God Creates the Pathway Not the Path You Must Take

Hitler and John Calvin Had Much in Common

See: John Calvin's Geneva was a Prototype of Hitler's Munich

The best illustration I can give you is a map of the USA. If I want to go from point a to point b there are a million possibilities on how to get there. If I always have the ability to view the map from above nothing surprises me and the destination can remain constant although millions of possibilities exist on how one might choose to get there. God sovereignty has determined the starting point for creation and the end result, namely a redeemed people. God is not in the business of determining who gets where. He has only determined how they get there.

When you throw a dice it lands. It has many different pathways, but in fact, how you let go of it determines the physics of where and how it bounced so there is no free will in the dice even though the dice thinks it has free will and is choosing to turn. That is the claim of Calvinism. Why would God give a false impression we have free will? It's a disturbing thought isn't it? How can God give free will yet foreknow all things? We just have to accept the fact because of Scripture teaching God pleads with us, therefore, we must be able to respond with the free-choice. Other Calvinists will say we do have free will but that God still irresistibly selects some and passes over others; even still, there is a problem because we weren't given sufficient grace to have the choice to receive God's mercy and grace.

(The following information can be found in the book CALVIN: A BIOGRAPHY, by Bernard Cottret, published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan, copyright 2000. Page numbers are included for each entry.)

1. (page 128) 1536 - CALVIN PROPOSES "a confession of faith" for the Genevans

2. (page 128) November 10, 1536 - Confession of faith presented, entitled "Confession of Faith, which all bourgeois and inhabitants of Geneva and subjects in its territories should swear to keep to and hold." - This document granted the right of the government to excommunicate offenders and protect the innocent by chastising the guilty.

3. (page 128) January 16, 1537 - Geneva authorities approve the Confession of Faith and the separate articles PRESENTED BY CALVIN.

4. (page 129) 1537 - One provision of the Confession of Faith and its articles included that pious images kept in people's private homes must be destroyed.

5. (page 129) March 1537 - Anabaptists were banished. (Anabaptists were primarily defined by their rejection of infant baptism.)

6. (page129) April 1537 - At CALVIN'S INSTIGATION city officials including captains and district wardens were commanded to go from house to house to ensure that the inhabitants subscribe to the Confession of faith.

7. (page 129) October 30,1537 - There was a final attempt to obtain a confession of faith from all who had been hesitating.

8. (page 129) November 12, 1537 - District by district, all those who had not made the confession of faith were ordered to leave the city.

9. (page 180) February 1545 - "Freckles" Dunant dies under torture without admitting to the crime of spreading the plague. His body was then dragged to the middle of town and burned.

10. (page 180) 1545 - Following the incident with Dunant, several more men and women were apprehended including a barber and a hospital supervisor who had "made a pact with the devil."

11. (page 180) March 7, 1545 - Two women executed by burning at the stake (presumably for the crime of sorcery, i.e. spreading the plague). CALVIN INTERCEDED apparently to have them executed sooner rather than later after additional time in prison. The Council followed his directive happily and urged the executioner to "be more diligent in cutting off the hands of malefactors."

12. (page 180) 1545 - more executions, tortures carefully watched to prevent death. Most of the tortured refused to confess. Means of death varied a little to include decapitation. All under the crime of spreading the plague. Some committed suicide in their cells to avoid torture, afterward the rest were handcuffed. One woman then through herself through a window.

13. (page 208) 1545 - CALVIN HAD the magistrates seize Belot, an Anabaptist (against infant baptism) for stating that the Old Testament was abolished by the New. Belot was chained and tortured.

14. (page 180) May 16, 1545 - The last execution concerning the plague outbreak, bringing the total dead to 7 men and 24 women. A letter from CALVIN attests to 15 of these women being burned at the stake. CALVIN'S only concern was that the plague had not come to his house.

15. (page 189) April 1546 - Ami Perrin put on trial for refusing to testify against several friends who were guilty of having danced. She was incarcerated for refusal to testify.

