Calvin Murder

The Church of Rome had already burned Servetus in effigy. According to the Justinian Code in effect, execution was the punishment. Not a point in Calvin's favour; yet to focus uniquely on Calvin's response and ignore the context of the times would be another example of projecting assumptions about the past from the standpoint of the present.

Radagast said:

1. The history and politics of this event are a lot more complex than you seem to realise.

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And they are irrelevant.

The same argument has been used by Catholics to argue what it was that every atrocity ever committed by the Church was ultimately not really an atrocity, because... You see right through the very same BS when anybody from a Catholic to a Muslim tries to do it. You're sounding like a Catholic or a Muslim trying to stand up for a Christian Taliban, Cauvin, because you happen to agree with his theology.

In the process you're diminishing yourself. Just stop it. You know how Catholics sound defending the indefensible? That's you. Right now. For your own sake, just stop.

The issue is this: can people rightly kill other people. Yes or no.
The answer, from God, on this is: no. Are you defending against an attack or bringing a murderer to justice? No? Then no. Period.

Remember when Jesus asked the Father to forgive the people executing him, because "They know not what they do"? THEY were acting under their laws and lawful authority as they understood it. Clearly they were facing damnation by the Father for WHAT they were doing - the legal justification, within their minds and their systems, was not relevant to God (still isn't). Jesus asked the Father to forgive them anyway. Whether the Father DID actually forgive them or not is only known by those perpetrators.

Religious power was, and state power is, heavily dependent on the asserted "right" to kill people. If the state can't kill people, how can it enforce ANY of its laws, and continue to exist in its current form? It would be impossible!

Exactly.

Alpha.Omega said:

Yes, against the Highest Law of ALL, the Holy Bible. Quote me ONE verse from the Bible, not Church history, to show what Calvin did was in accordance with the Bible's Teachings.

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Well, let me clarify once again that I don't personally support the death penalty for heresy. But no doubt Justinian was thinking of verses like this:

Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (1 Kings 18:40)

Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death. (Leviticus 24:16)

faroukfarouk said:

The Church of Rome had already burned Servetus in effigy. According to the Justinian Code in effect, execution was the punishment. Not a point in Calvin's favour; yet to focus uniquely on Calvin's response and ignore the context of the times would be another example of projecting assumptions about the past from the standpoint of the present.

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The prohibitions on killing come from thousands of years further in the past than that.

Jesus, whom Calvin, Servetus, and Pope Leo all claimed to be serving, lived 1500 years before any of them.

Justify an execution by fire using the law of Jesus.
Try.

"Culture" and "The times" are no excuse and never a justification - not in a Christian society. Christ predates the English, French and German languages. There is NO EXCUSE AT ALL for what the Christians did, all that murder and torture and horror. It was always evil, and they always knew it. They were TEACHERS OF THE LAW OF GOD. They had READ the Gospels and KNEW what Jesus said. They had no excuse. They judged without mercy. Jesus told them that God will judge without mercy those who judge without mercy. They knew it, and if they didn't know it, they were bad religious scholars, idiots and illiterates who could not read the plain language of Jesus.

Thing is, in that very time period the Quakers and their like were also coming to be, and they always got it, right from the beginning, because it is blindingly obvious. Violent Christians who murder people for heresies are murderers, in every century. In Roman times, when the Christians took over, they closed the arenas and killing pits and stopped all of that. Why? They knew it was wrong, because of Jesus. To say that people living one thousand three hundred years AFTER the Romans, who had the benefit of the written gospels and the histories of what the Christians had done, are excused by their violent and evil culture does not work.

faroukfarouk said:

The Church of Rome had already burned Servetus in effigy. According to the Justinian Code in effect, execution was the punishment. Not a point in Calvin's favour; yet to focus uniquely on Calvin's response and ignore the context of the times would be another example of projecting assumptions about the past from the standpoint of the present.

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what has "the context of the times", got to do with anything? ALL true believers in Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible's teachings, have first recourse to the Holy Bible, and NOT the laws of the land. The UK, like some states in the US, have made it "legal" for homosexuals to marry, adopt children, etc. Are you suggesting that because these are now "laws", they they are to be obeyed and followed, even though the Bible is 100% against it? Should a Pastor marry these, because the evil "law" of the land says so? Calvin likewise had the option to abstain or vote against, but he CHOSE not to!

faroukfarouk said:

Not a point in Calvin's favour; yet to focus uniquely on Calvin's response and ignore the context of the times would be another example of projecting assumptions about the past from the standpoint of the present.

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You are correct, except for the fact that it was the government of Geneva that did it, not Calvin himself.

Calvin was not part of the government of Geneva, and at this point in time his opponents were actually running the show.

Vicomte13 said:

The prohibitions on killing come from thousands of years further in the past than that.

Jesus, whom Calvin, Servetus, and Pope Leo all claimed to be serving, lived 1500 years before any of them.

