John Calvin killed Servetus! That's all that some people remember of his deeds...
Technically speaking, Calvin did not have the power to execute or spare him. The city council did. By no means an attempt to justify Calvin but let's consider the historical context.
Calvin lived in a time when people thought truth mattered... it mattered so much because eternity is at stake. So heresy is a crime, even more heinous than adultery... for example.
It's hard for us to understand now, because we think of sin in terms of harm done to people... rather than as affront to God's glory.
Servetus, in denying Trinity and other cardinal doctrines, is a 'wanted' man in any town at that time. Had he been caught in a Catholic city, he'd have been executed... Had he been caught in a Lutheran town, the same fate awaited him... Alas, he fell in Geneva... and his blood wud forever tarnish the name of Calvin.
But we may also need to consider how Calvin offered the chance for him to recant and pleaded for a more lenient sentence, whichever way we may judge him and his legacy.
An monument of expiation today stands at Geneva:
"Dutiful and grateful followers of Calvin our great Reformer, yet condemning an error which was that of his age, and strongly attached to liberty of conscience, according to the true principles of the Reformation and of the Gospel, we have erected this expiatory monument. October 27th, 1903."
Technically speaking, Calvin did not have the power to execute or spare him. The city council did. By no means an attempt to justify Calvin but let's consider the historical context.
Calvin lived in a time when people thought truth mattered... it mattered so much because eternity is at stake. So heresy is a crime, even more heinous than adultery... for example.
It's hard for us to understand now, because we think of sin in terms of harm done to people... rather than as affront to God's glory.
Servetus, in denying Trinity and other cardinal doctrines, is a 'wanted' man in any town at that time. Had he been caught in a Catholic city, he'd have been executed... Had he been caught in a Lutheran town, the same fate awaited him... Alas, he fell in Geneva... and his blood wud forever tarnish the name of Calvin.
But we may also need to consider how Calvin offered the chance for him to recant and pleaded for a more lenient sentence, whichever way we may judge him and his legacy.
An monument of expiation today stands at Geneva:
"Dutiful and grateful followers of Calvin our great Reformer, yet condemning an error which was that of his age, and strongly attached to liberty of conscience, according to the true principles of the Reformation and of the Gospel, we have erected this expiatory monument. October 27th, 1903."
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