Tag: History

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Violence in Self-Defence is OK? The Narrative Here Will Give You Second Thoughts.

A big question about violence is what you do when faced with direct threats to yourself or your children. This video covers the story of Jacob Hostetler, who would not defend himself or his own family – and went on to have at least half a million descendants.

The video runs for 41 minutes. If you prefer text to video, dive down below it for a short written summary of the events and discussion.

A point that always comes up in discussion about non-violence is what you do when directly threatened. Most people, professing Christians included, think violence must be justified in such a case. We believe the true Christian view is that it is not; and that the alternative view becomes the thin end of the wedge in justifying violence on a wider and wider scale. This account of Jacob Hochstetler, who took the view that violence is never justified, is truly remarkable.

In 1738 Jacob Hochstetler and his family sought sanctuary in America from the religious persecution Anabaptists were suffering in Europe. With other members of their Amish community they settled along Northkill Creek on the Pennsylvania frontier, between French-controlled Indian territory and British settlements. Eighteen years later the French began to incite the tribes to attack English settlers moving into lands claimed by France, and a bloody war ensued.

Jacob and his family where attacked in their home. One son was quickly injured, and the sons went for their hunting muskets to defend themselves. But Jacob would not allow it, so they simply barricaded the door and windows and hoped the Indians would go away. The Indians then set fire to the house. The family tried to take refuge in the cellar, but were eventually forced out by the heat, whereupon they were attacked and Jacob’s wife and one child killed. The rest were taken prisoner.

Taken many miles away to the Indian encampment, Jacob was allowed to go hunting on his own with a musket to help feed the tribe. They had realised that he could be trusted to do no harm. In due course he took advantage of this and escaped. He managed to return to the British settlements, where he was debriefed since he had been in enemy territory. This is partly why the story is so well documented.

Jacob and his wife are now estimated to have between half a million and one million descendants, both Amish and non-Amish. Biblically, it is a sign of great blessing to have many descendants. One is reminded of Abraham, who was willing to kill his one and only precious son if God commanded it. Abraham, of course, went on to have countless millions of descendants.

Accepting possible death when there seems to be a way out is the ultimate test of Faith. It’s a situation that none of us ever wants to face. Should we not be able to agree, when we have no immediate threat and are able to consider things quietly and peacefully, that doing no harm must be the better course, and certainly the one that Jesus would wish us to take?

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Calvin the “Christian” Murdering Blasphemer

 

Calvin plays a key role in the history of the Churches and Christianity. Mostly he is lauded as a great sage, a virtual Protestant Saint, and, of course, the mastermind behind the Reformation. As so often with these matters, the truth is somewhat different.

Calvin was born in 1509. This was over 80 years after the reformer John Wycliffe was burned at the stake; and Wycliffe’s burning did not take place until over 40 years after he himself died. The Catholics had to dig his body up to burn it. So the total time between Wycliffe’s Bible translating and other reforming activities, and the start of Calvins’, is the better part of two centuries. Calvin was very, very far from being in the forefront of the Reformation.

Calvin was born in France to a strongly Catholic family, and was expected to become a Priest. He was very bright, and already working as a clerk to a Bishop at the age of twelve. He subsequently attended the prestigious College de Montaigu in Paris. This is the same college where Ignatious Loyola saw fit to remain for seven years. Ignatious Loyola, of course, was the founder of the infamous, counter-reformation Jesuits. Ignatious and Calvin were not contemporaries at the college, but there is a strong indication here of the sort teaching that Calvin was immersed in.

There is no clear narrative of Calvin’s conversion, something which is debated to this day. Yet by 1536, at the age of just 27, Calvin had published his key work, “Institutes of the Christian Religion”. Notice here that by this age he had not merely begun his research, not merely written the book, was not still searching for a publisher, but had already done all of these things, and the book was published. Even Jesus did not begin his Ministry until the age of thirty. How did Calvin have such a meteoric rise to respected Reformation Author, given his background, and given not only the lack of any clear account of his conversion, but the likelihood that he accredited his personal Christianity to his Catholic Baptism as a baby? Infant Baptism is very significant in Calvin’s story as we shall see in the next paragraph.

