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John Calvin out of the closet?

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by MichaelGene52, Jun 14, 2006.

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  1. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    Hold on. I forgot about this poster.

    Hi ya ....MichaelGene52

    profile..

    Interests:
    stopping Calvinism
    Occupation:
    farmer

    Michael has 3 post and all are trying to "stop Calvinism".

    Michael...can I call you Mike? Mike, you need to deal with the hate you have in your life. You have yet to tell us what you believe. Not one verse has been posted by you. Do you have any faith statement? What do you HATE about Calvinisim? I want to see details?

    Do you hate the fact that Calvinism says that God is in control?
    Do you ...Mike, hate when a Calvinist says salvation is the work of God?
    Do you hate it because a Calvinist claims men are dead in their sins?
    Do you hate it when a Calvinist says..."Gods love NEVER fails"?

    Just where do you get all this hate Mike? Why do you carry all the hate around? I'm sure there must be something causing it. Please do share with us.

    Educate us as to why all should hate Calvinist just as you do.

    Or..are you just a hit and run hater? One that has no reason to hate, other then its fun. One that just slams men of God for the fun of it...and run off with no words to back yourself up. Like a sniper...attack people from afar off.

    It is very simple Mike.
    I believe in what is now called Calvinism for I think it is the Gospel as we can find clearly in Gods Word.

    Mike..using the Bible show me why I should change my views. Don't post another gay site. Post Gods Word and show me why I should change.

    Are you up to the task Mike?
     
    #21 Jarthur001, Jun 15, 2006
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 15, 2006
  2. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    What Are We To Think Of Calvin

    Again, remember that in this time period, sodomy did not mean homosexuality alone. It meant any type of sexuality that did not result in children...in fact, birth control was seen as sodomy. So to say that Calvin was gay based on his arrest record is mere speculation.
     
  3. Brother Bob

    Brother Bob New Member

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    I doubt if birth control was considered sodomy! Thats a new one.
     
  4. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    Yep, it sure was. Even John Calvin considered it sodomy.
     
  5. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    I have looked now for 3 hours and can not find one story about this..other then the gay site.

    I did find this...
    http://www.amoskeagchurch.org/literature/calvin.php

    This site talks about Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec in detail but never says anything to even hint of the matter of the OP. This guy gives footnotes to backup his claims. I plan on reading these too.

    But here I go again. In the end, it really does not matter. At least once a year I find myself defending a man, for it is the man they people attack. I am sure..100% sure that John Calvin sin in some way. But I do not follow a man. Nor does any other Calvinist that I knew of. Its his words that need to be looked at.

    It is also funny that those that attack Calvin never have read Calvin.

    Well...here is that opening from the site. There is much more to this..if one would like to read it.

    **********
    Rarely has a man provoked such controversy as the man John Calvin. He is often depicted as the cruel tyrant of Geneva. The 1994 edition of the CD-ROM Webster’s Concise Interactive Encyclopedia claims that Michael Servetus “was burned alive by the church reformer Calvin,” [1] and that Calvin “established a rigorous theocracy;” [2] all of which leaves the distinct impression that Calvin was something less than human. It is my purpose in this article to demonstrate otherwise.

    The nineteenth century Lutheran church historian, Philip Schaff, asserted that Calvin “must be reckoned as one of the greatest and best men whom God raised up in the history of Christianity.” [3] Most moderns would hardly concur. But why? There are at least two reasons of which I am aware. The first is that Calvin’s image has been purposely distorted by his opponents and this distortion is simply parroted by their students who have never read Calvin for themselves. The second is that Calvin’s Master warned His disciples: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:18-20). John Calvin merited the reproach of his Master.

    One would hope that even those who staunchly disagree with Calvin’s theology would treat Calvin with the historical fairness accorded Calvin by his nineteenth century French opponent, Ernest Renan, who called him “the most Christian man of his age.” [4] Such, however, has not been the case. The first notable detractor was Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec, a Roman Catholic, who in 1577 accused Calvin of being an ambitious, presumptuous, arrogant, cruel, evil, vindictive, and above all, ignorant man. [5] In 1688 Bosset launched a more subtle attack asserting that Calvin was an ambitious, quick tempered autocrat, with a morose and bitter spirit, displaying a “serious sickness” in the way he pursued his adversaries. [6] In 1841 J. M. Audin wrote a biography of Calvin, authorized by the French Roman Catholic Church up until World War I. In it Calvin is portrayed as an egocentric coward, who “never loved.” “He has the nature of a snake.” [7] Most recently, in 1951, Father André Favre-Dorsaz wrote what Calvin scholar, Richard Stauffer, describes as “the most destructive book about Calvin with which I am acquainted.” According to Favre-Dorsaz, Calvin was a cruel, sadistic dictator, a superficial theologian and a believer whose religious feeling was of a doubtful character. [8] Finally in 1955 Daniel-Rops summed up modern opinion by identifying Calvin as “the perfect type of fanatic.” [9]

    During his life time Calvin was aware of his detractors. He reflected to a friend: “When I hear that I am everywhere so foully defamed, I have not such iron nerves as not to be stung by pain.” [10] Calvin was certainly, by his own admission, not a perfect man. He was a sinner saved by grace. But O what a beautiful difference grace made in his life. This is clearly evinced by his life, his teaching, his letters and in every relationship, even with his enemies. Let us attempt to set the record straight.

    *********

    If you do read the link above, make sure you read "Husband and Father" which hardly sounds like the Calvin of the OP and gay site. Yet...i'm sure there will be some that will believe the gay site.

    In Christ...James
     
  6. J.D.

    J.D. Active Member
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    Let us never be so desperate to be right in our views that we stoop to such corrupt communication as the OP.
     
