Servetus' death a new Protestant policy

"The punishment of Servetus was a stroke of policy. Calvin gained in character with his contemporaries by it. He had justified his faith by his acts, and not left the Church of Rome the sole glory of taking vengeance on the enemies of Christ. All the Protestants approved; Melanchthon emphatically so. Calvin never repented it. Greatly as the Calvinistic Churches have served the cause of political liberty, they have contributed nothing to the progress of knowledge."

--Mark Pattison, "Calvin at Geneva" in Essays by the Late Mark Pattison, Sometime Rector of Lincoln College, Volume II. 1889, p.41 

Comments

[Gary Small]

Peter, I've said it before, and though you don't agree, I will say it again: Calvinism is a "damnable/destructive" heresy. IF you don't believe me, just ask Servetus! Your quote above certainly seems to confirm my assertion. I realize that few if a any people are being killed by Calvinists as was Servetus, but many are dying spiritually because of this false teaching.

[Scott Shaver]

And as Southern Baptists, we're allowing their mutant offspring to revise our own history.

Like sheep to the theological slaughter.....

[Lydia]

I am a bit fuzzy on the "political liberty" part. Perhaps I should focus on "political". William of Orange? Oliver Cromwell? The Puritans? John Knox? Oh dear.

[Eric]

Gary,
As a reformed baptist, otherwise known as Calvinist , would you say I am a heretic?
If yes, am I hell bound?
If no, why do you say Calvinism is a damnable / destructive heresy if a teach and preach it , yet am right with God.

Off to work...Eric

[JND]

Eric,

Because you are right with God but your teaching isn't?

[Bill Mac]

JND: There is a difference between "your teaching isn't right" and "teaching damnable heresy that is spiritually killing people". If Gary thinks that Calvinists are saved but are sending people to hell with their teaching, that would be a trifle inconsistent wouldn't you think?

Unless of course Gary means something else by "dying spiritually".

[dr. james willingham]

Notice that Pattison's work was published in the fruits of so-called Calvinistic labor, religious liberty, vide Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke. The problem, folks, is that a man's name was attached to certain doctrines, the doctrines of grace, if you please, and because he did not fully grasp how they worked, you blame the truths instead of the man. Following that kind of thinking, we really ought to call the truths of the Christian Faith Judasism and the teachers of it Judasists. And yet our Lord chose the Son of Perdition to be one of the Twelve. Wow! You folks are not very careful in thinking through the implications of your reasoning.

And as to taking over Baptist history, just look at the Confessions of Faith of the Philadelphia, Charleston, Sandy Creek, Elkhorn, and Georgia Baptist Associations, along with their churches. Just consider the Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, organized in 1814, joined Sandy Creek Assn. in 1816. The articles of faith of that church specify that Christ died for the church - not a word about Him dying for the world. O, and the important fact about that church is that the first missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention to China, Matthew Tyson Yates, was converted there and even served as a moderator of the church business meeting in 1820. O and the Sandy Creek Assn. in 1816 was led to join in the launching of the Great Century of Missions by a fellow who said Predestination was in the Bible and you had better preach it (Luther Rice in his Memoirs). Rice also served as chairman of the Committee that drew up the Confession of Faith in that year. Another member of that committee was Basil Manly, Sr., who would pastor the First Baptist Church of Charleston, suggest the founding of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, serve as the President of the Educational Conventions of Southern Baptists in 1857, 1858, and 1859 which established the seminary. A preacher boy from his church would serve as the First President of SBTS, a supralapsarian, named Dr. James Petigru Boyce. You might want to read his Abstract of Systematic Theology. Another member of the faculty was Dr. John A Broadus who said one might as well sneer at Mont Blanc as to sneer at Calvinism. A third member of the faculty was Basil Manly, Jr., and the fourth, Dr. William Williams, all noted for their theological leanings toward the theology you all seem bent on condemning. O, and I need to add the First President of the Board of the Trustees was Basil Manly, Sr., whose inclinations favored the theology of Sovereign Grace.