16. (page 190) July 1546 - Jacques Gruet was accused of writing a poster against Calvin. He was arrested and tortured until he admitted to the crime. He was then executed.

17. (page 177) November 22, 1546 - CALVIN DRAWS up a list of names inappropriate for baptism (i.e. inappropriate for naming children). CALVIN'S position insisted that a name appear in the Bible, or it was inappropriate.

18. (page 217) February 13, 1547 - CALVIN WRITES to the man who would preside over the burning of Michael Servetus. In the letter CALVIN WRITES, "For if he [Michael Servetus] came, as far as my authority goes, I would not let him leave alive."

19. (page 189) Thursday, June 23, 1547 - Several women tried for having danced, this time including Ami Perrin.

20. (page 192) September 23, 1547 - Francois Favre was prosecuted for having said that Calvin had proclaimed himself bishop of Geneva. Favre, Perrin, and his wife were again imprisoned.

21. (page 184) September 27, 1548 - CALVIN REPORTS his brother's wife to the consistory on suspicion of adultery.

22. (page 184) October 16-18, 1548 - Anne, CALVIN'S SISTER-IN-LAW is freed and had to kneel and ask forgiveness from both her husband and CALVIN (for apparently damaging his reputation.)

23. (page 210) October, 1551 - Hierome Bolsec imprisoned for his opposition to predestination. There he was immediately interrogated.

24. (page 211) December 23, 1551 - Bolsec sentenced to banishment on penalty of public whipping if he returned.

25. (page 223) Spring, 1553 - Proofs against the heretic Michael Servetus were gathered in Geneva in CALVIN'S ENTOURAGE.

26. (page 223) April, 1553 - Catholics were provided the evidence. Servetus is interrogated but escapes.

27. (page 223) August 13, 1553 - Servetus arrives in Geneva and is arrested and imprisoned.

28. (page 223) September 15, 1553 - From prison, Servetus writes a letter to the Council complaining that Calvin was deliberately prolonging his stay in the worst prison conditions. He complains of being eaten alive by insects and having no suitable clean or mended clothes to wear. The official charges, 1) denial of the Trinity 2) rejection of infant baptism.

29. (page 223) October 27, 1553 - After refusing to confess, Servetus is burned alive at the stake. Calvin apparently tried to change the manner of death to something other than burning at the stake, but he was unsuccessful.

30. (page 198) February, 1555 - Elections favorable to Calvin.

31. (page 198) May 16, 1555 - A riot ensues after the elections. Perrin (a leader of the opposing faction) seized the baton, which symbolized the office of Syndic giving the appearance of a coup d'etat. Perrin flees along with his associate Philibert Berthelier.

32. (page 198) After May 16, 1555 - CALVIN CALLS for repression.

33. (page 198) Monday, June 3, 1555 - The guilty are judged in absentia. Perrin is condemned to have the hand of his right arm cut off (the hand with which he grabbed the baton.) He and his accomplices were condemned to decapitation, then the heads and Perrin's hand were to be nailed up in public and their bodies cut into four quarters. The brothers Comparet received the sentence of decapitation and their bodies are to be quartered. All who didn't flee were executed. Two other men, Claude Galloys and Girard Thomas were put in a sort of pillory in two different parts of town. Galloys also received the sentence of having to carry a torch and ask for mercy. Berthelier's brother Francois-Daniel is among the victims of the repression. CALVIN JUSTIFIES the severity of their sentences.

34. (page 253) March, 1556 - Those who broke measures barring the mixing of men and women were subjected to public humiliation in the collar (a sort of pillary).

35. (page 253) December 31, 1556 - Jacques Lampereur was imprisoned for having made strong statements against the edicts last proposed on fornications, saying that we are under the law of grace and that is would be judaizing to condemn adulterers to death.

36. (page 184) January, 1557 - CALVIN'S SISTER-IN-LAW was imprisoned again for having committed adultery.

37. (page 180-181) October, 1568 - A pair of men were executed for sorcery after CALVIN EXHORTED his contemporaries to pursue sorcerers in order to remove all of them from the earth.

