John Calvin - Heresy and capital punishment of Church History

philadelphos said:

That would be argumentum ad popopulum... a.k.a, appeal to the masses, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, or bandwagon fallacy...

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It would if I were claiming that Calvin was right in his actions. But I did not.

"It's unfair to blame him for what all Christians agreed was proper. You can certainly ask how some of that could have ever become established as Christian, but that's not a question for Calvin specifically."

The OP was using Calvin's supposed evil to oppose his theology, "Why so many people buy into this individual beats me" That is the genetic fallacy.

@Radagast
@Kate30
@hedrick

Ask your sources, Was it right to kill Servetus and others ?

philadelphos said:

@Radagast
@Kate30
@hedrick

Was it right to kill Servetus and others ?

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No.

philadelphos said:

@Radagast
@Kate30
@hedrick

Ask your sources, Was it right to kill Servetus and others ?

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Philadelphos you might enjoy Bruce Gore’s 2 part lecture on the life of John Calvin. Around 50 minutes a lecture there on U Tube if you would like to enquire more. Was it right to kill Servetus and others. The powers of that time thought so. Sometimes it’s kill or be killed. The God has killed billions you know. Was it right for him to do so. Absolutely. Sometimes when in doubt us mere mortals must choose by killing all too. But God does know what belongs to him. We all must also take that journey one day ourselves, how that comes about for each of us only God does know. It’s not a easy question to answer. You must take all the above into consideration. For it was a time where many customs and laws were much different to ours. For us today it would seem bizarre to kill someone because of their religious beliefs. But their times were much different to ours even If it still continues in some parts of our world today.

@Radagast ?

philadelphos said:

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him." (Pro. 26:11-12)

This is Calvinism... Hanging tortured anabaptists in cages...

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Cages of Munster's Lambertikirche (same as Switzerland), where the Anabaptists were tortured and hung

If you had truly read Schaff, and what Calvin did, you would know that Calvinism has a sadistic godless side that promotes the punishment, fining, imprisonment, and execution, of every person in world the world today...

Crimes include:

• Dancing
• Gambling
• Drunkenness
• Visiting a tavern
• Profane language
• Luxury
• Excess
• Extravagence
• Immodesty in dress
• Playing licentious or irreligious music
• Eating too many meals
• Reading bad books
• Watching plays
• Having or giving the name of Roman Catholic Saint... including names like, Lawrence, Simeon, Henry, Stephen, Emma, Abraham, Arnold, Nicola, Michael, John, Mary, Peter, William, Catherine, Joan, James, Francis, Thomas, Louis, Charles, Greg, Anna... Instead you had to named "Abraham*, Moses, David, Daniel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah" etc
• Heresy
• Idolatry
• Blasphemy
• Adultery
• Irreligion
• Immorality
• Hypocrisy
• Infidelity
  
• Missing a gathering at public worship
• Missing a sermon
• Laughing during a sermon
• 'Witchcraft'
• Sedition
• Atheism

(* Self-contradictory: Abraham of Rostov, 1073)

"The death penalty against heresy, idolatry, and blasphemy, and the barbarous custom of the torture were retained. Adultery, after a second offence, was likewise punished by death... prohibitive and protective laws intended to prevent and punish irreligion and immorality."

As @GregLogan said, it's all detailed by Phllip Schaff, in History of the Christian Church, Chapter 8, Constitution and Discipline of the Church of Geneva, HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

Except Scripture says:

• "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Gen. 9:6)
• "Thou shalt not kill." (Exo. 20:13; Deu. 5:17)
• "He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death." (Exo. 21:12)
• "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." (Lev. 24:17)
• "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death." (Num. 35:16)*
• "But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die." (Exo. 21:14)
• "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Mt. 26:52)*
• "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword." (Rev. 13:10)

* In fact, while the Council of Geneva liked to burn people at the stake, Calvin instead preferred to execute them by the sword. This is what he wanted to do to Michael Servetus. i.e. Calvin was certainly like Peter with the same violent streak.

Calvin's Calvinism was indeed a police state:

"When a refugee from Lyons once gratefully exclaimed, "How glorious is the liberty we enjoy here," a woman bitterly replied: "Free indeed we formerly were to attend mass, but now we are compelled to hear a sermon." Watchmen were appointed to see that people went to church. The members of the Consistory visited every house once a year to examine into the faith and morals of the family. Every unseemly word and act on the street was reported, and the offenders were cited before the Consistory to be either censured and warned, or to be handed over to the Council for severer punishment. No respect was paid to person, rank, or sex." (Schaff, s.107, The Exercise of Discipline in Geneva)

"(Michael) Servetus was burnt for heresy and blasphemy. The last is the most flagrant case which, more than all others combined, has exposed the name of Calvin to abuse and execration; but it should be remembered that he wished to substitute the milder punishment of the sword for the stake, and in this point at least he was in advance of the public opinion and usual practice of his age." (Schaff, s.107, The Exercise of Discipline in Geneva)

Remembering that Servetus fled Catholics in France to seek asylum and refuge in Geneva... and this happened...

View attachment 258538

Life in Calvin's Geneva was perhaps worse than being in Count Dracula's castle with Vlad the Impaler.

Calvin was a murderer...