Gentlemen and ladies, you do your cause no service by failing to note the facts of our history. The records are plain, and it is also evident that the so-called Calvinists in the period of 1787-1800 opened up the doors in order to allow for differences. When I was ordained, May 20, 1962, my ordaining pastor was from Manning South Carolina, a former associate of Dr. Robert G. Lee (and the only man named in Dr. Lee's will to preach his funteral). He was a self-proclaimed supralapsarian Hyper Calvinist, and he preached some of the best evangelistic sermons I have ever heard. Funny thing about the whole deal was that I was not at all a believer in his doctrines of grace. When he asked me what I believed about original sin, I answered, "Which theory do you want? There are 6." His reply was, "Jim, don't be a smart alec." With in a year of dealing with folks with that problem in my first pastorate and in studying a Puritan's sermon on the subject, I began to believe, and it followed from there. These truths are coming back, because prayer has been made for a Third Great Awakening for more than 50 years (I began to pray for such a visitation in 1973 without giving any thought to the theology. Others have prayed even longer). But the facts are clear that the Awakenings and the launching of the modern missionary movement had their roots in so-called Calvinistic theology. And mind you, I hold to the doctrines of Williams and Clarke on grace and their doctrine of religious liberty. In order to have such an awakening one must have the same theology that produced the other awakenings. O yes, and let me add that I have a brother-in-law who was won to Christ by a Calvinistic Youth minister, ordained by the same pastor I was (and his father's name is on my ordination papers, a deacon who was in the first wave on Omaha Beach), studied under Curtis Vaughan, the noted Calvinistic Greek Scholar at SWBTS 60s-80s, and he believes like you all do. Far as I am concerned, you can drop the "in-law" business. He is my brother, and he will tell you the same about me. You folks are wasting your time. Let a man preach his views and let him alone. God will straighten him out, if He thinks the fellow or female (remember Sandy Creek Church had "eldresses," one of whom got to Georgia and won a law official who arrested her husband, Elder Daniel Marshall, the father of the Georgia Baptist Assn.(if memory serves correctly)).

[Andrew Barker]

The problem, folks, is that a man's name was attached to certain doctrines, the doctrines of grace, if you please, and because he did not fully grasp how they worked, you blame the truths instead of the man.

So Dr. Willingham, Calvin didn't understand Cavlinism? Where is the brilliant theologian that we're always being told he was?

Another of your bold assertions is this .."But the facts are clear that the Awakenings and the launching of the modern missionary movement had their roots in so-called Calvinistic theology.

You have absolutely no proof of this. It is purely your opinion. Nothing more or less than that. I would suggest that God's missionary call goes out to whoever HE wishes irrespective of the person's theology. There is absolutely nothing causative about Calvinism as far as missionary calling is concerned. All I would say is that Calvinism doesn't prevent anybody from becoming or wanting to be a missionary.

[Mike Smith]

What is amazing to me is that Calvinists who reply on blogs such as this want to make the theology of Calvin the issue when the issue is the the murder of Servetus. I believe it's been proven that Calvin was at the very least, an accessory to Servetus' murder and at the most he was the planner and executioner of Servetus.

Now, addressing Calvin's theology. Calvinism is a theological system with it's own vocabulary and understanding and uses the Bible to justify that system. I find it interesting that Calvinists adore the applause of each other for their "in house" theological prowess and ability to label all who don't agree with some sort of "___________ist" moniker("syner-gist",for instance when someone exercises their will to Believe on Jesus.). I think that the whole system, whether "New" or the old run-of-the-mill theology that is little more than obtuse which makes God something that He isn't.

Mike
www.lostinmymusing.blogspot.com

[peter lumpkins]

Dr. Willingham,

If I may. First, I don’t follow what you mean by suggesting the problem is that a man's name was attached to certain doctrines and because he did not fully grasp how they worked, you blame the truths instead on the man. To whom are you referring and what does it mean to this particular post?