Michael Servetus was a Spanish Doctor and polymath, and was the first European to accurately describe the flow of blood through the heart. He was also a radical Christian reformer. He did not accept the standard doctrine of the Trinity, was opposed to Calvin’s view of predestination, and like many radical reformers did not accept Infant Baptism. The term Anabaptist was used for those reformers who only accepted baptism given to adults following a conscious decision for Christ. Servetus was condemned to death by the Catholics. He escaped but fell into the hands of Calvin in Geneva, where he was duly burned at the stake. His was not the only execution carried out in the Geneva Theocracy that Calvin led. Beheading, drowning and burning were all methods of execution used. The execution of Servetus stands out because of his fame at the time, his scientific accomplishments, and particularly for the justifications used for his execution such as the rejection of Infant Baptism. Jesus never used force or manipulation on anybody. He spoke the truth and those who would not accept it were left to go their own way. Even the valid-in-its-time execution of a woman for adultery was quashed by Jesus. The idea that Calvin was a true disciple of Jesus Christ is untenable in view of his actions.

The other reason to reject Calvin as a Christian is his preaching of predestination. Calvin’s version of predestination makes God into an unjust ogre, who punishes men for eternity on account of living a sinful life; a sinful life about which they had no choice, because God made them sinful. See more on this both here, Predestination 101, and here,  Free Will and Predestination: No Contradiction.

It is not possible to come to a compromise conclusion about Calvin. Perhaps he was one of the Greatest Christians who ever lived, as many believe. Alternatively he was a fraud, with the mission of destroying and sowing discord among the radical reformers. Just one part of his legacy today is that many reject God because they have accepted Calvin’s monstrous depiction of Him. We all have to decide whether Calvin was Great or Fake. Our decision on that point matters deeply.

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Westminster Confession of Faith – Violence is Built-in!

I was first alerted to the corrupting nature of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) when planning a series of Church talks on Creation. At some point during the planning I was asked if I accepted the WCF. My reply was that I had never read it, was unlikely to do so due to its length, and took the Bible, which I had read cover to cover, as the ultimate Authority for Christians. I was accused of being a heretic and the Creation talks never took place.

At the time I was unaware of just how long the WCF was. With all the included proof texts, it’s the thick end of one hundred thousand words. The Bible is seven hundred and fifty thousand, so to read the WCF is a significant effort, at least bearing some comparison with reading the Bible itself right through. The difference is that the Bible is the Authority, while the WCF is just one more post-Biblical writing which lacks the Authority of Scripture. Would not reading the Scripture itself be an obviously better use of time? And why would people want to pin their faith on the WCF rather than Scripture?

It gets worse. WCF is a thoroughly Calvinist document, and as explained elsewhere on this site Calvinism is actually blasphemy. See Predestination 101. Further to that, as you will see below, the WCF was written as a legal document, and legal documents need to be read with great care. Even an experienced solicitor would baulk at digesting a legal document of that length. Does anybody really know what they are signing up to when they subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith?

Finally, here’s the killer. The WCF was drawn up during the English Civil War. Cromwell was fighting against the King in England, and the Calvinist Covenanters in Scotland were literally up in arms as well. An alliance between the two was a natural outcome, but since these wars were largely about doctrine, Cromwell and the Covenanters needed a doctrinal basis for their military alliance.  The WCF was created to provide that basis. This means that whatever the Confession says or doesn’t say about the use of violence is irrelevant; the reason for its creation means it has violence built in.

It’s interesting also that the one hundred and fifty or so “Divines” who wrote the Confession, supposedly after a most thorough searching of the Scripture, do not appear to have noticed the requirement to love, and specifically to love enemies, in the New Testament; nor the many pointers in the Old Testament to the utter foolishness of killing the King. Something Cromwell and his associates went on to do in the most premeditated fashion.

The best part of the WCF is perhaps its title. Westminster is the epicentre of politics and power in England. The Confession is not called the Christian Confession of Faith, but the Westminster Confession of Faith. Quite appropriate.