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John Calvin was America’s ’Founding Father’ [Presbyterian Rebellion Day]
Christian Telegraph ^

Posted on 07/04/2012 7:38:25 PM PDT by Gamecock

More than a thousand attendees are expected to gather for a four-day conference to celebrate John Calvin's 500th birthday, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

As America prepares to celebrate Independence Day this July 4, Vision Forum Ministries will be hosting the national celebration to honor the 500th birthday of John Calvin, a man who many scholars recognize as America's "Founding Father."

The event -- The Reformation 500 Celebration -- will take place July 1-4 at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston, according to a media release about the event.

"Long before America declared its independence, John Calvin declared and defended principles that birthed liberty in the modern world," noted Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries.

"Scholars both critical and sympathetic of the life and theology of Calvin agree on one thing: that this reformer from Geneva was the father of modern liberty as well as the intellectual founding father of America," he said.

Phillips pointed out: "Jean Jacques Rousseau, a fellow Genevan who was no friend to Christianity, observed: 'Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which he had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes. . . . [S]o long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct amongst us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence.'"

He continued: "German historian Leopold von Ranke observed that 'Calvin was virtually the founder of America.' Harvard historian George Bancroft was no less direct with this remark: 'He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.'

"John Adams, America's second president, agreed with this sentiment and issued this pointed charge: 'Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it much respect.'

"As we celebrate America's Independence this July 4, we would do well to heed John Adams' admonition and show due respect to the memory of John Calvin whose 500th birthday fall six days later," Phillips stated.

Calvin, a convert to Reformation Christianity born in Noyon, France, on July 10, 1509, is best known for his influence on the city of Geneva, the media release explains.

"It was there that he modeled many of the principles of liberty later embraced by America's Founders, including anti-statism, the belief in transcendent principles of law as the foundation of an ethical legal system, free market economics, decentralized authority, an educated citizenry as a safeguard against tyranny, and republican representative government which was accountable to the people and a higher law," the release states.

The Reformation 500 Celebration will honor Calvin's legacy, along with other key Protestant reformers, and will feature more than thirty history messages on the impact of the Reformation, Faith & Freedom mini-tours of historic Boston, and a Children's Parade.

The festivities will climax on America's Independence Day as attendees join thousands of others for the world-renowned music and fireworks celebration on the Esplanade with the Boston Pops Orchestra.


TOPICS: Ecumenism; Evangelical Christian; General Discusssion; Mainline Protestant
KEYWORDS: calvin; wrong
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To: Cronos

I’m not going to debate you in this thread or any other. You don’t understand Scripture and either you don’t know history or you are determined to misstate it to paint the Roman Catholic religion in a better light. Perhaps you are a priest, maybe even a Jesuit.

Yes, Calvin was a sinful man, just like the popes who for centuries presided over hideous tortures and even genocide for so-called “heretics.” They strangled and then burned heretic William Tyndale for daring to translate the Bible into the vulgar English tongue giving common people access to God’s Holy Word. What kind of “church” withholds God’s truth from men? Had I been alive during in certain times and places I would have been one of the inquisition targets because they tortured and murdered people who believe as I believe, namely that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Pursuant to the Council of Trent, I’m still under worthless anathemas.

Oh, and what was liberating about Calvin was his theology! Without men such as Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and Knox, the American Revolution would not have happened as it did and our founding documents, if they even existed, would have looked radically different. Our nation has fought tyranny for countless millions around this planet. They have those protestant reformers like Calvin to thank. In contrast, Catholicism goes hand in hand with both theological and political oppression.


41 posted on 07/05/2012 6:10:27 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: .45 Long Colt
You don’t understand

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

42 posted on 07/05/2012 6:25:09 AM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: .45 Long Colt
I’m not going to debate you in this thread or any other.

You mean you are not going to debate the scripture I posted?

don’t understand Scripture

You mean your inadequate mistranslations of Scripture don't stand up?

43 posted on 07/05/2012 6:37:22 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: .45 Long Colt
your statement Calvin is among the greatest liberators in human history. shows a need to read

I can recommend Stephen Hick's "John Calvin's Geneva

The city-state of Geneva was in effect, a police state, ruled by a Consistory of five pastors and twelve lay elders, with the bloodless figure of the dictator looming over all, John Calvin....

Frail, thin, short, and lightly bearded, with ruthless, penetrating eyes, he was humorless and short-tempered. The slightest criticism enraged him. Those who questioned his theology he called “pigs,” “asses,” “riffraff,” “dogs,” “idiots,” and “stinking beasts.” One morning he found a poster on his pulpit accusing him of “Gross Hypocrisy.” A suspect was arrested. No evidence was produced, but he was tortured day and night for a month till he confessed. Screaming with pain, he was lashed to a wooden stake. Penultimately, his feet were nailed to the wood; ultimately he was decapitated.
  1. Belot, an Anabaptist was arrested for passing out tracts in Geneva and also accusing Calvin of excessive use of wine. With his books and tracts burned, he was banished from the city and told not to return on pain of hanging (J.L. Adams, The Radical Reformation, pp. 597-598).
  2. Jacques Gruent was racked and then executed for calling Calvin a hypocrite
  3. A man who publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled.
  4. Calvin's Letter to the Marquis Paet, chamberlain to the King of Navarre, 1561. "Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels [Anabaptists and others], who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard."
Sources quoted in Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, vol. 8: From Other Sources: "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" James 3:11.

NOTE: he was as bad as anyone else in his day. He was no "liberator".