He wrote to his friend Farel, boasting of his intention to murder Servetus:

"Servetus wrote to me me lately, and beside his letter sent me a great volume full of his ravings, maintaining with incredible presumption in the letter that I shall there find things stupendous and unheard of till now. he declares himself ready to come hither if I wish him to; but I shall not pledge my faith to him; for if he did come here, I would see to it, in so far as I have authority in this city, that he should not leave it alive." (Stefan Zweig, The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin, 1936; you can read an extract here Chapter 4: THE RIGHT TO HERESY or How JOHN CALVIN Killed A Conscience)

The Lord warned, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." ( 1 Jn 3:15)

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Yet Calvin did not kill servantees or anyone else.

Who tried him? Who convicted him and who ordered his exceution?

It was not Calvin.
I find it strange that a man hired to be a preacher is condemned for what the town council did.
Yes Calvin and just about every Christian in that time agreed that servantees deserved death for his believes, yes Calvin was a prominent witness against him.
Get real Every protestant group tried to enforce seriousness on the population.

Greg Logan said:

Calvin was the spiritual and cultural leader of this town - they were operating out of his heart/mind and morality. He could have called them into a place of Christ - but instead he called them to a place of darkness, violence, murder of a sort that makes ISIS look like child's play.

Calvin was an evil, wicked anti-Christ - who simply happened to be a religious and academic man who was thoroughly imbibed in the world - the culture of his day - never having met Christ - nor the working of the Spirit - as evidenced by his fruit.

Please note the so called "reformers" simply copied all the methods they learned from their mother - the Romish harlot.

That is the real history - we are called to speak truth and NOT white-wash.

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Is not this post too mild and reserved, Ivan Ivanovič?

Tolworth John said:

Calvin did not kill servantees or anyone else.

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Actually, that's a popular myth, to white-wash Calvin and save face for Calvinism. - Calvin was a hypocrite like those in the Church today, in the RCC or elsewhere.

According to history, from writings by Calvin himself, eyewitnesses, and contemporaries, they all say Calvin killed. They say he was directly involved before, during, and after several executions, and violent acts. He absolutely did kill people. He even smiled and took pleasure in it.

With Servetus, he had a motive to kill, and followed through to kill him when the opportunity arrived (Servetus was of course a troublemaker, but he was naive to underestimate Calvin). Even after the fact, Calvin boasted of killing Servetus to others, bragging unremorsefully of personally "ridding Geneva of his filth".

For Calvin it was an obsession with 'heresy trials' and power to (physically) 'separate the wheat from the chaff', he believed it was divine right to reform the church, a 'pastor's' prerogative... It was also spirit of puritanism and self-righteous religious piety that went way too far.

Calvin went against Scripture, against his own sense of right and wrong, and wilfully killed those who challenged his system of religion. He wilfully plotted the murder of Servetus and others, and the Council sided with him. - The day he received Servetus's package with scribbled notes on the margins of his precious Institutes (his life's work), he felt personally slighted and enraged. His anger became a personal grudge, and a vendetta.

People blame 'the times'... 'the generation'... the theocracy and 'union of church and state'... the bad people of Geneva... or the 'threat of heresy'... but the fact is Calvin lost his mind. Everyone in Geneva had lost their mind.

Local Genevans were usurped, over powered... There's accounts of them saying they preferred the religious freedom under the RCC to live how they wanted, without police force, without being monitored and forced to attend service, forced to listen to every sermon (unable to complain), having your home and family assessed, by threat of jail, tortured, or execution...

Calvin's contemporaries (people alive in his generation, as close by as Zurich) were fully aware of his violent streak and spoke against him on this. They wrote to Calvin but he would not listen.

Luther called him "abominable" and Tyndale branded him an "Antichrist's disciple"... Castellio wrote to him saying "It is unchristian to use arms against those who have been expelled from the church, and to deny them rights common to all mankind."

• "There were children publicly scourged, and hung, for having called their mother she-devil and thief. When the child had not attained the age of reason, they hung him by the arm-pits, to manifest that he deserved death." (Picot, History of Geneva, in 8 vols., t. II, p. 264)(p. 355)History and Theology: Execution of A Child and Adulterers in Calvin's Geneva
• "In 1563, a girl named Genon Bougy, who had insulted her mother by calling her “japa,” was condemned to three days in prison on bread and water, and she had to make a public apology after worship services." Jean Picot (Professeur dʼhistoire dans la faculte des lettres de lʼAcademie de cette ville) Histoire de Geneve, Tome Second (Published in Geneva, i.e., A Geneve, Chez Manget et Cherbuliez, Impreimeurs-Libr. 1811) p. 264
• "A girl was beheaded for striking her parents, to vindicate the dignity of the fifth commandment." Philip Schaff [Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary, New York] Modern Christianity: The Swiss Reformation = Vol. VIII of History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmanns, third edition revised, 1910) [FU - BR 145 .S6 1967 v.8 ] HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

See details in Stanford Rives book, Did Calvin Murder Servetus ? (p. 312-318)








This is supporting evidence that nullifies any 'genetic fallacy', as some will falsely accuse.

History paints a sad and gruesome picture of Calvin and Calvin's Geneva, certainly comparable to the Spanish Inquisition, Islamic Caliphate, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, etc. Calvin is not a person one would want to befriend, not someone one would want as their pastor, or governor... These were dark times that we must learn to never repeat.