Religious freedom and free religious expression are very good things. The Separation of Church and State, or more specifically, the separation of blind dogmatic zeal from an all powerful and unyielding state, is a very, very good thing too. These freedoms should be extended to all religions and all expressions. Yes! All of them! For when these freedoms are afforded to only one, at the expense of the other, and that expense is also policed and enforced by the State, then human tragedy manifests and our consequent actions reduce us to hypocrites. We all fall from grace. We all deny our faith. We all turn our backs on God, while we celebrate theocracy, in God’s name.
When we turn our backs on God, in the name of God, we are left with law, condemnation, and hypocrisy. We are utterly lost. And if we don’t love ourselves enough to realize that life and living in the Spirit is better for us than life and living under law, then what do you suppose we have left for our neighbors, besides a crushing law? The New Testament is clear: The law damns, and a life lived under the law, rather than in Christ and Spirit, is damned (See Paul).
In spite of our wandering away from God and people towards blind dogma and joint ventures between church and state to enforce our dogma, Jesus’ imperatives to “Love our neighbors as we love ourselves,” and/or “Do unto others as you would have done to you,” do not go ignored. These commands remain and we will fulfill them in some form or fashion. We may turn away from God, but we still offer our neighbors what we have taken upon ourselves, be it good or bad. And if we have taken law upon ourselves, and have discarded dynamic relationships for dogmatic prescriptions, and have joined our expression to the most powerful offices of the state so that they may be enforced without question or concern for those upon whom our enforcement ruthlessly falls, then that is what we will offer our neighbors.
So, we do answer Jesus’ imperatives to “Love our neighbors as we love ourselves,” and/or “Do unto others as you would have done to you,” but what we have to offer them is violence, hate, and destruction. Obviously, the turn away from religious freedom and expression and dynamic relationships leads to a lot of self-loathing and self-hatred. How can it be denied? After all, that is all we have left to offer our neighbors and that is all they receive from us! And if Jesus’ commands to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves is a solid indication of our own condition when unfortunate events like this occur in our lives, then it’s safe to say that we don’t love ourselves at all! After all, and according to Jesus, what we give to our neighbors is totally what we expect to be given to us. Right?
The following is a historical example of this unfortunate journey away from God and the effects that such an unfortunate journey has upon people. The following concerns a man named Servetus. Michael Servetus (1509 or 1511 – October 27, 1553) was a Spaniard who was martyred in the Reformation for his criticism of the doctrine of the trinity and his opposition to infant baptism. He has often been considered an early Unitarian. He was jailed by John Calvin in August 1553 as punishment for his anti-Trinitarian beliefs.
Servetus attempts to make his concerns regarding his basic legal and human rights known to the Geneva Council by sending them the following letter, written on the 15th of September, 1553:
I humbly beg that you [members of the council] cut short these long delays and deliver me from prosecution. You see that Calvin is at the end of his rope, not knowing what to say and for his pleasure wishes to make me rot in prison. The lice eat me alive. My clothes are torn and I have nothing for a change, neither jacket or shirt, but a bad one. I have addressed to you another petition which according to God and to impede it Calvin cites Justinian. He is in a bad way to quote against me what he does not himself credit, for he does not believe what Justinian has said about the holy church of bishops and priests and other matters of religion and knows well that the church was already degenerated. It is a great shame, the more so that I have been caged here for five weeks and he has not urged against me a single passage.
My lords, I have also asked you to give me a procurator or an advocate as you did my opponent, who was not in the same straits as I, who am a stranger and ignorant of the customs of the country. You permitted it to him, but not to me, and you have liberated him from prison before knowing. I petition you that my case be referred to the Council of Two Hundred with my requests, and if I may appeal there I do so ready to assume all the cost, loss, and interest of the law of an eye for an eye, both against the first accuser and against Calvin, who has taken up the case himself.
Done in your prisons of Geneva. September 15, 1553.
Michael Servetus in his own cause.
Servetus, still suffering in prison for his beliefs, again petitions the Council in Calvin’s Geneva in October of 1553:
Honored sirs, It is now three weeks that I have sought an audience and have been unable to secure one. I beg you for the love of Jesus Christ not to refuse me what you would not refuse a Turk, who sought justice at your hands. I have some important matters to communicate to you.
As for what you commanded that something be done to keep me clean, nothing has been done and I am in a worse state than before. The cold greatly distresses me, because of my colic and rupture, causing other complaints which I should be ashamed to describe. It is great cruelty that I have not permission to speak if only to remedy my necessities. For the love of God, honored sirs, give your order whether for pity or duty.
Done in your prisons of Geneva, October 10, 1553.
Michael Servetus.
Michael Servetus was found guilty of non-trinitarianism and anti-paedobaptism (anti-infant baptism) by the Protestant Geneva governing council 17 days later and was burnt at the stake as a heretic. Calvin not only lead this horrible charge, but he also defended it when people with more common sense and empathy than he began to question the morality of such acts.
Calvin, in defense of burning heretics, said:
Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man’s authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory (John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History), Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-65114-X p. 325).
Is this how people with divergent theological and philosophical thoughts should be treated by followers of Jesus of Nazareth? Is this really how Christians themselves would like to be treated? Jesus is the one who said “Do unto others as you would have done to you.” In light of that divine imperative Calvin was either a self-loathing masochist, or he was totally blinded by his own dogmatic and religious zeal. What other explanation is there for the acts he unleashed upon Servetus, who was unarguably his neighbor. Either way, it’s not a pleasant scene. Thankfully, in the year 2009, we have moved beyond such barbaric religious practices. I hope …
And there is hope too, because the political direction of this or any other country ultimately doesn’t really matter, and it doesn’t really matter how loud those who claim to speak for God – but live lives in conflict with Jesus’ way – proclaim their messages, and it doesn’t really matter how long people actually attempt to hang onto thin illusions that offer false senses of religious and social security. None of it matters because the Kingdom of God is bigger than all of it and this Kingdom will outlast them all because it is founded upon Truth. Too, many in the rising generation are realizing the need to celebrate their theological and philosophical distinctives and identities while simultaneously celebrating those of their neighbors, no matter how divergent. This is good too. A follower of Jesus would not offer the one with divergent thoughts, observations, and questions a flee-infested dungeon and fire, but rather an open table, good food, and spiritual conversation. We need to be about that sort of thing …
In fact, we all would do well to regularly consider the following quote from Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, should the time once again arise when someone – anyone – is treated as horribly as Servetus. Elie Wiesel, in the context of Jesus’ imperatives concerning our treatment of neighbors and what our treatment of neighbors reveals about ourselves, obviously loves himself enough to treat his neighbors as he would want to be treated if he were the one being persecuted for whatever misguided reason. Should we ever take the words of Jesus seriously enough to enact them in our lives, perhaps there would be no need, but until then, regularly consider the value of ideas like religious freedom, separation of church and state, and dynamic relationships, and hear this incredible wisdom from Elie Wiesel:
“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
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Thanks for researching those quotes, I was aware of the incident but have not read those transcripts before. For me the incident has long raised questions about the ability of Calvinism in particular and the Magisterial Reformation in general to adapt to a post-Christendom context.
Great question, Matt.
Hello,
I am a french Servetist.
My blog : http://libertedecroyance.blogspot.com
I’d like to know the origin of the picture at the top of the page.
Thank you in advance.
Fabien Girard (Chinon – France)
Hello I am a french servetist.
Can you tell me where come from the picture at the top of the page ?
Thank you in advance.
Fabien Girard (Chinon – France)
Hello, Fabien. I honestly do not know where that image came from anymore. I had it stored on one of my external drives that are full of random images.