Second, your rehearsal of Baptist history suffers from the same type of historical reductionism I observe all too commonplace from Founders type Calvinists, Dr. Willingham. You quickly cite all the strict Calvinistic elements of our heritage and make not a single mention of the much more moderated Calvinism splattered throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The truth is, strict Calvinism entered the 19th century on shaky footing beginning with the anti-missions controversy and scratched and clawed all the way through the century trying to hold on to its influence. It failed. By the 20th century, strict Calvinism in the SBC was all but eclipsed by what Calvinists like yourself call either “non-Calvinism” or even “Arminianism.” In fact Calvinism had so waned in the first decade of the 20th century that Z.T. Cody, then editor of South Carolina’s The Baptist Courier and a “theologian of first rank” according to The Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, wrote,

“This system [i.e. Five Point Calvinism] can be, it is true, found in some of the older confessions of faith and it was at that time held by some Baptist churches.  It is also true that there are now many of our churches which hold some of the doctrines of this system.  All Baptist churches, so far as we know, hold to the perseverance of the saints.  But it can be very confidently affirmed that there is now no Baptist church that holds or defends the five points of Calvinism.  Some of the doctrines are repugnant to our people.  Could there be found a minister in our communion who believes in the theory of a limited atonement?” (//link)

What is more, you cite all the standard Calvinistic confessions pointing out specifically from one that while “Christ died for the church” there’s “not a word about Him dying for the world.” On the other hand, consider Cody’s telling question cited above from the turn of the 19th century: “Could there be found a minister in our communion who believes in the theory of a limited atonement?”

Nor is the notion of general atonement only present at the turn of the 19th century indicated by Cody’s claim above. General atonement amongst Baptists in the south can be easily observed also at the turn of the 18th century. In your rehearsal of Baptists’ confessional history, you conveniently overlook, for example, the historic “Terms of Union” adopted in 1801 by two prominent Kentucky Baptist associations (Elkhorn and South Kentucky) wherein the confession completely omitted any reference to eternal election or predestination, common Calvinistic confessional themes, and specifically said concerning the death of Christ in Article 9, “And that the preaching Christ tasted death for every man, shall be no bar to communion” (A Baptist Source Book, Robert A.Baker, 1966, pp.46-47). Hence your exhortation to us that we “do [our] cause no service by failing to note the facts of our history” becomes a double-edged blade, Dr. Willingham, because Baptist Calvinists far too often reduce Baptist history to Calvinistic Baptist history. In short, you cut your own theological throat.

I note also that in addition to being particularly selective in your citing of confessions, you appear to like dropping significant names from our Baptist heritage like Boyce, Manly, Williams, Broadus, et al, names of men whom you claim possess inclinations which favored the theology of Sovereign Grace. Yes, perhaps you’re correct. But again, Dr. Willingham, you’re highly selective in whom you cite and only mention those names which are friendly to your reductionist understanding of our Baptist heritage. We could easily match James Boyce with E.C. Dargan who hardly held to a Calvinistic understanding of Total Depravity. We could match Basil Manly with W.T. Brantly who served Philadelphia's historic First Baptist Church as pastor and ended his lifelong love-affair with Southern Baptists as editor of The Christian Index before passing on to glory. Brantly was anything but wed to the “doctrines of grace” as Calvinists typically defines them. He explicitly raised questions concerning eternal predestination and flat-out denied Irresistible Grace (//link).

Moreover, we might also match John Broadus with Andrew Broaddus. Broaddus was, according to strict Calvinst, J.B. Jeter, was one of the most influential Baptists in the first part of the 19th century, a legendary figure amongst Virginia Baptists if ever there was one. But Broaddus had absolutely no use for Limited Atonement. None (//link). But then again, John Broadus I recall had reservations concerning Limited Atonement as well.

We could go on if you’d like. You drop a name and I’ll match your name. But no need. I’ve posted enough to demonstrate that your exhortation to us that since the “records are plain,” we certainly do our cause no service by failing to note the facts of our Baptist history remains a jaded judgment based upon a reductionist understanding of our Baptist heritage. In short, you can claim we fail to note the facts of our Baptist history and consequently “do our cause no service“ only because the facts you exclusively consider are facts about Baptist Calvinism.

As a final note, citing primarily writing theologians, church covenants, and individual church confessions can only take us so far in understanding our theological heritage. It’s hardly a secret theologians many times are completely out-of-step with grassroots people in the pew. We might only cite the Conservative Resurgence to illustrate the observation. Hence, when we do cite the writing teachers—Dagg, Boyce, Dargan, Mullins, et al—we may possess some sense of what Baptists believed at certain moments, but we cannot affirm that’s the whole picture. It’s not too much to suggest that presently 90% of the SBC definitively rejects Limited Atonement while perhaps 90% of Southern seminary’s faculty presently embraces it. Thus, one cannot claim one fully understands our theological Baptist heritage just by noting writing theologians alone.

