Calvin Murder

[Vicomte13]

Calvin himself was a heretic, so was in no position to criticize anyone else's beliefs.

Nobody should have ever been burning heretics. It was insane. It was evil. It was murder. It's indefensible and inexcusable.

 

[A_Thinker]

Won't, rather than can't. But maybe thats a different thread.....If you dissociate with all bad people. You will be on your own , unable to live with yourself even!

There's a difference between associating with christians who occasionally sin to a degree ... and a church that's operating out of the will of God.

 

[Marvin Knox]

What do you think of Calvin turning in a man to be killed because he did not believe in the same version of the trinity?

What do you think of the many non Calvinists who have committed equally egregious errors?

Is it simply that you stumbled on this error by a man which peaked your interest and it just so happened to have been committed by John Calvin?

Or is it that you have a grievance with the beliefs of Calvinists and this is a convenient way to take a poke at them?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Do you, therefore, uphold the sentence of Servetus to be burnt to death?

Do you uphold capital punishment for heresy?

Do you uphold capital punishment for witchcraft?

I will quote myself from a previous post:

"Personally, I agree with the Catholics in Vienne, I agree with Luther, I agree with the Swiss Reformed cantons, and all the other council including the Libertines which were no fans of Calvin. It wasn't some haphazard hasty decision, many were consulted beforehand, efforts were made to try and convert Servetus, but the heretic would not recant nor be quiet nor stop stirring up discord and strife. Servetus received the sentence of a false prophet."

"If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them”, you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion (Heb: sara) against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn (Heb: nadah) you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you (Dt 13:1-5)."

Is Dt 13:1-5 no longer relevant today? What does it tell you about how the LORD views a false prophet?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Calvin himself was a heretic, so was in no position to criticize anyone else's beliefs.

"On 4 April 1553 Servetus was arrested by Roman Catholic authorities, and imprisoned in Vienne. He escaped from prison three days later."

Protestants are in no position to criticize beliefs because? Calvin is considered a heretic because? Whatever you think about Protestants, Catholics condemned Servetus first...so the irony of Protestants doing the Catholics works for them...oh that's rich!

 

[Vicomte13]

I will quote myself from a previous post:

"Personally, I agree with the Catholics in Vienne, I agree with Luther, I agree with the Swiss Reformed cantons, and all the other council including the Libertines which were no fans of Calvin. It wasn't some haphazard hasty decision, many were consulted beforehand, efforts were made to try and convert Servetus, but the heretic would not recant nor be quiet nor stop stirring up discord and strife. Servetus received the sentence of a false prophet."

"If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them”, you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion (Heb: sara) against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn (Heb: nadah) you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you (Dt 13:1-5)."

Is Dt 13:1-5 no longer relevant today? What does it tell you about how the LORD views a false prophet?

Dt 13, and the rest of Deuteronomy, was never law for anybody but Hebrews at Sinai and their descendants living in Israel. It never applied to anybody else. So Dt 13:1-5 is not only totally irrelevant today in every single respect, to enforce it today would be to break God's law by committing murder.

In a similar vein, what God had the Hebrews do in the book of Joshua was a very exceptional event, akin to what Nazi Germany did TO the Jews in the 1940s. The only reason that it was licit for the Hebrews to do it in Israel was the explicit commandment of God. No OTHER people has ever been authorized by God to do that to anybody, anyplace, so Joshua is also totally irrelevant to our days, and to append to one's self the authority to do to any people what the Hebrews did to the Canaanites would be properly prosecuted as genocide and crimes against humanity, and would also incur the condemnation under the laws of God for mass murder.

We ain't Jews, and this ain't 1800 BC. To attempt to apply the Law of Sinai to anything but the Hebrews in Israel is to ignore the very words of that law itself, which says, explicitly, about four dozen times, EXACTLY to whom it applies. And it's not us.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Dt 13, and the rest of Deuteronomy, was never law for anybody but Hebrews at Sinai and their descendants living in Israel. It never applied to anybody else. So Dt 13:1-5 is not only totally irrelevant today in every single respect, to enforce it today would be to break God's law by committing murder.

In a similar vein, what God had the Hebrews do in the book of Joshua was a very exceptional event, akin to what Nazi Germany did TO the Jews in the 1940s. The only reason that it was licit for the Hebrews to do it in Israel was the explicit commandment of God. No OTHER people has ever been authorized by God to do that to anybody, anyplace, so Joshua is also totally irrelevant to our days, and to append to one's self the authority to do to any people what the Hebrews did to the Canaanites would be properly prosecuted as genocide and crimes against humanity, and would also incur the condemnation under the laws of God for mass murder.

We ain't Jews, and this ain't 1800 BC. To attempt to apply the Law of Sinai to anything but the Hebrews in Israel is to ignore the very words of that law itself, which says, explicitly, about four dozen times, EXACTLY to whom it applies. And it's not us.

Matt 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Matt 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Matt 7:12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Matt 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matt 12:5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?

Matt 22:40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matt 23:28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Matt 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.


The question I asked was not whether or not we are Jews, nor if the command cited in Dt 13:1-5 applies today, I asked; "What does it tell you about how the LORD views a false prophet?" And of course you hedged around the question without addressing it. Has the LORD changed His mind?

 

[Mountainmike]

He said we should know how to act in the church because its the foundation of truth. That doesn't mean we should follow a church however. Thats not6 what Paul is saying to Timothy.

Interpretation in your opinion. Which is the problem. You set your authority over everyone. A VERY bold place to be.

