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Protestant Hierarchy With Blood On Their Hands—Part II
Jehan Cauvin (1509-64), better known by his anglicized name John Calvin, who like Martin Luther (1483-1546) the father of Lutheranism, a man he vehemently disagreed gave his name to a new form of Protestantism—Calvinism. Today his followers are oblivious to Calvin’s bloody past. All Calvinism literature you will find today are absent of his many heinous crimes and his attitude to people who disagreed with his punishment of so-called heretics and blasphemers.
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“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt.
It is not human authority that speaks, it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for His Church.” —John Calvin
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John Calvin Killed Rival Theologians, by Justifying Bad Bible Interpretation!
Calvin craved the power and being in the spotlight within the Republic City of Geneva. John Calvin’s interpretation of the Bible justified the murder of his theological opponents. He himself did not cut off any heads or light any fires that burned human heretics alive, but John Calvin’s preaching from the Old and New Testaments claimed those capital punishments aligned with God’s interests.
John Calvin did not believe all Old Covenant laws had been set aside by the New Covenant Jesus inaugurated. He didn’t buy into the plain sense of Hebrews: “God has made the first covenant obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). He manoeuvred around Paul’s conclusion: “the Law became a tutor to lead us to Christ and now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:24-25; cf. Rom 10:4). Calvin dismissed this data from the New Testament and decided the moral laws in the Old Covenant laws of the Torah still applied. And killing people who perverted his pure doctrine was a moral necessity. Calvin specifically justified capital punishment of heretics with Leviticus 24:16. “The one who blasphemes the name of the Lord should be put to death; all the congregation must stone him. Any foreigner or native who blasphemes the name should be put to death.”
Jesus’ teaching to “love your enemies” didn’t stop Calvin from approving and promoting the death of his theological enemies. And Paul’s instructions for dealing with people who theologically disagree with you were equally ignored: “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25). Calvin did not patiently discuss his differences with people who promoted competing ideas. Calvin requested beheadings, made death threats, and praised God for orchestrating the torture of heretics.
Calvin spelt out his theologically reinforced vengeance in a personal letter:
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“I am persuaded that it is not without the special will of God that, apart from any verdict of the judges, the criminals have endured protracted torment at the hands of the executioner.”
—Calvin’s letter to Farel on 24 July
(for more words directly from Calvin’s pen, read Selected Works of John Calvin)
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Calvin believed God made sure criminals didn’t die quickly when tortured. This vengeful attitude and his support for outdated Old Covenant laws that legislated capital punishment for competing theologians that challenged his preferred doctrines looked more like ISIS than Jesus.
Calvin’s Fight Against Heretics
Personal correspondence and city council records betray John Calvin’s extraordinary influence in Geneva. Although he was asked to leave in 1538 when he enforced his strict moral standards and pushed for the church’s independent power to excommunicate people, Genevan officials invited him to return in 1541 to resolve church divisions. Upon his return, the city council approved his Ecclesiastical Ordinances that included the establishment of the Consistory. The Consistory, a church court that oversaw the discipline of the citizens of Geneva, met every Thursday to review cases (This book is a chronicle of the Consistory’s records from 1542-1544.) John Calvin led the court. Although the Consistory did not have the power to imprison, exile, or kill those who were guilty, Calvin could still convince the city magistrates to wield such power when his theological opponents contradicted him.
When Jacques Gruet, a theologian with differing views, placed a letter in Calvin’s pulpit calling him a hypocrite, he was arrested, tortured for a month and beheaded on 26 July 1547. Gruet’s theological book was later found and burned along with his house while his wife was thrown out into the street to watch.
Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, physician, scientist and Bible scholar, suffered a worse fate. He was Calvin’s longtime acquaintance who resisted the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. However, he angered Calvin by returning a copy of Calvin’s Institutes with critical comments in the margins. So what did Calvin do? You can read his resolution from a personal letter he wrote to a friend:
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“Servetus offers to come hither if it be agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he shall come, I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail.”
—Letter to Farel, 13 February 1546—Calvin’s murderous act was premeditated!
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John Calvin followed Augustine’s biblical justification for burning heretics. Augustine excused extreme measures through his interpretation of Jesus’ Great Banquet parable in Luke 14:16-24. When the master could not fill up his banquet in the parable, he commanded his servants in Luke 14:23 “to compel people to come so that my house will be filled.” Augustine and Calvin believed burning heretics would “compel” more people to enter their house of God. Interpreting “compulsion” as a license to kill without consideration for Jesus’ other teaching to “love your enemies” is a major hermeneutical error. Any part of Jesus’ teaching should be interpreted in light of the whole.
Early Reformists gave up the brutality of Catholicism to jump back into the fire with the same religious brutality regime under another name—in this case, Protestantism.
Have your say, is JC just as homicidal as his Catholic counterparts or worse?
Cofion
Jero Jones
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/