See, I thought that's where it all started. Was the Presbyterians?
Presbyterians--Calvinist church started by one of Calvin's followers.
Reformed Churches--more directly descended from Calvin.
And then there are Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, and others who have been influenced by Calvinistic teaching, but those churches are normally not called "Calvinist" churches.
Yeah, I'm a Methodist and Whitfield was a Calvinist but Wesley did not agree with that way of looking at things so they went their seperate ways. They still had respect for each others "Method" of being devout and modest etc. Just didn't agree on the TULIP stuff. I'm glad I was raised the way I was personally.
I didn't think Calvin touched all those churches though. I thought Anglican was English-Catholic
__________________ 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I never said you shouldn't respect his work. I understand he was a fine lawyer and theocratic ruler. Though I would not say his writings were divinely inspired. I wasn't aware of this Calvin's exploits before a few days ago so I wrote about it in a place where there are people that will know more about it than I. I didn't set out to cause you personal offence. I am baptized and I grew up in an African Methodist Episcopalian Church thank you for asking. I was baptized young and would like to do it again but many churches believe in 1 baptism and I did choose it at the time. I was 13 and did not want to be confirmed Lutheran.
So would you call yourself a "Calvinist?" Is that why I seem to have offended you. Have I offended you? If so I apologize.
I know nothing of his work as a lawyer, the work I respect was his theological work. I don't view Calvinism as a "denomination or religion". I simply see it as the correct way to understand the Bible, the way it was actually intended from God. I don't like Calvinism, it goes against my human grain and personal will. Which is why so many don't like it too. So when it comes to who's in charge, the ME-self likes to think I am in charge, but the reality and Truth is GOD is in charge, always. A lot of people don't like that reality, but is the truth. A lot of people don't like Calvinism because they think Calvin started all this. He didn't. Augustine did. The reformers all followed these views, but Calvin gets the credit and namesake for popularizing it again. So a lot of people don't like Calvin.
I think the alternative to Calvinism is ludicrous. That would make God dependent on man's will and have to act according to man's will. It's not like that at all. Man is dependent on God's Will and God is always in full control and never has to wait to see what man will do first. If God is the Master of the Universe, in complete control of the heavens and earth right down to minute quantum particles, what makes you think He would need to wait to see what man would do? God actually guides every thing, including man's thoughts and actions, and man acting as a free agent, freely does God's Will thinking he is following his own will or course of actions. Not realizing his is actually following God's course of action. Nothing happens by chance or mistake. It is all, every thing God's Will in action. This was revealed to us by the apostles, and even known in the OT. It is well cemented in the scriptures!
Man prefers to be his own god, and prefers to imagine that God just created every thing and then stepped back to let man take it where man wants. Not what the Bible teaches
In our present age, the Church's beliefs about the functions of the civil government are heavily influenced by relativism and to a lesser extent, by the Voluntaryism of Roger Williams' Rhode Island. However, in many of the Reformers' systems of thought, the Church was not viewed as entirely separate from the civil authorities, nor were outright heretics viewed as simply another denomination. Kings and queens, as in Is. 49:23, were the foster fathers and nursing mothers of the Church, destined to help Her spread Her doctrine over all the earth by protecting correct religion.
Moreover, modern evangelicalism has chosen to see the relationship of Old and New Testament as fundamentally discontinuous. The Reformers saw it as more continuous. The model for Church-State relations was not to be found in Church's status in the first century as a persecuted subculture. The model for Church-State relations was found in the manner in which the civil authorities of Israel interacted with the Levites of the temple. The judges and kings of Israel supported the Temple and its work. They also were under orders by the Law of God to stone to death anyone who had been established in a court of law as a murderer, a blasphemer, a homosexual, a bestial, or a sorcerer. Consequently, most of the Reformers saw it as the civil magistrate's duty to do the same for the Church.
We must remember that Calvin himself, and his church in Geneva, killed no one. It was not, as some people like to paint it, an instance of murder. It was an instance of civil justice, carried out by the Genevan City Council. By attacking the Trinity, Servetus had declared himself an enemy of that God upon which the State relied for its authority. To the Reformed mind, this was the same as treason against the State.
