Tag: State Power

Posted on

Christianity is NOT Violent.

Christianity is not violent, meaning true Christianity, not the corrupted Church version of it. Jesus commanded love for enemies and stated that the meek shall inherit the Earth. And on the one occasion that He was confronted with a judicial execution, one that was fully legal given the laws at the time, he prevented it. If even judicial execution is not acceptable, what violence can ever be? That’s a very long way from America, the World’s most strongly Christian nation – more accurately the most strongly churched nation –  being also by far the biggest military nation. This is so simple that it should be blindingly obvious to everyone, but hundreds of years of church violence have pulled a veil over the truth. See other articles:

Calvin the “Christian”  Murdering Blasphemer

Westminster Confession of Faith – Violence is Built-in!

Theresa May – “Christian” War Criminal.

The Special Place of the Amish in History.

Is Your Truth Worth Dying For?

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

Wanting to Offend God? Is it better to be Gay or Violent?

Make Love, Not War! But What is Love?

Media and Truth Part Company Over Syria

Posted on

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.

Posted on

“Church” is a Mistranslation.

People frequently discuss which are the better Bible translations. There is a significant group that holds to the Authorised Version as the best. It may well be, but even the Authorised Version, also known as King James Version or KJV, has a dire mistranslation that almost all other versions have followed.

The issue here is the word “Church”, which is used to translate the Greek word ecclesia. The meanings are not the same. Ecclesia only has the sense of a group of people with a common purpose. It can even refer to a rioting mob. There is no sense of hierarchy, buildings, rituals, connection with state power and the like which are associated strongly with the word “Church”. Significantly, William Tyndale, who burned at the stake for his groundbreaking Bible translation, translated ecclesia as “congregation”, emphasising, particularly in the language of the day, a group of people. But when King Jame’s authorised a translation for use in English Churches the translators were not given a choice about the word “Church”. The King insisted, indeed commanded. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the KJV is that it was a deeply political publication, and can only be called “Authorised” because it was authorised by the King, the Head of State, not by any group of Christians. The saving grace for the KJV is that it was heavily based upon Tyndale’s translation, and Tyndale was not in the game for personal advantage or power. He always knew his life was on the line, and had no interest other than accuracy.

Sometimes in the Greek New Testament ecclesia is clarified as ecclesia theon, meaning “People of God”. The sense here of people who come together in fellowship, because of a common commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, is almost entirely lost in the word “Church” today. But the Churches find it very convenient, to say the least, in maintaining the idea that Christianity and Church are one and the same.

Posted on

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.