38. (page 181) 1568 - Another sorcerer admits his guilt under the torture of having his feet burned. He later recants his admission and is banished forever from Geneva.

John Calvin's Geneva

Excerpt from "The Right to Heresy: Castellio Against Calvin"
Stefan Zweig, Trans., Eden & Cedar Paul.
Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951.

The Consistory Kicks into Action

From the first hour of his dictatorship (in 1541) this brilliant organizer herded his flock, his congregation, within a barbed-wire entanglement of paragraphs and prohibitions, the so-called "Ordinances," simultaneously creating a special department to supervise the working of terrorist morality. This organization was called the Consistory, its purpose being defined, ambiguously enough, as that of supervising the congregation or the community "that God may be honoured in all purity." Only to outward seeming was the sphere of influence of this moral inspectorate restricted to the religious life. For, owing to the intimate association of the secular or mundane with the philosophical in Calvin's totalitarian conception of the State, the vestiges of independence were henceforward to come automatically under the control of the authorities. The catchpoles of the Consistory, the "anciens," were expressly instructed to keep watch upon the private life of everyone in Geneva. Their watchfulness must never be relaxed, and they were expected to pay attention "not only to the uttered word, but also to opinions and views."

Policing the Flock

From the days when so universal a control of private life was instituted, private life could hardly be said to exist any longer in Geneva. With one leap Calvin outdistanced the Catholic Inquisition, which had always waited for reports of informers or denunciations from other sources before sending out its familiars and its spies. In Geneva, however, in accordance with Calvin's religious philosophy, every human being was primarily and perpetually inclined to evil rather than to good, was a priori suspect as a sinner, so everyone must put up with supervision. After Calvin's return to Geneva, it was as if the doors of the houses had suddenly been thrown open and as if the walls had been transformed into glass. From moment to moment, by day and by night, there might come a knocking at the entry, and a number of the "spiritual police" announce a "visitation" without the concerned citizen's being able to offer resistance.

Monthly Examinations

Once a month rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, had to submit to the questioning of these professional "police des maeurs." For hours (since the ordinances declared that such examination must be done in leisurely fashion), white-haired, respectable, tried, and hitherto trusted men must be examined like schoolboys as to whether they knew the prayers by heart, or as to why they had failed to attend one of Master Calvin's sermons. But with such catechizing and moralizing the visitation was by no means at an end. The members of this moral Cheka thrust fingers into every pie. They felt the women's dresses to see whether their skirts were not too long or too short, whether these garments had superfluous frills or dangerous slits. The police carefully inspected the coiffure, to see that it did not tower too high; they counted the rings on the victim's fingers, and looked to see how many pairs of shoes there were in the cupboard. From the bedroom they passed on to the kitchen table, to ascertain whether the prescribed diet was not being exceeded by a soup or a course of meat, or whether sweets and jams were hidden away somewhere. Then the pious policeman would continue his examination of the rest of the house. He pried into bookshelves, on the chance of there being a book devoid of the Consistory's imprimatur; he looked into drawers on the chance of finding the image of one of the saints, or a rosary. The servants were asked about the behaviour of their masters, and the children were cross-questioned as to the doings of their parents.

Diabolic Vice of Cheerfulness

As he walked along the street, this minion of the Calvinist dictatorship would keep his ears pricked to ascertain whether anyone was singing a secular song, or was making music, or was addicted to the diabolic vice of cheerfulness. For henceforward in Geneva the authorities were always on the hunt for anything that smacked of pleasure, for any "paillardise"; and woe unto a burgher caught visiting a tavern when the day's work was over to refresh himself with a glass of wine, or unto another who was so depraved as to find pleasure in dice or cards. Day after day the hunt went on, nor could the overworked spies enjoy rest on the Sabbath. Once more they would make a house-to-house visitation where some slothful wretch was lying in bed instead of seeking edification from Master Calvin's sermon. In the church another informer was on the watch, ready to denounce anyone who should enter the house of God too late or leave it too early.

