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I decided to use the image of Sebastian Castellio as my avatar, a figure that most Protestants probably know nothing about.
Castellio was a Reformed Protestant and one-time friend of Calvin that stayed in Geneva during the worst of the plagues, tending the sick as other elders fled the city out of fear. But he came to disagree with Calvin's authoritarian style, and he denounced Calvin after the execution of Miguel Servetus for heresy, which Calvin approved. He wrote, "If you kill a man for doctrine, you do not prove the doctrine. You merely murder a man". Prophetically, he foresaw the ruin of Europe unless Christians learned to live together in love "until we attain to the unity of faith". His writings would go on to directly influence John Lock's ideas of religious toleration, though Locke hid his contact with Castellio's writings, because it was seen as potentially defending a heretic, which could have brought the death penalty.
There's a new historical novel about his clash with Calvin, Fire and Faith:
Castellio was a Reformed Protestant and one-time friend of Calvin that stayed in Geneva during the worst of the plagues, tending the sick as other elders fled the city out of fear. But he came to disagree with Calvin's authoritarian style, and he denounced Calvin after the execution of Miguel Servetus for heresy, which Calvin approved. He wrote, "If you kill a man for doctrine, you do not prove the doctrine. You merely murder a man". Prophetically, he foresaw the ruin of Europe unless Christians learned to live together in love "until we attain to the unity of faith". His writings would go on to directly influence John Lock's ideas of religious toleration, though Locke hid his contact with Castellio's writings, because it was seen as potentially defending a heretic, which could have brought the death penalty.
There's a new historical novel about his clash with Calvin, Fire and Faith:
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
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