The same could be said concerning the citing of individual church confessions (associational and conventional confessions carry much more influence it seems to me). For example, you followed the routine procedure many Founders Calvinists like Tom Nettles employs—namely, citing a litany of individual church confessions with the intent to demonstrate the church’s Calvinistic thrust. However, the unspoken assumptions--and unproven assumptions I might add—are, the church not only allocated a significant amount of weight upon its confessional document, but also enforced the confessional document upon both pastors and members. I ask: where is the evidence to substantiate placing such confidence in our spiritual ancestors’ unequivocal allegiance to allocating confessional significance and enforcing confessional adherence on a local church level?

Interestingly, I’ve served a church which possessed, as a confessional document, a rather hefty Calvinistic statement. Yet I never met a single Calvinist amongst them. And, when I pointed it out to them, they’re like, uh? How often do we hear, “Baptists don’t know what they believe!”? Etc. Etc. Etc. Would this be indicative of a high allegiance to confessional documents on the local church level? I think not. 

Bottom line: what evidence do we have Baptist churches a century and a half ago held a higher allegiance to confessional documents, particularly Calvinistic documents than we do today?

I’ve not yet seen the evidence to confidently claim we might know, from looking at individual church confessions, the degree of actual Calvinism or non-Calvinism thriving amongst the churches. There is a telling quote by Broadus concerning the ministry candidates the churches sent James Boyce to theologically educate at Southern seminary. Broadus quotes E.E. Folk, then editor of Tennessee’s Baptist Reflector, on James P.Boyce:

"He was a great teacher. He could get more hard, solid study out of a boy than any teacher whose classes we ever had the privilege of attending, with possibly one or two exceptions. You had to know your Systematic Theology, or you could not recite it to Dr. Boyce. And though the young men were generally rank Arminians when they came to the Seminary, few went through this course under him without being converted to his strong Calvinistic views” (Memoir of James Petigru Boyce, John Broadus, 1893, p.265, italics added).

The question is, if the ministry candidates were “generally rank Arminians” as Folk suggests, what does this imply about the actual theology of the local churches from whence these men came? Is it reasonable to assume the candidates for ministry held similar theological views as did their sponsoring churches? It seems so to me. Furthermore, is it not reasonable to suppose the men who went to seminary represented some of the more gifted individuals in the church? Would it not also be reasonable to assume these men who were “called” to theological education to hone out their gifts in pastoral ministry, and would have already displayed a measure of soundness in their faith, expressed in some capacity their biblical knowledge, or teaching ability, etc.?

Again, what stands behind Folk’s notion that generally the men were not Calvinistic in their theology?

Whatever we make of it, we can hardly suppose Folk’s claim makes sense in an historical framework where Calvinism reigns as the ubiquitous theology of the local Baptist church as we’re routinely reminded by our strict Calvinist brothers.

With that, I am…

Peter

[Scott Shaver]

At the risk of piling on Dr. Willingham:

You offer nothing from either a theological or historical perspective which addresses the trajectory of the SBC away rather than toward these more "pristine" expressions of high Calvinism that you and others seem to prefer.

A lot of significant and meaningful water has passed under the bridge of Protestant thought and practice since the civil war, reconstruction and yes ... even the Sandy Creek association.

Why not try analyzing uniquely Southern Baptist confessional documents after the Philadelphia Confession and prior to AD 2000. Lot of meaningful history there.

[Scott Shaver]

One more question of Dr. Willingham.

With reference to "doing our cause no service"...what in your understanding is "our cause" and why must the language of adversarialism be utilized in this context.

Are we actually at war or in competition with one another over "the truth"?

[Lydia]

Peter, excellent comment concerning our historical heritage.

It fits something I see here in a SBC/Acts 29 church which now has it's own church planting network (after the Petry's website Joyful Exiles came out). I know quite a few people who attend there and none of them knew it was "Reformed" or Calvinistic. Even though, as an original Acts 29 plant, it was required to be Reformed. Not one of them went there as a Calvinist.

It really is uncanny. But I assume they are following the advice of Ernest Reisinger in chapter 4 of "Quiet Revolution".