Guardians of Morality

These official guardians of morality were at work everywhere indefatigably. When night fell, they pried among the bushes beside the Rhone, to see if a sinful pair might be indulging in caresses; while in the inns they scrutinized the beds and ransacked the baggage of strangers. They opened every letter that entered or left the city; and the carefully organized watchfulness of the Consistory extended far beyond the walls of the city. In the diligence, in public rowing-boats, in ships crossing the lake for the foreign market, and in the inns beyond the town limits, spies were everywhere at work.

Voluntary Denunciations Flourish

Any word of discontent uttered by a Genevese citizen who might be visiting Lyons or Paris would infallibly be reported. But what made the situation yet more intolerable was that countless unofficial spies joined their activities as volunteers to those who were properly appointed to the task. Whenever a State inaugurates a reign of terror, the poisonous plant of voluntary denunciation flourishes like a loathsome weed; when it is agreed on principle that denunciations shall be tolerated and are even desirable, otherwise decent folk are driven by fear to play the part of informer. If it were only to divert suspicion "of being on the side of the devil instead of God," every Genevese citizen in the days of Calvin's dictatorship looked askance at his fellows. The "zelo della paura," the zeal of dread, ran impatiently ahead of the informers. After some years the Consistory was able to abolish official supervision, since all the citizens had become voluntary controllers. The restless current of denunciations streamed in by day and by night, and kept the mill wheel of the spiritual Inquisition turning briskly. Who could feel safe under such a system, could be sure that he was not breaking one of the commandments, since Calvin forbade practically everything that might have made life joyful and worth while?

Prohibited Amusements

Prohibited were theatres, amusements, popular festivals, any kind of dancing or playing. Even so innocent a sport as skating stirred Calvin's bile. The only tolerated attire was sober and almost monkish. The tailors, therefore, were forbidden, unless they had special permission from the town authorities, to cut in accordance with new fashions. Girls were forbidden to wear silk before they reached the age of fifteen years; above that age they were not allowed to wear velvet. Gold and silver lace, golden hair, needless buttons and furbelows, were equally under the ban, and the wearing of gold ornaments or other trinkets was against the regulations. Men were not allowed to wear their hair long; women were forbidden to make much of their tresses by curling them and training them over combs. Lace was forbidden; gloves were forbidden; frills and slashed shoes were forbidden. Forbidden was the use of litters and of wheeled carriages.

Large Gatherings Prohibited

Forbidden were family feasts to which more than twenty persons had been invited; at baptisms and betrothal parties there must not be more than a specified number of courses, and sweets or candied fruits must not be served. No other wine than the red wine of the region might be drunk, while game, whether four-footed or winged, and pastry were prohibited. Married folk were not allowed to give one another presents at the wedding, or for six months afterwards. Of course, any sort of extra-conjugal intercourse was absolutely forbidden; and there must be no laxity in this respect even among people who had been formally engaged. The citizens of Geneva were not allowed to enter an inn; and the host of such a place must not serve a stranger with food and drink until the latter had said his prayers. In general the tavern-keepers were instructed to spy upon their guests, paying diligent heed to every suspicious word or gesture. No book might be printed without a special permit. It was forbidden to write letters abroad. Images of the saints, other sculptures, and music were forbidden. Even as regards psalm-singing, the ordinances declared that "care must be taken" to avoid allowing attention to wander to the tune, instead of concentrating it upon the spirit and the meaning of the words; for "only in the living word may God be praised."

Forbidding the Crime of Crimes

The citizens, who before Calvin's coming had regarded themselves as free burghers, were now not even allowed to choose the baptismal names of their children. Although for hundreds of years the names of Claude and Amade had been popular, they were now prohibited because they did not occur in the Bible. A pious Genevese must name his son Isaac, Adam, or the like. It was forbidden to say the Lord's Prayer in Latin, forbidden to keep the feasts of Easter and Christmas. Everything was forbidden that might have relieved the grey monotony of existence; and forbidden, of course, was any trace of mental freedom in the matter of the printed or spoken word. Forbidden as the crime of crimes was any criticism of Calvin's dictatorship; and the town-crier, preceded by drummers, solemnly warned the burghers that "there must be no discussion of public affairs except in the presence of the Town Council."