Justify an execution by fire using the law of Jesus.
Try.

"Culture" and "The times" are no excuse and never a justification - not in a Christian society. Christ predates the English, French and German languages. There is NO EXCUSE AT ALL for what the Christians did, all that murder and torture and horror. It was always evil, and they always knew it. They were TEACHERS OF THE LAW OF GOD. They had READ the Gospels and KNEW what Jesus said. They had no excuse. They judged without mercy. Jesus told them that God will judge without mercy those who judge without mercy. They knew it, and if they didn't know it, they were bad religious scholars, idiots and illiterates who could not read the plain language of Jesus.

Thing is, in that very time period the Quakers and their like were also coming to be, and they always got it, right from the beginning, because it is blindingly obvious. Violent Christians who murder people for heresies are murderers, in every century. In Roman times, when the Christians took over, they closed the arenas and killing pits and stopped all of that. Why? They knew it was wrong, because of Jesus. To say that people living one thousand three hundred years AFTER the Romans, who had the benefit of the written gospels and the histories of what the Christians had done, are excused by their violent and evil culture does not work.

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Pointing to the context of the times is not the same as trying to justify.

It's not very meaningful either to sit here in 21st century North America and pontificate about what historical personalities - focusing uniquely on them and not on their times also - 'should have done'.

Radagast said:

Well, let me clarify once again that I don't personally support the death penalty for heresy. But no doubt Justinian was thinking of verses like this:

Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (1 Kings 18:40)

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I note that you keep referring to "Justinian"? Was his writings Infallible? Were all of his actions in line with what the Bible says? Is this what Jesus Christ says in the NT? Can you provide ONE NT verse to support what you say?

Radagast said:

You are correct, except for the fact that it was the government of Geneva that did it, not Calvin himself.

Calvin was not part of the government of Geneva, and at this point in time his opponents were actually running the show.

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I take it that John Calvin, at the time of this trial, was blind and dumb, and had no sense of what is right and wrong? I simply cannot understand why ANY Christian would support this unlawful (in God's Book) MURDER?

faroukfarouk said:

It's not very meaningful either to sit here in 21st century North America and pontificate about what historical personalities - focusing uniquely on them and not on their times also - 'should have done'.

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Since the teachings of Christ and His apostles are timeless, none can use this excuse.

Micah888 said:

Since the teachings of Christ and His apostles are timeless, none can use this excuse.

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Excuse? I'm not defending it.

My point is that moralizing against historical personalities from a totally different context does not shed much light on them uniquely.

PS: It's rather like saying:

"Hey, look at me in 2018! I'm me! May God reward me for being me in 2018!"

It's not a sound way to read history.

faroukfarouk said:

Excuse? I'm not defending it.

My point is that moralizing against historical personalities from a totally different context does not shed much light on them uniquely.

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Why not simply say that Calvin was 100% wrong, because the Bible does not condone what he did?

Alpha.Omega said:

Calvin likewise had the option to abstain or vote against, but he CHOSE not to!

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Are you somehow not getting this? Calvin did not have a vote in the proceedings. The people that voted were magistrates (who were actually opponents of Calvin). They were supported by the governments of several other Swiss cities, from whom they sought advice. If I recall correctly, Calvin was not even present at the trial in person; he provided written testimony.

Calvin could not "abstain" or "vote against," because he did not have a vote.

Radagast said:

Are you somehow not getting this? Calvin did not have a vote in the proceedings. The people that voted were magistrates (who were actually opponents of Calvin). They were supported by the governments of several other Swiss cities, from whom they sought advice. If I recall correctly, Calvin was not even present at the trial in person; he provided written testimony.

Calvin could not "abstain" or "vote against," because he did not have a vote.

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see #46

Alpha.Omega said:

stop trying to justify Calvin!

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I'm not; but you're obviously not getting my point. It's rather like saying:

"Let's vilify all the Christians who supported President Johnson in '64 for bombing North Vietnam, who supported Eden over Suez in '56, etc., etc."

Radagast said:

Well, let me clarify once again that I don't personally support the death penalty for heresy. But no doubt Justinian was thinking of verses like this:

Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (1 Kings 18:40)

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Justinian was a Christian Taliban, just like Calvin and Pope Leo. Evil men who killed other men for disagreeing with them on religious matters.

Elijah was commanding Jews under the Torah. We're not Jews. Justinian, Cauvin, Pope Leo, you and I are Christians, living under the law of Jesus.

Justinian could no more justify what he did under Jesus' law than you can. He was wrong, and BECAUSE he was wrong, he left a legacy of evil within the church and the mind of the West so deep that it ended up being the primary reason that Christianity has been demoted and sent off to the woodshed. BECAUSE the Christian Church very confidently went around killing heretics for 1400 years - from the late 300s until the 1800s - it became a legitimate object of disgust, such that when people seized control of their governments through popular revolutions, EVERYWHERE they did so they ripped any residual power out of the hands of the church. And they were right in doing so. The Church failed, because it would not renounce bloodshed to get its way. Remember, the reason that the formerly Christian East went over so rapidly to Islam was that the Christian East was still the Roman Empire, and despite being Christian, the Christian Romans would not give up the enslavement of their fellow Christians. They had all sorts of elaborate Christian defenses of a practice that cannot be defended under the law of Jesus. (So did the Confederates.)

