Church and State

[rmwilliamsll]

I am working this week on an essay for my sunday school class on Calvin's Institutes on the topic of the execution of Servetus as a way to tease apart the threads involved in the relationship of church and state.

it promises to be a rather significant undertaking and i would appreciate help from those knowledgable in the field.

today's notes are at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmwilliamsjr/134645.html#cutid1

and the class page is at:
http://www.dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/lesson_plan.html

TIA

 

[Crazy Liz]

I don't know if you want to restrict yourself to Calvinist sources or sources sympathetic to Calvin, but have you checked out this thread?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

thanks for the links,
i read:
the Reformers and their Stepchildren,
Calvin and the Anabaptist radicals
radical reformation by g. williams

for this class..

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i finished the first draft, it is at:
http://www.dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/lesson15_essay.html
it begins---->

Justification:

If you were to analyze the anti-Calvin sites and essays on the net, most of them would make reference to the execution of Michael Servetus and how this event makes Calvin's lifetime work in theology at least suspect, if not totally invalidate. There seem to be two great champions of this viewpoint: secularists who would remake Servetus into a proto-scientist fighting the forces of religion and other darkness and fundamentalist Baptists (see Servetus cover-up comic below) who see their roots in the Anabaptist movement and find in the event a way to cast a cloud over Calvin and thereby dismiss his theology. In both cases, ignorance of the real issues seems to predominate and I hope this lesson will help Reformed Christians understand the fundamental and important issues at stake.
What are the issues?

The first is the necessity of discipline in the church, how it is used and for what purposes.
The second is the relationship of the church to the magistrate.[ii]
This issue has an historical component in the doctrine of the two swords by Augustine and the Constantinian synthesis.
The third is the continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Testament as interpreted by Calvin and covenant theology and the effects of this exegesis on infant baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The last I will discuss is the underlying theme of Christendom or Corpus Christianum[iii] and how boundaries are drawn and under what kind of forces these ideas mutate over time. The relationship of Islam to this boundary is of primary importance and is not generally recognized.

 

[danceforjoy]

Don't know if I am any good to you? The N.T. condemns the union. Church+the State=equals persecution
Once the State starts to favour one above the other, it becomes a man devouring Beast 666
The Church rides or directs the beast like it has done in the past.

In Rev.17 we have such an example where we se the great Religious harlot commits adultery with politics.
James 4:4 explains that wordliness is enmity with GOD! Does it mean that our many Statechurches in Christendom belong to that categoty???
think about it!

it all depends on which side you are on if you like to see it repeated. we are not far of the new world order-one religion for all?

 

[All4one]

I think church and state should be nearly the same. The chuch (body of christ) should be the STATE of mind for everyone!