Permissible to Live and to Die

Forbidden, forbidden, forbidden; what a detestable rhythm! In amazement one asks oneself what, after so many prohibitions, was left to the Genevese as permissible. Not much. It was permissible to live and to die, to work and to obey, and to go to church. This last, indeed, was not merely permitted, but enforced under pain of severe punishment in case of absence. Woe unto the burgher who should fail to hear the sermons preached in the parish to which he belonged; two on Sunday, three in the course of the week, and the special hour of edification for children. The yoke of coercion was not lifted even on the Lord's Day, when the round of duty, duty, duty, was inexorable. After hard toil to gain daily bread throughout the week, came the day when all service must be devoted to God. The week for labour, Sunday for church. Thus Satan would be unable to gain or keep a footing even in sinful man; and thus an end would be put to liberty and the joy of life.

The Holy Terror

But how, we ask, could a republican city, accustomed for decades to Swiss freedom, tolerate a dictatorship as rigid as had been Savonarola's in Florence; how could a southern people, fundamentally cheerful, endure such a throttling of the joy of life? Why was an ascetic like Calvin empowered to sweep away joy from thousands upon thousands? Calvin's secret was not a new one; his art was that which all dictators before and since have used. Terror. Calvin's was a Holy Terror. Do not let us mince matters: force that sticks at nothing, making mock of humaneness as the outcome of weakness, soon becomes overwhelming. A despotically imposed systematic reign of terror paralyses the will of the individual, making community life impossible. Like a consuming disease, it eats into the soul; and soon, this being the heart of the mystery, universal cowardice gives the dictator helpers everywhere; for, since each man knows himself to be under suspicion, he suspects his neighbours; and, in a panic, the zealots outrun the commands and prohibitions of their tyrant.

Calvin Never Attended

An organized reign of terror never fails to work miracles; and when his authority was challenged, Calvin did not hesitate to work this miracle again and again. Few if any other despots have outdone him in this respect; and it is no excuse to say that his despotism, like all his qualities, was a logical product of his ideology. Agreed, this man of the spirit, this man of the nerves, this intellect, had a hatred of bloodshed. Being, as he himself openly admitted, unable to endure the sight of violence or cruelty, he never attended one of the executions and burnings which were so frequent in Geneva during the days of his rule. But herein lies the gravest fault of fervent ideologists. Men of this type, who (once more like Robespierre) would never have the pluck to witness an execution, and still less to carry it out with their own hands, will heedlessly order hundreds or thousands of death sentences as soon as they feel themselves covered by their "Idea," their theory, their system. Now Calvin regarded harshness towards "sinners" as the keystone of his system; and to carry this system unremittingly into effect was for him, from his philosophical outlook, a duty imposed on him by God. That was why, in defiance of the promptings of his own nature, he had to quench any inclination to be pitiful and to train himself systematically in cruelty. He "exercised" himself in unyieldingness as if it had been a fine art.

Better the Innocent be Punished than the Guilty Escape

"I train myself in strictness that I may fight the better against universal wrongdoing." We cannot deny that this man of iron will was terribly successful in his self-discipline to make himself unkind. He frankly admitted that he would rather know that an innocent man had been punished than that one sinner should escape God's judgment. When, among the numerous executions, one was prolonged into an abominable torture by the clumsiness of the executioner, Calvin wrote an exculpatory letter to Farel: "It cannot have happened without the peculiar will of God that the condemned persons were forced to endure such a prolongation of their torments." It is better to be too harsh than too gentle if "God's honour" is concerned such was Calvin's argument. Nothing but unsparing punishment can make human behaviour moral.