When the Muslims swept in, they offered freedom from slavery to Christian masters for anybody who renounced Christianity for Islam. And thus Christianity swiftly lost half of its members in the East - because Christianity meant continuing to groan in the chains of slavery, to another Christian no less - and all of it justified legally by the established Catholic Church of the Byzantine Empire - while Islam meant freedom.

The Muslims of that time were closer to following the law of Jesus than the Byzantine Christians they conquered. Or the Confederates for that matter.

The law of Jesus has been around since the First Century and is very clear.
What Justinian did defies it.
What Leo and Cauvin and Luther and others of that era did defies it.
What the Confederates did defies us.
What we do in our own day defies it.
It's been clear since Jesus said it, and for any Christian to devise a way around it so he can wield greater political power over other man than God gave to men is always, and always has been, evil and perfectly obviously so. The Quakers managed to get this right in the 1650s, before Cromwell and his Puritans went and burnt down Ireland, and half a century before Salem's Christians hanged their witches.

Christian violence has been indefensible since Jesus.
Cultural defenses and "time, place and manner" defenses are unavailing.

Christians should man up, face down the evil in themselves, acknowledge the evil of their own past actions and repent them, and also acknowledge the evils done by their countries, their cultures, their governments and churches, cease to try to defend it, admit it was wrong, repent it, and move forward determined not to REPEAT it, and not to try to JUSTIFY evils past.

And to not let each other getting away with trying to let the past off the hook.
It was sin, and they knew it. If they DIDN'T, then how can ANY Christian look back at them as teachers at all. If they were so incapable of reading Jesus and knowing they could not put men into the fire and follow him, then they were complete morons, and violent thugs, who have NOTHING AT ALL to teach us today, other than how NOT to be.

That George Fox and the Quakers, simple peasants, managed to understand this completely way back then puts the lie to the cultural argument. The culture itself was bad, and it produced bad fruit, and there were Christians in the middle of it who knew it and who followed Christ and didn't justify any of it.

That means that it was ENTIRELY possible, even for little, relatively uneducated people, to get it right.
Which means that a lawyer like Cauvin, or a highly educated grandee like Pope Leo, have NO EXCUSE.

And it means that Christians should STOP trying to excuse them. "The times" doesn't cut it. Jesus PRECEDED their times, and people DURING their times DID get it. They have NO excuse, and they shouldn't be accorded any. They were criminals, they did great evil to other men, and to the Church, and to the reputation of God all around the world. Their evil thoughts contaminated their theologies and left them weak and useless. If we're going to insist on listening to theologians of the 16th and 17th Centuries as the basis of anything, then we have no excuse - if we're going to follow Christ anyway - to not just dump all of them and listen to George Fox. He's a bit of an earnest simpleton, but at least he heard the Holy Spirit and FOLLOWED it, and he and his'n at least acted the way Jesus said to act. The Quakers were better than the Catholics or Protestants of that violent era, so if we're going to pick a theology from the 1500s and 1600s to follow, if we don't want to run out on Jesus in the process then we should all be following the Quakers of back then. They didn't kill anybody, which makes their religion more Christian than the other "Christians" that modern day Christians are trying to excuse.

There is no excuse for what Cauvin did. It was evil. Pure and simple.

Alpha.Omega said:

Show me from history where this is wrong

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I gave you a link to a book.

In many ways, the trial of Servetus in Geneva represents a colossal miscalculation on Servetus' part. He spent a large part of the trial bad-mouthing Calvin in absentia (even launching a lawsuit against Calvin). Apparently Servetus realised that the magistrates were anti-Calvin (it is possible that his reason for coming to Geneva was an attempt to take over Calvin's role as preacher). But Servetus didn't seem to realise that, because the magistrates were anti-Calvin, they needed to look tough on heresy.

Radagast said:

I gave you a link to a book.

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yeah, I saw that, written by someone who is trying to justify what the Bible does not, and argues from a biased perspective.

"Although Calvin insisted with the rest that Servetus must die, he urged that in mercy Servetus be executed by the sword, not by burning, but the Council rejected the suggestion"
Michael Servetus Burned for Heresy

Radagast said:

What rubbish! Servetus was condemned by the government of Geneva (preaching against the Trinity was a crime in Geneva, just as it was in Roman Catholic countries, and Servetus had already been condemned to death in France). Calvin did not actually want Servetus burned, but had no influence on the sentence.

That was generous of Calvin; personally I think Servetus got what he deserved.

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That's got Christian charity written all over it. Sounds just like Jesus. Oh, wait.