Calvin and Servetus: Dan Barker Twists History

Dan Barker’s Misrepresentation of Calvin and Servetus

I want you to listen to what Dan Barker thinks about John Calvin. Let's listen. Hey, it's 500th anniversary of John Calvin, right? John Calvin was born in 1509, July. Let's listen to what Dan Barker thinks about John Calvin.

I think you could name as many as I can. Let me give one poignant example, and that's John Calvin. John Calvin very bravely dissented from the authority of his day. The authority of his day was the Roman Catholic Church.

He had the intelligence to rise above the authority and think for himself and say, Wait a minute. He challenged the authority of the church for many reasons, and he, following Luther's lead, broke free.

He said, We are not going to follow. We are going to dissent. We are going to protest. And they reformed. They were reformers. They were Protestants. He wrote his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

And then what did he do? He turned right around and became just as much a bully as the Roman Catholic Church was. What did John Calvin do? He set up a little mini-theocracy of his own. Now that he had written his Institutes, now there was no more room for dissent.

Now, he was able to dissent, but no one else could. No one could disagree with him. He executed people for the crime of simply dissenting from his opinions. He banished people from Geneva from this theocracy.

He instituted complete thought control. No theater. There was this thought police in that city. Religion and government were united under Calvin, and it was a horrible disaster to human freedom and to truth.

Servetus, the Trinity, and the Geneva Execution

One example is Michael Servaitis. Michael Servaitis, many of you know, like John Calvin, was also a dissenter from the Roman Catholic Church. Servaitis deeply believed in God. He read the Bible, and yet he came to a slightly different conclusion than John Calvin.

And Servaitis was enjoying his newfound freedom to read the Bible for himself, but he was convinced with careful, rational thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was wrong. He, like Isaac Newton, another believer, and many others, were convinced that through careful, honest, open study of the Scripture with an open heart, the doctrine of the Trinity could not be substantiated.

He was arrested and put in jail by the Roman Catholic Church, but he escaped. And what did he do? He thought he could go up to John Calvin and reason with him. He thought, since we are dissenters, let's talk this out.

And Servaitis was convinced. He was a brilliant doctor. By the way, Servaitis was the first guy to explain the circulation of the blood through the human body. Well, Calvin's a bright guy. Let's talk this out, and I can explain to him what's wrong with Calvin's theology.

What did Calvin do? Calvin had Michael Servaitis burned at the stake. He committed no crime in Geneva. He had broken no law in that city. He had broken no biblical law. His only crime was that he had the audacity to challenge the authority of the theocrat, of the John Calvin himself.

Calvin did not separate religion and government. He united them, and that union was deadly. Not only did he have him burned at the stake, he tied Servaitis' book to his body, and he ordered that all of Servaitis' books should be destroyed.

And when Servaitis was being burned at the stake for his heresy, for his audacity to dare to challenge the inerrant word of Calvin, he was burned with his book on his side. John Calvin was a monster. And when monsters gain political and governmental authority, the people suffer.

Government becomes a joke. No, it's worse than that. Government becomes the enemy of the people.

Historical Context, Geneva’s Laws, and the Role of the Swiss Cantons

The New Testament he... Later on, he's basically going to say that anyone who admires John Calvin is morally reprobate. That's where he goes. And you know, the sad thing is, since people... You know the last time I heard someone give as tortured, imbalanced, and false a view of the Servaitis affair as that one?

It was Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart. Now you can understand why Jimmy Swaggart does it. I don't think that Dan wants to be in Jimmy Swaggart's camp. And I don't have time in only four minutes to go through everything.

But let me just point out a couple things there. He said that Servaitis broke no laws in Geneva. That is a joke. Of course it's a joke. The crime, in fact, was heresy. And that was against the law. He had just accused Calvin of all the thought police and everybody else.

And then he turns around and says that Servaitis didn't break any laws. It's baloney. What he... You know, the problem here is... And this is one of the questions I may ask Dan. And we'll have some more time, Lord willing, next time to expand on this.

But given his own definition of morality, we all could immediately jump to, why do you judge Calvin given you can't give a justification for morality? But even given his definition of morality, how does this apply to the gross imbalance of the presentation that was just made by Dan Barker about John Calvin?

Where does his morality fit in there? Why doesn't he mention that Calvin risked his life to try to meet with Servaitis many years earlier in Paris? And Servaitis stood him up. Why doesn't he mention that Calvin knew Servaitis' identity when he was Michael Villanueva?

He had an assumed name. And Calvin had to be coerced because of a legal proceeding to even identify Servaitis so that he was arrested by the Inquisition and escaped before he was to be burned with all of his works.

Why doesn't he mention that Servaitis made a beeline for Geneva knowing that he would be arrested in Geneva? Why doesn't he mention that Servaitis tried to have Calvin imprisoned while he was in Geneva?

Why doesn't he mention that Calvin was not a citizen of Geneva in 1553? He had not become a citizen until 1559. Why doesn't he mention that there were many people in Geneva who sided with Servaitis against Calvin because they were his political enemies at the time and that for a period of time it was uncertain what was going to happen in that situation?

Why doesn't he mention that Geneva sent letters to all the other Swiss cantons asking their advice as to what to do about Servaitis and that every one of the Swiss cantons, without exception, said Servaitis had to be burned?

Why doesn't he mention that they wrote to Philip Melanchthon, Luther's successor? Yes, the retiring, the rather squishy Melanchthon. And what was Melanchthon's response? Servaitis must die by burning.

Why doesn't he mention that everyone in that day, including Miguel Servaitis, believed that it was the state's duty to do what it did? Why doesn't he mention those things which give such tremendous context?

Why doesn't he mention that it wasn't Calvin that had him burned? Why doesn't he mention that the ministers led by Calvin asked for a more humane method of execution and were turned down by the secular government that did the burning, which was called the Little Council?

Why doesn't he mention those things? To not mention the historical things, to not mention all those contexts that I just mentioned briefly, is to lie about history. How does Dan Barker's morality fit into this?

Because if morality is just not harming others, then you can do anything you want with history because history's past doesn't exist anymore, right? You can't harm it. And so how does Dan Barker, for example, look at the story of 1984 and say there was something wrong with what the government did in constantly changing history?

What's wrong with that? History doesn't exist. You're not harming anything. And see, I could very easily tell Dan Barker's story from his conversion story, and I could leave out all sorts of the context.

I could talk about how Dan Barker preached for money even when he didn't believe in it anymore. And I could paint Dan Barker as a horrible person as long as I could be selective with my historical facts.

And that's what Dan Barker did to John Calvin right there. Why is it immoral for me to do that, but Dan Barker gets away with it? Interesting question to ask. Maybe I'll get to ask Dan that question myself.