[Lydia]

"A lot of significant and meaningful water has passed under the bridge of Protestant thought and practice since the civil war, reconstruction and yes ... even the Sandy Creek association."

Exactly. Perhaps when folks came to the harsh realization that the "determinist" God did not hand them victory to own and control other "lesser" people, it waned. A lot.

[Ryan]

To Dr. Willingham,

You said:

“Notice that Pattison's work was published in the fruits of so-called Calvinistic labor, religious liberty, vide Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke. “

This is an over-simplification and does not tell the entire story. It is true that Roger Williams promoted religious liberty, but this was in spite of his Calvinism, and not because of it. You failed to mention that Roger Williams, like other Baptists, faced severe persecution at the hands of evil bloodthirsty Puritan Calvinists who ran the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

You also said:

“The problem, folks, is that a man's name was attached to certain doctrines, the doctrines of grace, if you please, and because he did not fully grasp how they worked, you blame the truths instead of the man. “

John Calvin's name is attached to Calvinistic doctrines because of the fact that it was he who systematized and elaborated those doctrines in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. The facts from church history are that Calvinistic doctrines were not taught by any of the church fathers until around 400 A.D., when Augustine the former Manichean took ideas from Platonism, Manichaeism, and early Romanism to form his teaching of predestination. It was John Calvin who took Augustine's teachings and developed them further.

Also, are you saying that John Calvin didn't fully grasp how Calvinism worked? Are you serious? So who does fully understand how Calvinism works? Or is Calvinism some group of Gnostic doctrines that only certain of the elect can understand? Do we need a guru to understand them?

[dr. james willingham]

I always enjoy arousing the brethren to a discussion of biblical and theological issues. Due to time constraints at the moment, I must delay my answer. The doctrines of grace were prior to John Calvin. Just think they burned a fellow, well several fellows at the stake in England along with the bones of John Wickcliffe for believing in such nonsense as Predestination though there were Catholics all along who believed such. And as to evidence for the Awakenings, I simply don't have the time to call attention to the writings of Edwards, Whitefield, the Erskines, and a whole host of others from the 1700s who were the participants in the Awakenings. Let me just mention the work from the First Awakening theologian, Jonathan Edwards, which helped to launch the modern missionary movement by inspiring William Carey, et. al., who became the Father of modern missions, and that work is Edwards' Humble Attempt. Now I am running late to go to the store. You should know that as a person who lacked only a year and a dissertation in having a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university that I know the sources and can cite chapter and verse (though admittedly not as well with a heart problem, aging problems and the problems of caring for an invalid spouse. O as to Cody, I think he was like Zeno Wall, but while they were talking Carroll was passing and Truett would say at the Spurgeon Centennial at the Royal Albert Hall in London that Calvinism presses down the crown of responsibility upon the brow of man. cf his work on the Inspiration of Ideals or something like that. God bless.

[Max]

Scott writes "Why not try analyzing uniquely Southern Baptist confessional documents after the Philadelphia Confession and prior to AD 2000."

Scott, it continues to amaze me that majority Southern Baptists didn't fuss a little more when the Baptist Faith and Message was revised in 2000.

Regarding Servetus ... bottom-line for me: it is a historical fact that Calvin and his fellow pastors in Geneva were involved in the death of Servetus … what love is this?! Adding to this sorry episode of "Christianity", we find that Luther encouraged attacks on German peasants and wrote against the Jews … while Zwingli supported the execution of Anabaptists. It seems that there was little tolerance of doctrinal differences as Protestantism emerged. In the 21st century, theological opponents challenge each other in the blogosphere … in the 16th century, heads rolled! The creator of the universe will someday judge these matters using a plumb line of love. In the meantime, I will attempt to contend for the faith without being contentious (as much as within me, while allowing those who differ with me to keep their heads).

[Lydia]

"Also, are you saying that John Calvin didn't fully grasp how Calvinism worked?"

Ryan, Evidently Calvinists from the last 500 years did not grasp how it worked as evidenced by their brutal behavior toward those who disagreed with them. The doctrine has a bloody authoritarian past. Thank goodness for our Founding Deists so such behavior is now illegal!

