Calvin's Life: The Servetus Affair
He had it coming. ;-)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
To those Calvinists who say they have never seen a Calvinist attempt to justify or minimize John Calvin’s part in brutally killing Servetus – here is one of many examples. He also conveniently leaves out information.
Instead of defending the indefensible, why not just say John Calvin was dead wrong on this issue.
David R. Brumbelow
Dr. Panosian was my Church History professor at BJU. Along with being a knowledgeable teacher he has an aspect of ministry in which he portrays great men of the past (Luther, Huss, Buntan, Tyndale, etc.) in the first person. They’re all on sermonaudio.com
Here’s his presentation on John Calvin with what I believe is an adequate explanation of the Servetus incident at about 45 minutes. It settled the matter for me the first time I heard it.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
David, upon re-reading your screed about Servetus, it would seem that the source here does not leave out information at all, but rather he is working from sources which flat out contradict your rendition of Verduin’s work. Sounds like a time of going back to primary sources.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Verduin quote for this thread:
“The burning of Servetus – let it be said with utmost clarity – was a deed for which Calvin must be held largely responsible. It was not done in spite of Calvin, as some over-ardent admirers of his are wont to say. He planned it beforehand and maneuvered it from start to finish. It occurred because of him and not in spite of him. After it had taken place Calvin defended it, with every possible and impossible argument. There is every reason to believe that if it had not been for the fact that public opinion was beginning to run against this kind of thing there would have been many more such burnings. The event was the direct result of the sacralism to which Calvin remained committed, a sacralism which he never discarded.”
-Leonard Verduin (AD 1897-1999), a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary, and the University of Michigan. Verduin knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French, Dutch, English. On the subject of Calvin, it is noteworthy that Verduin is of the Reformed tradition.
The above quote is from “The Reformers and Their Stepchildren”, by Leonard Verduin, Eerdmans; 1964. Reprinted by The Baptist Standard Bearer,Inc., Paris, Arkansas.
http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2016/09/john-calvin-killing-servetu…
David R. Brumbelow
“When we remember that Calvin, in consistency with his theocratic ideas, was intolerant on principle, and take into account the pertinacity with which Servetus had for years pressed upon him his erratic views and denounced him as a hypocrite, a disciple of antichrist, and a propagator of the most dangerous errors, it is not much to be wondered at that when he received a complimentary copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitution’ he should have felt prompted to put even the Roman Catholic authorities in the way of seizing the abominated author, or that when Servetus, which an infatuation hard to be explained, came to Geneva, Calvin should have used his influence to secure his arrest, condemnation, and execution.”
“On October 24, 1553, having with rare courage refused to withdraw his objectionable teachings, he was burned at the stake along with his books. After writhing in the flames for half an hour, he cried aloud, ‘Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’ and gave up the ghost. The leading Reformers of Germany and Switzerland heartily commended Calvin and the Genevan Council for ridding the world of one who was regarded as an arch-enemy of the truth.”
-Albert Henry Newman, D.D., LL.D., “A Manuel of Church History,” Volume II Modern Church History (A.D. 1517-1932), American Baptist Publication Society; 1902, 1931, 1953. Dr. Newman was a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reprinted by SWBTS in 2008.
Notice John Calvin reported Servetus to the Roman Catholic authorities hoping they would do the job for him.
Notice that Calvin “used his influence to secure his [Servetus] arrest, condemnation, and execution.”
Notice “the leading Reformers of Germany and Switzerland heartily commended Calvin and the Genevan Council for ridding the world of one who was regarded as an arch-enemy of the truth.”
David R. Brumbelow
….is that in most of Western Europe and the United States, general liberty of conscience in church membership and worship occurred at the earliest in the 18th century, two centuries after this deal. As I noted in the other thread, had Arminius (1560-1609) been in a non-Reformed Geneva and received the same documents as had Calvin, he would have done exactly the same thing with exactly the same result. If you doubt this, “google” “Bloody Mary”, “St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre”, “Scots Covenanters”, “Thirty Years War”, and the like. State churches in this country persisted past the signing of the Constitution as well. For that matter, consider that Catholic Vienne also handed down a sentence for blasphemy against him.
