Article by Dan Doriani (MDiv, PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary; STM, Yale Divinity School; research fellow, Yale University, 1981, 1995), professor of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary; interim senior pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama; and a Board member of The Gospel Coalition.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-is-the-abomination-of-desolation
I don’t know the author of this… he/she goes by the title “holy nope” – but I appreciate the facts outlined here:
Forgive my spicy response, but the random Calvinist slander on unrelated posts does get tiresome, and I do pity that putrid combination of ignorance and arrogance.
The claim: ”Calvin the murderer had his theological opponents executed, like Michael Servetus.”
The facts:
Calvin had no power to execute anyone. He didn’t burn Servetus in his back yard. He didn’t burn Servetus at all. He had no legal authority in Geneva. He was not a magistrate. He didn’t even become a citizen of Geneva until 1559, four years after Servetus was executed. He had no means by which to arrest, try, or sentence anyone. Geneva was a sacral state: a society in which church and state were formally intertwined, and civil authority was expected to uphold and enforce religious orthodoxy. Geneva was not unique, but rather typical of both Protestant and Roman Catholic cities during the Reformation era. This means that the government assumed a divine responsibility to protect and promote true religion. Heresy and blasphemy were civil crimes punishable by the state. Servetus was found guilty of denying the Trinity, denying Christ’s enteral Sonship and deity, blasphemous speech (often mocking the Trinity and other doctrines), and repeated defiance of church and civil authority. Servetus has already been condemned to death by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in Vienne. He was on the run. He had been warned repeatedly to cease publishing his heresies.
Servetus was condemned by the Geneva Council, not John Calvin. All the major Protestant cities in Switzerland at the time agreed with the death sentence, even those who disagreed with Calvin’s theology. Servetus execution was consistent with the legal treatment of heresy across both Protestant and Catholic regions in the 16th century.
Calvin opposed the method of execution (burning) and urged the city council to use the sword instead, as it was more humane. The council ignored his request.
Calvin wrote in a letter to William Farel on October 27, 1553, “I tried to prevent the capital penalty… I desired that the severity of the punishment be mitigated.”
All of the above is common knowledge. Commenters like this tell on themselves.
So you’re not a Calvinist. I don’t care. I’m a Christian first. Calvin was a flawed man like us all. But “Calvin was a murderer“ is slander to be repented of, a malicious myth worthy of mockery that holds not one ounce of truth.
We moderns often assume moral superiority over the past, when usually we have none.
In the words of L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Article by Joe Carter: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-the-council-of-trent
A further update: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-the-reformation-over-a-statement-of-evangelical-convictions/
John Stott: “We are ready to co-operate with them (Roman Catholics, Orthodox or liberal Protestants) in good works of Christian compassion and social justice. It is when we are invited to evangelize with them that we find ourselves in a painful dilemma for common witness necessitates common faith, and co-operation in evangelism depends on agreement over the content of the gospel.”
“At the moment the Roman Catholic Church condemned the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, she denied the gospel and ceased to be a legitimate church, regardless of all the rest of her affirmations of Christian orthodoxy. To embrace her as an authentic church while she continues to repudiate the biblical doctrine of salvation is a fatal attribution.” – Dr. R.C. Sproul, “Is the Reformation Over?” Tabletalk, September 2009, p. 7.
See the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent, Canons 9, 11, 24, 30, 32.
“The Roman Catholic Church has changed since the 16th century. There’s no question about it. And the differences that we had in the 16th century have changed. They’re far greater now than they were in the 16th century. All the Mariological decrees have come since the Reformation. The ‘de fide’ proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope came since the Protestant Reformation. Things are not getting better; they’re worse. And in the recent Roman Catholic Catechism of the decade of the 90s, all of the essential issues of the 16th-century debate were reaffirmed in that catechism including the treasury of merit, purgatory, indulgences, justification through the sacraments. So, when people say that the Reformation is over, they just don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s that simple.” – Dr. R. C. Sproul