[Jerry Smith]

How many listen to the Calvinist preacher, gets up & walks out saying I cannot possibly be chosen as the elect because I'm to sorry of a sinner? Yes, its a dangerous doctrine, & disputes the teachings of Jesus' whosoever believeth.

John 3:15,16
¶ That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And yes I know the Calvinist teaches that 'whosoever will' is only the elect, chosen ones, which contradicts many very simple easy to understand verses within the pages of the Bible God has given us.

[Josh Callan]

Peter is the one who needs to repent. Fall at God's mercy for your trashy, arrogant sarcastic mouth. Repent and experience God's grace.

[peter lumpkins]

Dr. Willingham,

Thanks. I'm unsure how any of the writings about or happenings of the Great Awakenings has to do with the exchange you began concerning our Baptist Heritage. Hence, I'll wait for you to have sufficient time to respond.

Lord bless.

With that, I am...
Peter

[peter lumpkins]

Lydia,

Thanks. I'm quite sure you're correct concerning the 'quiet revolution'. Unfortunately, posts like the ones on Servetus & Calvin play right into their hands; for some Calvinists at times use Servetus to argue that while they'd love to dump the moniker of a murderer, we won't let them. Why? Per above we turn around and charge them with "hiding" that they're Calvinists!

[Max]

Lydia - While the "Quiet Revolution" may be the methodology of "old" Calvinists within SBC ranks, it is certainly not the case with "new" Calvinism in my area. Young, restless and reformed pastors have come into traditional SBC churches like bulls in china shops ... deceiving pulpit search committees about their theological persuasion, quickly establishing plurality of elders church governance, and splitting church membership. The other preferred method is to plant a church, align with Acts 29 or other reformed network, and capture the attention of the 20s-40s age group. It is doubtful that the Founder's Quiet Revolution would have Calvinized the SBC at the pace it was going, without the aid of militant YRR graduates from certain SBC seminaries. They need each other. While the "quiet" plan may have been hatched by SBC's old guard Calvinists, it's the YRR movement that is pulling it off ... and they are loud and proud of it. After all, they have the BFM2000 behind them, the blessings of SBC's Calvinism Committee, and Dr. Mohler reminding them "... if you want to see gospel built and structured committed churches, your theology is just going to end up basically being Reformed."

[Scott Shaver]

Sorry Josh:

Not sure which god you're asking Peter to fall before.

Consequently, why don't you approach him first just to make sure he's the right one?

[Lydia]

"Unfortunately, posts like the ones on Servetus & Calvin play right into their hands; for some Calvinists at times use Servetus to argue that while they'd love to dump the moniker of a murderer, we won't let them. Why? Per above we turn around and charge them with "hiding" that they're Calvinists! "

Well, I am done playing the games. I am one of those heretics who think that what we believe drives our behavior. I am unable to fit into the world that teaches we can believe the right things WHILE we consistently practice authoritarian control and sin (evil in many cases) on others. (redefining sin is helpful, though)

So I am done with the game that Calvin had correct doctrine yet atrocious behavior AND the correct doctrine wins out and makes him acceptable. Sorry, no go. Did these guys never take any logic? But if one believes that Jesus obeyed for us so we don't have to so we remain evil sinners yet saved, then I guess that covers it for them. Hide the silver and lock up the kids when they come over?

They have tried and tried to change the name but it won't work and there is a reason for that. The doctrine makes no sense in practical real world application.

Seriously, we are to pray for someone's healing whose terminal illness was predetermined? Oh wait, the healing might be predetermined so pray anyway because you are commanded not because you believe God actually listens! He has already determined it, you puppet. But wait, the suffering is good for them and God wants them to suffer like Jesus did (never mind Jesus was God in the flesh). Makes them more like Jesus. No wait, if they are healed they won't be as pious! Oh dear....Or worse, if they are victims of say a child molester, they are just worm sinners TOO just like the child molester so forgive and forget about it. He said sorry. (We have CJ Mahaney as our guide for this one. Thanks Al)

It is moral chaos--- this determinist god. So the Servetus problem fits right in.

I am especially concerned about all the "educated" young men who have bought into and now use the Nuremberg Defense for Calvin. That does not bode well for our country's future if they really buy into such immoral nonsense. It concerns me greatly.

