John Calvin

John Calvin was a French theologian and pretended reformer who lived from 1509-1564. Under Calvin, the Protestant puritan movement was shaped as a way of life as a European and not merely a German basis. Calvin was invited to lead the church at Geneva, where he organized a system of church government on the Presbyterian principle and tyrannical methods. Under the pretense of morals and sound doctrine, he contrived to transfer state power to the ecclesiastical courts. Calvin looked upon his work in Geneva as a direct commission from God and his defence of "the true faith" gained him unquestioned authority in religious matters to build his totalitarian system.

The differences of Luther and Calvin checked the progress of the Reformation. Calvin was as different from Luther as two men could be. His Augustinian doctrine was developed with remorseless logic to the conclusion that before the beginning of time God had determined the precise number and chosen the particular individuals who were to be saved and damned. The sinners were dropped into hell by the weight of the guilt of their "original sin" inherited from Adam. This is the famous doctrine of election and predestination in its absolute idiocy, non-elect infants dying in infancy. God was made the author of both good and evil and man was deprived of free will. Under Calvin the sacraments were reduced to mere signs or symbols. Sexual pleasure is sin. Calvin's ruthless system demanded his own freedom to differ but did not extend the right to others. He was sometimes known as the Protestant pope.

Instead of a loving God that wants us all to draw near to Him, a tyrant God must be in place to punish the wicked Ones that He did not draw near too. The whole thing is a kind of insanity where each lie must be connived to cover up the previous lie until it becomes one huge neurosis. Much of the church is in spiritual denial to the point of mental illness and much of the blame lies at the feet of John Calvin. Truth would set his followers free but they have been under his own delusions for so long that they cannot recognize it.

His law and order in the reformed church was much more harsh and intolerant than the old canon law of Catholicism bringing the totalitarian element into Christianity. He was (and is) only supported by self-righteous, ignorant and whitewashed legalists. Card playing, dancing, gaming were all thought sinful and forbidden, every aspect of religious, social and moral life was sternly regulated. The singing of frivolous songs were forbidden, all images in homes were to be destroyed, shops and taverns were forced closed during sermons. He allowed no organs in worship services because it was too Catholic. Church attendance was mandatory, the houses were entered into during service times and he imprisoned those who stayed away from church. The right-wing intolerance and ignorance of Christians today can be said to have been mostly inherited from John Calvin. The repression and alienation of the masses against holiness Christianity are due to this demonic spirit allowed to run rampant in the church. Christian freedom is still alive but John Calvin did his best to kill it.

He wrote the "Institute's of Christian Religion" when only 27 years old at an impressionable time in history when an organized theology was needed. Calvin has mis-led so many people that many still consider the writing of the "Institute's" the single most influential book on theology in church history. One wonders what his writing could have achieved in the hearts and minds of men if only he truly had the love of Jesus. His insistent stress upon the awful majesty and righteousness of God drove him to emphasize with equal severity the utter worthlessness of fallen and sinful man. He taught the belief that we are powerless in the salvation act, the belief that man's salvation rests solely upon grace, but only for the elect. Because man is fallen and the human intellect is distorted and has become the instrument of his sin, the consequences of natural theology are idolatrous. The followers of Calvin lived in the delusion that the spirit of Christ worked within them, drawing them toward the perfection that God had called them. Calvin's doctrines had a tendency toward perfectionism and demanded rigorous control over private and social behavior. Calvin never had the humility to acknowledge that those like him who seek to be justified by the law have fallen from grace.

In all essentials, Calvin's state was a theocratic dictatorship. Contrary to the teachings of Jesus, he assumed the existence of a capitalist economic system for society and set up his ethics on that basis. Like the luke-warm church of today, he identified good works with the accumulation of riches. According to this perverse logic, God dispenses riches and poverty as He wills. It is not man's merit, or man's toil that gets a person riches, rather it is God's grace and riches are given as an evidence of God's favor.

Libertines were free thinkers who objected to the church controlling the state. To attack or to disagree with Calvin meant a person would be guilty of blasphemy, of attacking the authority of God and the authority of the church and dealt with severity, imprisonment or death. To champion religious tolerance would gain banishment. This made Calvin more that a false prophet, it made him into a false christ of the worst kind. Turning his back on the spiritual Jesus, Calvin conceived the will of God in terms of Biblical literalism and set up a legalistic moral code. Through Calvin's lips God spoke. If anyone disagreed with his reading of the scripture, that person was being led away by the devil or by the perversity of his own nature. It was a religious duty of his followers to support the status-quo without rebellion.
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