  7. Brother Bob

    Brother Bob New Member

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    Ironwill;
    Could you provide some writings where Calvin considered sodomy to be birth control.
     
  8. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    Hmmm...let me look it up real quick, I know I have this bookmarked somewhere...

    Oops. My bad, I WAS WRONG. It was Luther who said that Birth Control was Sodomy, and it was Calvin who said that birth control was murder of unborn persons. :eek: I apologize for getting it wrong.
     
  9. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    Indeed he did..

    John Calvin declared that birth control was the murder of future persons .

    John Calvin in his Commentary on Genesis 38:8-10 states:

    "Besides, he [Onan] not only defrauded his brother of the right due him, but also preferred his semen to putrify the ground, rather than beget a son in his brother's name.

    Verse 10: The Jews quite immodestly gabble concerning this thing. It will suffice for me briefly to have touched upon this as much as modesty in speaking permits. The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall to the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born--the hoped for offspring.

    This impiety is especially condemned, now by the Spirit through Moses' mouth, that Onan, as it were, by a violent abortion, no less cruelly than filthily cast upon the ground the offspring of his brother, torn from the maternal womb. Besides, in this way he tried, as far as he was able, to wipe out a part of the human race. If any woman ejects a foetus from her womb by drugs, it is reckoned a crime incapable of expiation and deservedly Onan incurred upon himself the same kind of punishment, infecting the earth with his semen, in order that Tamar might not conceive a future human being as an inhabitant of the earth."
    ***********

    This is a far cry from saying Calvin was gay....is it not?
     
  10. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    Absolutely, but I don't think that the above is the reason Calvin has been called gay by some.
     
  11. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    Give me a source other then a gay source that calls Calvin gay.
     
  12. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    Again, I NEVER SAID CALVIN WAS GAY. Stop putting words in my mouth. I've only said that they got the idea he was gay from his conviction and subsequent branding for sodomy. And again, in that time, sodomy didn't merely mean homosexuality. There are also various other things it could have meant, all sexual in nature, but not necessarily homosexuality.

    Read the link I posted before. I'll post it again here. What Are We To Do With Calvin
     
  13. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    Is this the only resource you have? This is a RCC site..i guess you know that. I was just wondering if you have a source that can be documented or is this it? Its funny that the source places this one page on geocities and not the main site. Wonder why?
     
  14. Ransom

    Ransom Active Member

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    Philip Schaff, in vol. 8 of his church history, notes the story of Calvin being branded for sodomy (as related by Bolsec), and says that "[t]he story is contradicted by all that is authentically known of Calvin." He adds:

    (I am working from the CCEL edition of History of the Christian Church, so unfortunately I can't give a more precise citation of this quote except to say that it appears in Volume 8, chapter 9 of Schaff; and appears in this section.)

    As I recall, Alister McGrath (who is cited in the OP) in his excellent biography of Calvin, makes note of this as well: that there was another "Jean Cauvin" in Noyes, and that is the source of some of the slanders against the better-known Calvin. Though both appraise Calvin's ministry as very positive overall, neither McGrath nor Schaff have an axe to grind for or against him.
     
  15. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    More on this RCC site. It looks like it is setup to mislead.

    Luther, Exposing the Myth
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/matluther.htm

    Some Tough Questions for Protestants
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/Protstnt.htm

    The Protestant Heresy
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/protesy.htm

    THE GREAT REVOLT AGAINST CHRIST
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/revolt.htm

    :cool:

    Now that we have laid that to rest, would any one like to talk about the Calvins teachings?
     
  16. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    *shrugs* All I did was post a source as to WHY Calvin is considered by some to be a homosexual. I never said if the source was right or not.

    You're reading too much into what I'm NOT saying.
     
  17. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    Awww...c'mon Scott...I was trying to make this fella work a little harder.
     
  18. IronWill

    IronWill New Member

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    No that's alright.
     
  19. Jarthur001

    Jarthur001 Active Member

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    All i'm saying...LOOK AT THE SOURCE.

    People can and will say anything. But there is nothing to back it up. then it must be NOTHING..unless you can show me something.

    That's like if I came up to you and ask...."do you hate every one that lives in New York?" And you would say NO...that's crazy...I do not hate New Yorkers!!.

    Then I can report to others...

    "Ironwill denies hating New Yorkers"

    Right off the bat others will think you do hate New Yorkers but only deny it...and this is only because of how i reported it. But if they would look into the story they will see i was misleading them.

    The fact is..there is so much junk on the net..you can not believe most of it. I love history and if you study history you will find yourself going all the way back to the source...or as near as you can get. If you do this, you will not be mislead by some nut.

    This too...all writers are telling the story with a agenda. We have just seen this in action. Gay sites tell the story one way....and the RCC tells it another way....and then you have Calvin lovers tell it still another way. What is the truth? Its not always the number of books that say it...its the ones saying it...and the slant in which they tell.

    When I study something and after 3-4 books if everyone is quoteing the same lines...i want to know who 1st said those lines...and what agenda was he after. In other words...if book 1,2,3,4 all say...Jones says this.."blaw blaw blaw.." I want to know who in the world is Jones and what makes him a expert? Most of the time, I'll find Jones is a expert. Yet other times not.

    If you read all you can on the subject and keep in mind the slant of the writer and the agenda....the real story will come forth.

    I see this all the time when looking at KJVO sites. You see all these added words in the story that needs not be there....for it helps the agenda they have. But you can read the sites and find some truth..if you know the real story.

    The sources given here show only a agenda to mislead. There is nothing I can find in the history books to base this on. I would say its a lie.

    And now...the NBA finals...go Dallas
     
  20. Brother Bob

    Brother Bob New Member

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    Well, he did burn people at the stake you know, so I wouldn't hold him too high.
     
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