[Max]

Lydia writes "That does not bode well for our country's future if they really buy into such immoral nonsense."

Lydia, the blogopshere is cluttered with concerns that certain fringes of New Calvinism (e.g., Acts 29, SGM) are bordering on antinomianism. The treatment of Servetus is but one account indicating that Calvinism appears to have started with a my-way-or-the-highway lawless bent. Intimidation, manipulation, deception, arrogance etc. are not fruit of the Holy Spirit.

[Lydia]

"Not sure which god you're asking Peter to fall before."

Scott, If it is the Calvinist god then "Peter" can't fall and repent anyway. God has to force Peter to fall and repent. So, I guess that decides it then? (wink)

Max, "Bordering" on lawlessness? I think we have crossed the border and they "don't need no stinking badges". :o)

[dr. james willingham]

I think it is tragic that some focus so heavily on Calvin and Servetus and forget all about the Inquisition, an institution which began in the 1200s and had a name change in 1906, How many were burned at the stake by that iniquitous institution. I had a friend whose father was tortured in an iron maiden, an invention attributed to the Inquisition. While I abhor Calvin's lack of perception on religious liberty, it is nothing in comparison to the folks who brought us your friendly Inquisitor. O Yes, I think I took some 300 or more notecards on the Inquisition.

[Andrew Barker]

Dr. Willingham, I fail to see how the Inquisition has anything to do with the discussion in progress or for that matter, how it could be used to justify Calvin's "lack of perception on religious liberty."

Your departure from the train of thought is rather unexpected but then I guess "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"!

[dr. james willingham]

Dear Brother Andrew: We can focus so long on one thing that we miss the big picture. And Andrew: There was an arbitrary distinction developed by various sources that speak of the Medieval Inquisition and the Spanish Inquistion. However, the Holy Roman Inquisition takes in all of these. The Spanish was notable for its focus on false converts from Sephardic Jews (there are two sets of Jews, Sephardic and Askenazi, the former being the descendants of those Jews from Israel in the time of our Lord, and the latter being the converts of a nation in what is now Russia in the 6th and 7th centuries after Christ) and the (I think it was) the Moros (don't hold me to the term, but I am referring to the converts from Islam who were forced to convert just like the Jews were, once the Catholics won the victory over the Moslems in the Iberian Pennisula.). One can focus so much on a subject that one will miss the big picture (just try a dot in the middle of a white sheet of typing paper and show it to people and ask them what they see. It is a part of our problem with the scientific method, namely, too analytical.

[dr. james willingham]

Dear Lydia: A name that is precious to me from Acts 16:14, "whose heart the Lord opened." I remember as an Atheist seeing a vision/hallucination (how does one know) of Christ standing before me, looking at me, with His arm raised like He was knocking at a door. This was in a Youth For Christ in St. Louis the evening of Dec.7, 1957. I fled the scene, determined to tell no one as it was too embarrassing. After all, when one says there is no God, and He shows up, it is quite a strain on one's public persona. In any case, two blocks from my home, something or someone changed my mind, and I decided to tell my mother. The result was with her words, "Ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins," which I did, I felt a burden lifted off of my heart and I cried tears of joy for the first time in my life. As to the murder of Servetus, I do not approve of Calvin though I do recognize that he was on his way out of a system of thinking, a culture of extremities. And one does not easily escape such entanglements. In any case, the murders of hundreds of thousands, and, perhaps, millions by the Inquisition over a period of 700 years. They also used torture, the rack, the iron maiden, etc., and then the auto de fe', the fire, basically (although sometimes that practice could be a penitent thing or so I understand). However, the usual thing was to burn the heretics at stake, and this happened in practically all the countries in Europe that were under the control of the Church of Rome. When one puts 700 years and that number of executions up against Calvin's execution of Servetus (along with any others that he might have had a hand in), the latter pales by comparison. don't you think?

[peter lumpkins]

Dr. Willingham,

So far as I know, there's not been any focus at all on John Calvin's godless tyranny over the souls of men and women in Geneva much less "a focus so long...that we miss the big picture." There's no minimizing of the Holy Roman Empire's reign of terror by speaking about our own Protestant version of it. In fact, what I often see in raising the issue is a deliberate attempt from many to immediately change the subject, and I think I know why. Protestants generally and Reformed people particularly have immortalized the man, Calvin. And, for the most part, the most one usually gets concerning Servetus from Calvinists is some form of Calvin-was-a-man-of-his-times argument. Then, it's back to singing his songs...