44 posted on 07/05/2012 6:39:36 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: Cronos

I’ll pray for you.


45 posted on 07/05/2012 6:41:41 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: .45 Long Colt
Nah, Tyndale had no influence on the American revolution -- you do know that tyndale was there just about the time Columbus set sail and quite a while before American independence (btw, you were taught the old one "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, right?

Oh, and you do know that we've been independent for about 200 odd years, right?

46 posted on 07/05/2012 6:44:28 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: .45 Long Colt

I’ll pray to Jesus Christ for you. If you want to pray to something else, go ahead, that’s your choice. We Christians will pray for you.


47 posted on 07/05/2012 6:55:21 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: .45 Long Colt
I'll pray to Jesus Christ for you. If you want to pray to something else, go ahead, that's your choice. We Christians will pray for anyone who thinks that a "great liberator" is someone who:

etc. Is Stalin in this list of yours of "great liberators"?

48 posted on 07/05/2012 6:57:59 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: .45 Long Colt
Yes, Calvin was a sinful man,...

So why do calvinists identify themselves first and foremost with a sinful man, rather than as a disciple of Jesus?

I call myself Christian--not calvinist, not catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or any other denomination. I follow Christ, not the extra-biblical teachings of a sinful man who claims that God creates most men for the express purpose of throwing them into Hell.

49 posted on 07/05/2012 7:03:51 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: .45 Long Colt
with both theological and political oppression.

do read some history. Read about the Calvinist Hohenzollerns who forced the Lutherans in Prussia to submit to Calvinist ways.

50 posted on 07/05/2012 7:08:01 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: ShadowAce; .45 Long Colt
So why do calvinists identify themselves first and foremost with a sinful man, rather than as a disciple of Jesus?

Not all. One needs to also have pity for the poor souls who don't understand but are easily led by their perception of Calvin as the tough guy.

51 posted on 07/05/2012 7:11:30 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: Cronos

I’m a lawyer, but I also have an M.A. in history. I’ve studied Tyndale extensively. The impact of his work cannot be denied. More than 80% of the text of the King James came straight from Tyndale’s translation and his translation was the major influence on the Geneva Bible, which was the Bible used by the American Puritans and the Pilgrims.

On another note, most of the more than 1,000 Scripture references found in Shakespeare derived from Tyndale’s work. “Without Tyndale, no Shakespeare” is a popular cliché among historians.


52 posted on 07/05/2012 7:27:46 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: ShadowAce

“I follow Christ, not the extra-biblical teachings of a sinful man who claims that God creates most men for the express purpose of throwing them into Hell.”

That’s what Arminians, semi-pelagians, and other freewillers claim Calvinists believe and it’s a false caricature. I do believe in reprobation, but there is much more to it than that.

I am first and foremost a Christian. I happen to believe the theology nicknamed Calvinism to be the most authentic expression of biblical Christianity, particularly the theology laid out by the Apostle Paul. That theology was believed, taught, and loved by many for centuries before John Calvin took his first breath.


53 posted on 07/05/2012 8:09:29 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: .45 Long Colt
...and it’s a false caricature.

Then explain predestination, omniscience, and election while you prove it is false.

I'm willing to listen.

54 posted on 07/05/2012 8:16:18 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: Cronos

This thread didn’t turn out like the Calvin-worshipers anticipated.


55 posted on 07/05/2012 1:07:59 PM PDT by balch3
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To: .45 Long Colt
I’ve studied Tyndale extensively. The impact of his work cannot be denied. More than 80% of the text of the King James came straight from Tyndale’s translation and his translation was the major influence on the Geneva Bible, which was the Bible used by the American Puritans and the Pilgrims.

Dear friend, You wasted money being educated about tyndale and the error filled KJV -which is not the word of God in many cases

I don't even need to use Catholic sources to show this. You have the gay king James approving something ought to tell you things can't be trusted

Here is errors found by protestants http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/graphic1designer/errors.html

Never trust western education to tell the truth on anything historical.

56 posted on 07/05/2012 5:39:15 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: Cronos
led by their perception of Calvin as the tough guy.

I don't see much difference between calvin and satanist-both lead to destruction of souls when defended

57 posted on 07/05/2012 5:42:53 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: stfassisi
The site which you [sort of] point to, doesn't quite say what it seems to me you are implying.

Many of the errors (most of the errors?) which arose from them not having a complete Greek received text, were from relying upon the Latin Vulgate at those junctures.

No biblical scholar or translator today relies upon the Latin Vulgate as a primary source document, due to it's many known flaws.

Wow. talk about a comment back-firing... It's no wonder that in your next comment you appear to show some confusion as to the difference between satan, and Calvin.

58 posted on 07/05/2012 7:04:06 PM PDT by BlueDragon
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To: BlueDragon

“No biblical scholar or translator today relies upon the Latin Vulgate”

The original Greek is what matters and KJV kooks translated hebrew and used the council of Jamnia which is an Errol

Educate yourself beyond google


59 posted on 07/05/2012 7:13:36 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: Gamecock
"Scholars both critical and sympathetic of the life and theology of Calvin agree on one thing: that this reformer from Geneva was the father of modern liberty as well as the intellectual founding father of America," he said.

That's absurd. John Calvin established the first modern totalitarian society in Geneva. He was also the godfather of modern materialism. Though, I guess he could be considered the father of "modern liberty," the ideological, dirigist variety where a small group determines what is liberty for the masses living under their edicts.
60 posted on 07/05/2012 11:26:41 PM PDT by aruanan
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