Or, for that matter, just bring the matter up to any educated Jew, and you might hear the phrase “cry me a river” when you complain about the treatment of Christian religious minorities. So to castigate Calvin for things pretty much the rest of Europe was doing at the time is simply to prove that one has no clue about the course of history. The idea that society can abide without a state church is really pretty new, and the idea that a society can abide vocal heretics in its midst is new as well.
I repeat, by the way, the challenge to use sources which are closer to primary sources than those here, or those David has linked. The wikipedia page for Servetus appears to have some good links.
So yes, Calvin, and the rest of Europe, had a blind spot to the Baptistic doctrine of individual soul liberty in the same way that Albert Newman appears to have had a blind spot to the Jim Crow policies of his employer. And so…?
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
There is a Letter from Calvin to Melancthon where he frankly says that he had Servetus done to death. This is a black mark against him (as per the Verduin quote above) and he ought not to be excused for it. Interestingly, and I think germane to the subject; Herman Hoeksema wrote a pamphlet in which he castigated Calvin and others for their intemperate rhetoric. I agree, there is a contempt in Calvin’s writing against Pighius for example.
Calvin was a great theologian and commentator and preacher, but he was a many-faceted man, and not every facet was laudable.
Dr. Paul Henebury
I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.
[Paul Henebury]There is a Letter from Calvin to Melancthon where he frankly says that he had Servetus done to death.
Can you provide a link?
CanJAmerican - my blog
CanJAmerican - my twitter
whitejumaycan - my youtube
Here’s an online, searchable source. I do not find the letter Paul refers to.
Calvin says quite a bit that we might term intemperate today, some of it regarding wolves like Servetus (is there any better term for those who twist the Trinity?). It was a rough & tumble age—keep in mind that the 30 Years War was yet ~65 years in the future, and that war is said to have killed 25% of the population of Germany. Keep in mind as well that the Turks had only fairly recently (1529) been repelled from the walls of Vienna, and Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, and Greece were yet under Ottoman rule.
It was therefore not a time when people felt that religious turmoil would be acceptable in a principality or republic—including Luther, Melanchthon, and a lot of others. It was also a time when a small city like Geneva could hardly afford to be seen by neighboring powers like Austria and France as one which was willing not only to offend against the Council of Trent, but also against a core Christian doctrine like the Trinity.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
“The only advocates of toleration in the sixteenth century were Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians, who were themselves sufferers from persecution. Let us give them credit for their humanity.”
-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church
David R. Brumbelow
“David Brumbelow is the quotation ninja - always ready with an appropriate excerpt from somebody! Bravo!” :)
-Tyler Robbins, ordinary Christian
Just kidding, David. You clearly read a lot.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Maybe I missed the intention of te quote but I thought toleration of false doctrine was bad.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
Those who argue that religious minorities—heretics and Anabaptists—were uniformly peaceful need to read up on the Zwickau Prophets and German Peasant’s War. There might certainly be those who early on embraced peaceful coexistence, but it’s simultaneously arguable that for many, it was simply an admission that they had, or would have, gotten their clocks cleaned in strife, and they didn’t want a repeat of the same.
Not that religious toleration is a bad thing, but all too often, the “toleration” practiced by the Anabaptists is used as a club to avoid discussion of real theological issues. No, thank you.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[David R. Brumbelow]“The only advocates of toleration in the sixteenth century were Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians, who were themselves sufferers from persecution. Let us give them credit for their humanity.”
-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church
David R. Brumbelow
Schaff must’ve forgotten about Huguenots in 16th France century before the 1598 Edict of Nantes granting toleration (until its Revocation in 1685 by Louis XIV).
Discussion