With that, I am...
Peter

[Lydia]

"Dear Lydia: A name that is precious to me from Acts 16:14, "whose heart the Lord opened."

Dr W,

I always consider WHERE Lydia was and what she was doing at the time her heart was opened to truth of Messiah. Like Cornelius. She was seeking/worshiping/praying to Yahweh of her own free will.

[Lydia]

"There's no minimizing of the Holy Roman Empire's reign of terror by speaking about our own Protestant version of it."

It is the grown up version of, "But Mom! Bobby was doing it, too!"

[Scott Shaver]

Good point Lydia:

No reason to use history as a club to point out the fallacies of human reasoning on all sides of the Christian theological spectrum.

Sola Scriptura and come Holy Spirit.

Get lost Founders, T4G, Mahaney Mohler....SBC and CBF.

Geneva in the US? ... may happen but not the way Calvin would have envisioned.

[Andrew Barker]

Dear Brother Andrew: We can focus so long on one thing that we miss the big picture.

Dear Dr. Willingham. I think you missed the humour?

[dr. james willingham]

Dear Andrew and Peter: first, the former: Andrew, what humor? Clearly, you do not perceive the horrendous system out of which Calvin came. However, my aim is hardly to defend him; it is to show that there were other advocates of the theology he claimed, and these were the ones who introduced religious liberty into the world in law and practice. All one has to do to find this out is to read Roger Williams Works and the one publication (I think it was one) of Dr. John Clarke to learn that these men who believed in the five points of the tulip acrostic were the people who established religious liberty. And, second, we have Peter's failure to perceive the differences between one set of Sovereign Grace believers and another. It would sort of be like failing to note the differences between the Orthodox folks and the folks of Rome. By your reasoning Peter, we should condemn all Americans for the practice of Eugenics back in the 20th century and which same practice was promoted by Hitler and the Nazis. Would you care to lump us all, including yourself, with that fellow and the advocates of Eugenics in this nation?

[peter lumpkins]

Dr. Willingham,

I fear you're going to have to catch me up. To suggest "By your reasoning Peter, we should condemn all Americans for the practice of Eugenics..." you're going to need to be specific. I left you a comment to which you said you've not the time to respond as I recall. Now you come along and broadside it without the least commentary as to why you think what I've argued here is analogous to condemning "all Americans for the practice of Eugenics..."

Please, Dr. Willingham, indulge us.

[Scott Shaver]

Is it possible, Dr. Willingham, to admire and pray for the kind of movement of God's Spirit behind the Great Awakenings while disagreeing to the point of despising at times what some claim is "the theology that drove the Great Awakenings?

Does theology actually prompt revivals/awakenings or are revival/awakenings sovereign movements of God's Spirit apart from human reasoning and intellectual prowess?

[Andrew Barker]

Peter, I fear that Dr. Willingham is exhibiting that trait (I think I have mentioned this before) which comes under the general heading of the "yea, well, what about Hitler?" response. I wait with bated breath to find out just how "all Americans" are to be condemned for the practice of Eugenics!

As for humour, well, as I tell my kids, no one pays me to be funny and if you need to explain a joke it kind of kills it stone dead. But for reference, if anybody mentions the 'Inquisition' Monty Python normally pops into my head. All very 'unexpectedly of course!

[Lydia]

" By your reasoning Peter, we should condemn all Americans for the practice of Eugenics back in the 20th century and which same practice was promoted by Hitler and the Nazis. Would you care to lump us all, including yourself, with that fellow and the advocates of Eugenics in this nation? "

First you would need to explain how a country who embraced the Reformation and its teachings (splitting from Rome) could have gone along with even the early laws against Jews much less the later horror. How could most of the Lutheran church signed allegiance to the Nazi Party? They were a product of the Reformation. Not Rome.

All those Luther quotes against Jews came in real handy early on. So did the determinist god concept.

So when you mention Americans going along with Eugenics perhaps we should back up about 500 years when we discuss what happened in Germany..the land of Reformation....and even back to WW1.