism, don’t you think?
“John Calvin’s actions were very paganistic like his mentor, Saint Augustine.”
Huh? Who? What?
At best, this is a half-truth. The letter Gruet placed on the pulpit did more than call him a hypocrite: it issued a death threat against him and against the city council if they did not flee Geneva. Further investigation revealed more materials of the same kind in his home, as well as heretical and blasphemous literature.
In other words, Gruet was not put to death by John Calvin for the insult against him, but by the city government of Geneva (who were no friends of Calvin) for the civil offenses of high treason and blasphemy. Calvin's only involvement (apart from, I assume, discovering and reporting the threat) was being the primary target of Gruet's hate.
In 1555, under Ami Perrin, a revolt was attempted. No blood was shed, but Perrin lost the day, and Calvin's theocracy triumphed. John Calvin had secured his grip on Geneva by defeating the very man who had invited him there, Ami Perrin, commissioner of Geneva.
Another half-truth. Calvin had committed a political faux-pas about 10 years earlier: he exercised church discipline against Perrin's in-laws for lewd conduct. Perrin and Gruet had been "Libertines," a party of antinomians. They were happy enough to support the Reformation when it meant overthrowing the rule of Rome, but Perrin was incensed that Calvin intended to uphold the moral laws already on the books in Geneva, and that these laws would apply equally to all Genevans regardless of class.
In 1547, as Ambassador to Paris, Perrin was arrested and indicted for treason when it was learned that he intended to quarter 200 French cavalrymen in Geneva, and it was thought that he intended to overthrow the city. For his part, Perrin claimed that he intended to seek the permission of the city council first. In the end he was acquitted but stripped of his position. This led to an armed mob attempting to overthrow the city government. Calvin heard the commotion from the street and entered the building. Despite threats against his life and being alone and unarmed, he dared the mob to strike him down, and when they did not, he preached at them until they dispersed in silence.
Prior to 1555, Calvin was constantly at loggerheads with the city council, but by this time enough Protestant refugees had attained citizenship in the city to elect a council that was more sympathetic. Perrin conspired with others to murder the French refugees and sympathetic Genevans. When the plot was discovered, he fled the city.
When the facts are examined, it really turns out that the opposition to John Calvin was an opposition to law and order.
As for this section on Servetus . . . oh dear, where to begin? The author has gotten his facts not merely wrong, but virtually 180 degrees turned from reality.
He was Calvin's longtime friend in their earlier resistance against the Roman Catholic Church.
They were not "friends." They had corresponded. Servetus invited Calvin to meet him once in Paris in 1537, which Calvin attempted to do, at risk to his own life, but Servetus never showed up to the meeting.
Servetus, while living in Vienne (historic city in southeastern France), angered Calvin by returning a copy of Calvin's writings, Institutes, with critical comments in the margins.
Another half-truth. Servetus had pressed Calvin on some theological point or other, in response to which Calvin sent him a copy of the Institutes. Servetus did return a marked-up copy, but his notes were not merely "critical" - they were mocking and vituperative, as were many of the letters he subsequently sent Calvin, which the latter chose to ignore.
What this article doesn't say is that at this time, Servetus was a fugitive in Vienne and working for the local archbishop under an assumed name as his personal physician. Calvin knew this, and yet he did not denounce him. He believed his duty as a minister of the Gospel was to persuade heretics, not persecute them.
He traveled to Geneva where he attended Calvin's Sunday preaching service on August 13. Calvin promptly had Servetus arrested and charged with heresy for his disagreement with Calvin's theology.
Servetus was a fugitive and it was Calvin's civic duty to turn him in. He had already warned Servetus that if he thought he would receive safe passage in Geneva, he was mistaken. He came anyway. That's not Calvin's fault.
Servetus pleaded to be beheaded instead of the more brutal method of burning at the stake, but Calvin and the city council refused the quicker death method.
Exactly backwards. I don't know how Servetus would have preferred to die. It was Calvin who requested that the charge against him be reduced to civil disobedience so that the more humane death of beheading could be carried out. The city council, which was still hostile to Calvin at this point, refused and insisted on the stake, in order to spite him.
Other Protestant churches throughout Switzerland advised Calvin that Servetus be condemned but not executed.
Exactly false. The city council sent letters to the neighbouring Swiss cantons for advice, and they unanimously agreed that Servetus had to die.
Calvin ignored their pleas and Servetus was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553. John Calvin insisted that his men use green wood for the fire because it burned slower.
Since Calvin did not desire Servetus to die slowly by burning, it makes no sense that he would demand that the fire be built so as to prolong his death even further.
Servetus had written a theology book, a copy of which Calvin had strapped to the chest of Servetus.
Wrong again. One, the book was chained to his leg, not his chest. Two, Calvin was not present at the execution; it was Guillaume Farel who walked him to his death. However, Calvin had spent the previous evening with Servetus in prison, attempting (though unsuccessfully) to persuade him to recant his heresies.
Many theological and state leaders criticized Calvin for the unwarranted killing of Servetus, but it fell on deaf ears as Calvin advised others to do the same.
Heresy was universally regarded as a civil and capital offense. Calvin's opinion on the subject was perfectly mainstream. What century does this revisionist think this was, anyway?
Some people claim Calvin favored beheading,
By "some people," read "reputable church historians such as Philip Schaff and Alister McGrath," as opposed to anonymous bloggers.