Life Under a Pitiless Christ

It is easy to understand how murderous must be the effects of such a thesis of the pitiless Christ, and of a God whose honour had perpetually to be "protected." What was the result likely to be in a world that had not yet escaped from the Middle Ages? During the first five years of Calvin's rule, in this town which had a comparatively small population, thirteen persons were hanged, ten decapitated, thirty-five burned, while seventy-six persons were driven from their houses and homes to say nothing of those who ran away in time to avoid the operations of the terror. So crowded were the prisons in the "New Jerusalem" that the head jailer informed the magistrates he could not find accommodation for any more prisoners. So horrible was the martyrdom not only of condemned persons but also of suspects that the accused laid violent hands upon themselves rather than enter the torture chambers. At length the Council had to issue a decree to the effect that "in order to reduce the number of such incidents, the prisoners should wear handcuffs day and night." Calvin uttered no word against these abominations. Terrible was the price which the city had to pay for the establishment of such "order" and "discipline"; for never before had Geneva known so many death sentences, punishments, rackings, and exilings as now when Calvin ruled there in the name of God. Balzac, therefore, is right when he declares the religious terrorism of Calvin to have been even more abominable than the worst blood-orgies of the French Revolution. "Calvin's rabid religious intolerance was morally crueller than Robespierre's political intolerance; and if he had had a more extensive sphere of influence than Geneva, he would have shed more blood than the dread apostle of political equality."

Tyranny of the Trivial

All the same it was not by means mainly of these barbarous sentences and executions and tortures that Calvin broke the Genevese sentiment of liberty; but, rather, by systematized petty tyranny and daily intimidation. At the first glance we are inclined to be amused when we read with what trifles Calvin's famous "discipline" was concerned. Still, the reader will be mistaken if he underestimates the refined skill of Master Jehan Calvin. Deliberately he made the net of prohibitions one with an exceedingly fine mesh, so fine that it was practically impossible for the fish to escape. Purposely these prohibitions related to trivial matters, so that everyone might suffer pangs of conscience and become inspired with a permanent awe of almighty, all-knowing authority. For the more caltrops that are strewed in front of us on our everyday road, the harder shall we find it to march forward freely and unconcernedly.

Prison for a Smile

Soon no one felt safe in Geneva, since the Consistory declared that human beings sinned almost every time they drew breath. We need merely turn the pages of the minute-book of the Town Council to see how skilful were the methods of intimidation. One burgher smiled while attending a baptism; three days' imprisonment. Another, tired out on a hot summer day, went to sleep during the sermon: prison. Some working men ate pastry at breakfast: three days on bread and water. Two burghers played skittles: prison. Two others diced for a quarter-bottle of wine: prison. A man refused to allow his son to be christened Abraham: prison. A blind fiddler played a dance: expelled from the city. Another praised Castellio's translation of the Bible: expelled from Geneva. A girl was caught skating, a widow threw herself on the grave of her husband, a burgher offered his neighbour a pinch of snuff during divine service: they were summoned before the Consistory, exhorted, and ordered to do penance. And so on, and so on, without end. Some cheerful fellows at Epiphany stuck a bean into the cake: twenty-four hours on bread and water. A burgher said "Monsieur" Calvin instead of "Maitre" Calvin; a couple of peasants, following ancient custom, talked about business matters on coming out of church: prison, prison, prison. A man played cards: he was pilloried with the pack of cards hung round his neck. Another sang riotously in the street: was told "he could go and sing elsewhere," this meaning that he was banished from the city. Two boatmen had a brawl, in which no one was hurt: executed. Two boys who behaved indelicately were sentenced first of all to burning at the stake; then the sentence was commuted to compelling them to watch the blaze of the faggots.

Calvin the Infallible

Most savagely of all were punished any offenders whose behaviour challenged Calvin's political and spiritual infallibility. A man who publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was mercilessly flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled. A bookprinter who, in his cups, had railed at Calvin was sentenced to have his tongue perforated with a red-hot iron before being expelled from the city. Jacques Gruet was racked and then executed merely for having called Calvin a hypocrite. Each offence, even the most paltry, was carefully entered in the records of the Consistory so that the private life of every citizen could unfailingly be held up against him in evidence.