We are modern people, influenced by Enlightenment rationalism in ways we often do not perceive. Do not let your modern sensibilities cloud your judgment of what was ultimately a biblical response to Servetus and others like him.
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God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way.
So at this time there was pretty much no such thing as freedom of speech and freedom of religion?
@iLogos-I hear what you are saying about TULIP, I completly disagree but I'd rather save that argument for the soteriology section. THough I will agree that God is supreme ruler of all things seen and unseen and I respect your opinion. I was not trying to make a case that a man such as this could not have intelligent writings.
__________________ 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I was raised in an AME church but I recognize that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches have Apostolic succession and are the root of all forms of Christianity. Something like they are the root and Methodism is one of the branches.
I agree with you about the root, and all non-Catholic Protestants are the branches...
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So at this time there was pretty much no such thing as freedom of speech and freedom of religion?
Noooooo. That's why Calvin was the boss of Geneva. And he was not unique. It wasn't at all unusual in the Swiss federation for there to be other, similar "morals governors," whether Catholic or Protestant.
So at this time there was pretty much no such thing as freedom of speech and freedom of religion?
Well, that depends on what you mean by those two phrases. I don't think there's a total freedom of speech in any society--there are always limits on what you can say publicly. Sometimes those limits are imposed formally by the government, and other times those limits are imposed informally by threats of litigation. But you definitely couldn't just spout out whatever heresy you pleased. You would be excommunicated by the Church and punished by the civil magistrate if you started teaching something contrary to the Faith.
Likewise, there is always a certain degree of freedom of religion, even within an established church, because not every minutiae of doctrine is set in stone. But there are certain doctrines that are always going to be considered essential for everyone in the realm to believe--even in America. We have "freedom of religion" in America, but does that mean you can be a cannibal if your religion requires it? From a certain point of view, American law intolerantly excludes you from the freedom to belong to a cannibal religion, and I could paint people who uphold that exclusion as barbaric and power-hungry. But the question should never be whether a law is tolerant or intolerant. The question should always be whether a law is in conformity with God's commands. The execution of a brazen blasphemer was.
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God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way.
Well, that depends on what you mean by those two phrases. I don't think there's a total freedom of speech in any society--there are always limits on what you can say publicly.
Sure. But in the 16th Cent the limits were a lot narrower. Today we try to let people express any viewpoint and practice any religion as long as it doesn't interfere with others. There are lots of practical difficulties with that that mean freedom isn't unlimited, but we don't intentionally mandate theology. In the 16th Cent it was considered that the Church and State were two aspects of a society, and it was expected that everyone (with a few partial exceptions, such as Jews) would belong to the religion. Thus things like rebaptizing and denying the Trinity were often punishable by death.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that today we have within limits a reasonable approximation to freedom of speech and religion, and this was not really a goal or reality in the 16th Cent.
Calvin (and some of the other Reformers) were a bit unusual in that they actually tried to create Christian societies. The rules they enforced were present everywhere, including in Catholic countries. But Calvin did attempt to apply church discipline to the population of Geneva more consistently than was normally done. This got him in big trouble with a group referred to as "libertines", who would no doubt have been fine in many other places in the 16th Cent.
I don't hold this against Calvin. The ideal of a well-disciplined Christian society was common in the 16th Cent. He was just trying to do a good job. However it's not an approach that I would advise today. I have mixed feelings whether in the abstract it's a good idea. In theory it seems to be. But in practice allowing that level of control over people is bound to result in abuse.
I was doing some research about Calvinism trying to really understand this religon and I came across some stuff that shocked me. I'm surprised he has so many followers since Christ preached against killing and all.
Of crimes against humanity: 1531 John Calvin 1000s of religious nonconformists are killed and witches burned after John Calvin (1509-1564) turns Geneva into religious police state.
Of murder : (1553) That John Calvin, the "Protestant Pope" of Geneva did order Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician, burned at the stake for heresy.
Of murder: (1531) Jacques Gruet Calvin orders beheading of Jacques Gruet for blasphemy.
Just a couple things I saw, there was a ton of terrorizing in Geneva. I'm sick, I thought he was a good preacher and was reading his stuff like he was a man of God.
not to surprising that the daughter would be alot like her mother
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