But what such as you never answer is to give an alternative meaning to " bind and loose" which meant give authoritative interpretation of law and doctrine. And nowhere does it say that power was given to W2L , let alone W2L alone! So by what authority do you decide the meaning of that verse in opposition to the millions of theologians that came before you?

Nor is it possible to study the writings of early fathers - taught by apostles - without accepting the authority of the succession. Indeed without that authority you have no New Testament.

I am not getting at you W2L - but the question of authority is the central question that divides christians. By what authority do you interpret? When most others and all before the reformation come to alternative conclusion? What sets YOU apart?

So I repeat. The sola scriptura " me and Jesus" , "I decide what it means" without the church is a novelty invention post reformation.

So answer the question. What is YOUR meaning for "bind and loose"? if not the power given to the succession to rule on doctrine? Which incidentally has always been..in the context of the old covenant it was moses seat.

In the context of the new it is the power of office of the keys of David "what he opens none can shut" "what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven"

 

[Mountainmike]

your own article quoted says, "have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Some historians are convinced that millions died"

whatever the number, do you know what methods were used?

10 Horrifyingly Cruel Torture Methods Used During The Spanish Inquisition

This is AS BAD AS or WORSE than ISIS!

The point of the article is that many quoted numbers are misleading. That the conclusion of modern history is that the numbers were thousands 1 percent of 100000

And that many Catholics died in a SINGLE genocide in France, which led to the national shame of the sacre couer.

None of it is defensible, but sadly all were involved.
The Protestants every bit as brutal.

But , you are welcome to believe every non critical smear you read. It's the sad thing about anticatholics.


The worrying thing is you sit in judgement of them, and pretend you are better? Where the history of mass killings shows you are not. There were many ordinary Christians, German soldiers in the holocaust. Indeed in such as rwanda where our lady warned of rivers of blood, ordinary Rwandans hacked millions to bits, in that case they could not even blame it on a reich fuhrer. So the alpha omegas , like you, have just the same potential: you were spared being put in that position, so but for god's grace go you. Judge not, alpha omega. Men are wicked, it is why our Lord came.

 

[A_Thinker]

I am not getting at you W2L - but the question of authority is the central question that divides christians. By what authority do you interpret? When most others and all before the reformation come to alternative conclusion? What sets YOU apart?

So I repeat. The sola scriptura " me and Jesus" , "I decide what it means" without the church is a novelty invention post reformation.

You seem open to discussion.

So ... tell me what you think ... are the only two alternatives "I decide what it means" ... "someone else decides for me" ?

How much personal responsibility do you believe that you have ... to chart a course as a son/daughter of God ? How much responsibility for that do you delegate to anyone else ?
I was confronted in my early adulthood, by a well-meaning challenger, with the sobering truth ... "You believe what you believe ... because that's what you were taught."

That night, I had to acknowledge that was true ... and I committed myself, at that point, to search the best guidance for my faith. As a believer, where do you think I should have turned for enlightenment at that point ? (Note that I had just been confronted with a particularly slanted view of christianity ... and had a friend who was a Jehovah's Witness growing up. So I knew about the very real reality of misinterpretation of the scriptures).

I'm going to go ahead and present a thought that came to me as I composed this post. The decision as to which church body to follow ... might be one which is better accomplished ... after one has the basics of the christian faith under their belt.

So ... once again, ... where does one go ... to find those basic truths ?

 

[A_Thinker]

The point of the article is that many quoted numbers are misleading. That the conclusion of modern history is that the numbers were thousands 1 percent of 100000

And that many Catholics died in a SINGLE genocide in France, which led to the national shame of the sacre couer.

None of it is defensible, but sadly all were involved.

The Protestants every bit as brutal.

I'm in a talkative mood, so I'm going to continue posting ... as thoughts and questions come to my mind.

It seems (to me) that the underlying theme of this thread is ... "How can you justify allegiance to an organization (or person) which has been involved in such as we speak of here ?" Particularly, as been previously mentioned, ... when there seems to have been no demonstrable repentance of the deeds in question ?

What do we make of the scriptures where Jesus says ...

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

What is a believer's responsibility in all of this ? Would the denial of followship to entities which are bearing bad fruit ... be the expectation of Christ ?

 

[Mountainmike]

An interesting dialogue. I will reply later when I'm have time to consider

I'm in a talkative mood, so I'm going to continue posting ... as thoughts and questions come to my mind.

It seems (to me) that the underlying theme of this thread is ... "How can you justify allegiance to an organization (or person) which has been involved in such as we speak of here ?" Particularly, as been previously mentioned, ... when there seems to have been no demonstrable repentance of the deeds in question ?

What do we make of the scriptures where Jesus says ...

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

What is a believer's responsibility in all of this ? Would the denial of followship to entities which are bearing bad fruit ... be the expectation of Christ ?

 

[HermanNeutics13]

I do think Calvin was a bit of a tyrant when he was in charge of Geneva.

 

[Radagast]

I do think Calvin was a bit of a tyrant when he was in charge of Geneva.

Calvin wasn't "in charge of Geneva." That's like saying "Luther was in charge of Germany."

 

[HermanNeutics13]

Calvin wasn't "in charge of Geneva."

In charge is probably the wrong word "overseeing" might be better.

 

[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT

This thread is closed for staff review, and clean up.

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[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT

This thread had a clean up. It seems a few have issues with civility and sticking to the topic.


Keep it on topic and do not make it personal.


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