Effects of the Terror

It was inevitable that so unsleeping a terror should, in the end, banish a sense of dignity and a feeling of energy both from individuals and from the masses. When, in a State organization, every citizen has to accept that he will be questioned, examined, and condemned, since he knows that invisible spies are watching all his doings and noting all his words; when, without notice, either by day or by night, his house is liable to "visitations" then people's nerves give way, and a sort of mass anxiety ensues, which extends by infection even to the most courageous. The strongest will is broken by the futility of the struggle. Thanks to his famous "discipline," Calvin's Geneva became what Calvin wanted: joyless, shy, and timid, with no capacity for resisting Master Calvin's will.

Beneath the Pall of Calvin

After a few years of this discipline Geneva assumed a new aspect. What had once been a free and merry city lay as it were, beneath a pall. Bright garments disappeared, colours became drab, no bells rang from the church towers, no jolly songs re-echoed in the streets, every house became as bald and unadorned as a Calvinist place of worship. The inns were empty, now that the fiddlers could no longer summon people to the dance, now that skittles could no longer be played, now that dice no longer rattled gaily on the tables. The dance-halls were empty; the dark alleys. Where lovers had been wont to roam, were forsaken; only the naked interiors of the churches were the places, Sunday after Sunday, for gloomy-visaged and silent congregations. The town had assumed a morose visage like Calvin's own, and by degrees had grown as sour as he, and, either from fear or through unconscious imitation of his sternness, as sinister and reserved. People no longer roamed freely and light-heartedly hither and thither; their eyes could not flash gladly; and their glances betrayed nothing but fear, since merriment might be mistaken for sensuality. They no longer knew unconstraint, being afraid of the terrible man who himself was never cheerful. Even in the privacy of family life, they learned to whisper, for beyond the doors, listening at the keyholes, might be their serving men and maids. When fear has become second nature, the terror-stricken are perpetually on the look-out for spies. The great thing was not to be conspicuous. Not to do anything that might arouse attention, either by one's dress or by a hasty word, or by a cheerful countenance. Avoid attracting suspicion; remain forgotten. The Genevese, in the latter years of Calvin's rule, sat at home as much as possible, for at home the walls of their houses and the bolts and bars on their doors might preserve them to some extent from prying eyes and from suspicion. But if, when they were looking out of the window, they saw some of the agents of the Consistory coming along the street, they would draw back in alarm, for who could tell what neighbour might not have denounced them? When they had to go out, the citizens crept along furtively with downcast eyes and wrapped in their drab cloaks, as if they were going to a sermon or a funeral. Even the children, who had grown up amid this new discipline, and were vigorously intimidated during the "lessons of edification," no longer played in the debonair way natural to healthy and happy youngsters, but shrank as a cur shrinks in expectation of a blow. They flagged as do flowers which have never known sufficient sunlight, but have been kept in semi-darkness.

200 Years of Torpor

The rhythm of the town was as regular as that of a clock, a chill tick-tock, never interrupted by festivals and fetedays monotonous, orderly, and dependable. Anyone visiting Geneva for the first time and walking through its streets must have believed the city to be in mourning, so cold and gloomy were the inhabitants, so mute and cheerless the ways, so oppressive the spiritual atmosphere. Discipline was wonderfully maintained; but this intolerable moderation that Calvin had forced upon Geneva had been purchased by the loss of all the sacred energies, which can never thrive except where there is excess and unrestrained freedom. Though Geneva produced a great number of pious citizens, earnest theologians, and distinguished scholars, who made the city famous for all time, still, even two centuries after Calvin, there were in this town beside the Rhone no painters, no musicians, no artists with a worldwide reputation. The extraordinary was sacrificed to the ordinary, creative liberty to a thoroughly tamed servility. When, at long last, an artist was born in Geneva, his whole life was a revolt against the shackling of individuality. Only through the instrumentality of the most independent of its citizens, through Jean Jacques Rousseau, was Geneva able to liberate itself from the strait-jacket imposed upon it by Calvin.

If John Calvin is one of the elect, so is Adolf Hitler!

If ignorance is bliss, it is no more blissful than when it
comes to the man John Calvin and his heretical theology.
As many have rightfully stated, you should not look at the
teachings of John Calvin, before you have first examined
the life of John Calvin. Many people are not aware that
reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin bred the
anti-Semitism that emboldened and served to encourage
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Even at the Nazi trials in
Nuremburg, quotes from the protestant reformers could be
heard as they made their defense for exterminating the
Jews. To quote John Calvin himself, “Their [the Jews]
rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be
oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that
they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.” Luther
was even more vehement in his hatred for the Jews. It was
his systematic plan to exterminate the Jews that is reborn
in the heart of socialist Germany and legally carried out by
Hitler and his henchmen.

One might see a statement like that from John Calvin as an
error in poor judgment or maybe something that could be
attributed to ignorance and youth, but however it cannot.
The reality is that life under John Calvin’s reign of terror
in Geneva was no different than the life of a Jew in a
German concentration camp. Historical records that are
without dispute concerning their veracity, paint a picture of
an ungodly, sick, feeble and deranged individual. While
some want to teach his theological achievements, they are
quick to ignore his murderous heart. John Calvin once had
a man tortured for over a month and then beheaded, just
because he placed a note calling John Calvin a hypocrite on
his podium in his pulpit. If that wasn’t enough, he then
threw his wife and her children out of their home and set it
on fire as she watched it burn helplessly. Life under John
Calvin, the “Pope of Geneva” as he is referred to, was no
different than the terror unleashed by the Roman Catholic
Church on Protestants throughout the rest of Europe. The
people of Geneva hated John Calvin, and upon his first stay
there, he was run out of town for trying to establish a
tyrant’s rule. The same town council who had received him
at Guillaume Farel’s pleading, within two years had come
to his door to give him three days to get out of town. When
Calvin returned to Geneva the second time his life was a
complete failure. His father had died in shame
mismanaging church funds and his brother Charles had
been excommunicated. John Calvin was broke, living in
exile and already labeled a heretic. His only
accomplishment was a worthless paper on a humanist
writing that no one even cared to read.
He was an attorney with a Doctorate in
Law, not theology. Due to desperation on
behalf of the Genève’s and a bit of fate,
John Calvin returned to Geneva a
second time after they agreed to submit
to him completely. Over the next thirty
years, life in Geneva was hell on earth.
According to records, from 1541 to 1546,
fifty-eight people were executed and seventy-six exiled from
Geneva. Calvin was consulted in all affairs of State and his
advice was usually followed. Attendance at public worship
was mandatory and watchmen were directed to see that
people went to church. Three men who were caught
laughing during a sermon were imprisoned for three days.
Death sentences were routinely imposed and it is reported
that even a girl was beheaded for striking her parents.
Calvin also had twenty women burned at the stake after
accusing them of causing a plague that had swept through
Geneva in 1545. Later this would be repeated, as men
trained in the school of Calvin, burned the “witches” in
Salem, here in America. Anyone who did not attend church
had to repeat prayers, and beg for forgiveness. Every home
was inspected for sin yearly and children were encouraged
to spy on, and report their parents. In Calvin’s church,
fines, whippings, and even death punished sinners. The
truth of John Calvin’s tyrannical dictatorship is forever
etched in the history of Geneva.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. While many have
ignorantly followed John Calvin’s teachings, they ignore
the inconsistency in every turn of his life. The fact is that
John Calvin never had an original thought. This so-called
“great” systematic theologian insisted on infant baptism
until the day he died. This is quite ironic for a man
believing in election. He accused people who believed the
earth revolved around the sun of being possessed by the
devil. But the greatest tragedy is his insanity brought to
America a host of heretical teachings which are the
foundation for Protestantism in America today. These
things and more, all came from a man who was as
tyrannical and murderous as Adolf Hitler himself, and like
Luther, served as Adolf’s inspiration. Next time you call
yourself a Calvinist, you will now have a better
understanding about who you are and where your beliefs
come from. My hope is, you will also have the courage to
discard them!