5. The Brokenness in Church History, Part 1: Christian Leaders

Should centuries of Christian agreement ever be treated as proof that a doctrine cannot be wrong?

This is not a history of Christianity. It is a focused examination of one historical question: should centuries of Christian agreement ever be treated as proof that a doctrine cannot be wrong?

That question matters enormously for this study. Throughout this website, I ask Christians to reconsider several major theological beliefs that have been dominant within Christianity for many centuries. I argue that the Holy Spirit is God and is feminine, our divine Mother, that God will ultimately save all people, and that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, King, Lord, and Savior, but not God Himself.  I know perfectly well that these conclusions conflict with what the large majority of Christians today have been taught.

A natural response is therefore: Can so many Christians really have been wrong for so long?

That is a fair question.

Christian tradition should not simply be ignored. If Christians across many centuries have interpreted Scripture in a particular way, that deserves serious consideration. It should make anyone proposing a different interpretation, including me, humble, careful, willing to listen, and slow to speak. It is for this reason that I spent about three and a half years studying the Bible and Christian history, praying, and talking extensively with pastors and other Christians before finally publishing this blog.

I believe there is an enormous difference between saying Christian consensus is evidence worth considering and saying Christian consensus establishes that a doctrine must be true.

History itself does not allow us to make that second claim.

The ultimate authority is God. And for determining what God revealed through Israel, Jesus, and the apostles, our uniquely authoritative written witness is Scripture.

Church Father ≠ God.

Theologian ≠ God.

Pope ≠ God.

Reformer ≠ God.

Council ≠ God.

Pastor ≠ God.

Denomination ≠ God.

And I am certainly not God either.

God is God.

Every Christian teacher, tradition, and theological system, including my own, must ultimately be tested against God and against what God has revealed in Scripture.

Scripture itself gives us this posture. The Bereans were praised for examining the Scriptures to test even Paul's preaching (Acts 17:11). Paul told Christians to “test all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Jesus warned that religious tradition could actually “make void the word of God” (Mark 7:13). Paul went so far as to say that even if he himself or an angel preached a different gospel, that message should be rejected (Galatians 1:8).

Christian history strongly reinforces that biblical warning, as it is full of examples of both individual Christians, especially influential Christian leaders, who were wrong at times, and periods when the institutional Church drifted from sound doctrine and needed reform.

Christian Leaders

Few Christian leaders have had a greater impact on Christian thought and practice than Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. Yet despite their genuine contributions to Christianity, their lives and writings also demonstrate that they were not infallible and could at times teach or defend things I believe were profoundly contrary to Scripture and the character of God. This does not mean everything they did or said was wrong. It does mean that nothing they wrote should be treated as God’s Word, and their theology—like mine and everyone else’s—must always be tested against God’s Word rather than simply accepted.

1. Augustine (354–430 A.D.)

Augustine of Hippo is one of the most influential theologians in Christian history. Catholics and Protestants alike have drawn extensively from him. His writings on grace, sin, salvation, Scripture, the Church, and God shaped Western Christianity for well over a thousand years. (Tornau)

There is much in Augustine worth appreciating. He was intellectually brilliant, deeply reflective, and profoundly concerned with knowing and loving God. His Confessions remains one of the most influential works of Christian spiritual reflection ever written. I personally love his famous prayer, “our hearts are restless till they rest in You.” It beautifully expresses the deep human longing for God that runs throughout his work. (Augustine, Confessions 1.1; Tornau)

Augustine also took Scripture, preaching, reason, and the Christian life extraordinarily seriously. He wrestled deeply with questions of human motivation, sin, grace, freedom, love, suffering, and the nature of God. He wrote and preached extensively on Scripture and continually sought to understand how Christians should actually live out their faith. Even Christians who strongly disagree with parts of his theology can learn from his intellectual seriousness, his willingness to examine his own heart, and his desire to understand and love God. (Tornau)

But Augustine was not infallible.

The Donatist controversy gives us an especially important example.

The Donatists were a North African Christian movement that separated from the Catholic Church following disputes arising from the persecution of Christians. This was not a completely peaceful conflict: violence associated with some Donatist circles, particularly the Circumcellions, was a real problem. Augustine therefore faced an actual pastoral and social crisis, not merely Christians peacefully disagreeing over obscure theology. (Gaddis 131–50; Augustine, Letter 185)

But Augustine eventually went much further than arguing that the government should prevent violence.

He came to defend using state power to compel Christians into Catholic communion.

What makes this especially revealing is that Augustine tells us he had once opposed this approach. In Letter 185, he explains that he originally preferred that people not be compelled into Catholicism. But after observing people who had joined the Catholic Church under pressure and whom he believed had benefited spiritually, he changed his mind. He eventually interpreted Jesus' words in Luke 14:23—“compel them to come in”—as justification for governmental coercion against schismatics. Augustine spoke approvingly of people being brought into Catholic unity through “terror and compulsion,” and even wrote, “we even compel those to come in.” (Augustine, Letter 185 7)

I believe Augustine was terribly wrong here. But if someone sincerely believes that leaving the Catholic Church places a person's eternal salvation in danger, and coercion appears to bring that person back to truth, coercion can begin to look like love.

Which is one reason why theology matters so much. A theology of exclusive institutional salvation, combined with governmental power and the conviction that force can rescue people from eternal destruction, creates enormous potential for religious coercion.

And tragically, Augustine's influence on Christian thinking about religious coercion did not disappear with Augustine. Augustine did not create the Inquisition. The Inquisition developed centuries after his death under historical, political, legal, and theological circumstances far more complicated than the teaching of any one theologian. It would therefore be unfair to say that Augustine simply “caused” it. But his defense of using coercion for what he regarded as a person's spiritual good became an important precedent within later Western Christian arguments for religious force. (Augustine, Letter 185 7; Nederman and Mulieri)

Augustine's arguments that Christians could legitimately use governmental coercion against heretics and schismatics became part of the theological inheritance of the medieval Western Church. Later medieval canon law drew extensively upon Augustine when considering heresy, religious discipline, and the legitimate use of force. Within that developing legal and theological world, the medieval Church eventually established inquisitorial systems for investigating and punishing heresy. Some forms of punishment went far beyond anything Augustine himself administered, but Augustine's earlier theological defense of coercing religious dissenters helped provide an important precedent for the idea that force could legitimately be used for someone's spiritual good. (Nederman and Mulieri; Gaddis 131–50)

Augustine's defense of religious coercion also became part of the theological inheritance of later Western Christianity. He did not create the medieval Inquisition, and it would be unfair to treat him as directly responsible for institutions that developed centuries after his death. But his argument that force could sometimes be used for a person's spiritual good provided an important precedent for later Christians who defended coercion against people considered heretics or schismatics. (Augustine, Letter 185 7; Gaddis 131–50)

That is sobering.

A Christian can believe that coercion is helping someone.

A Christian leader can believe that violence is being used for a righteous purpose.

A theological system can even make those conclusions appear loving, reasonable, and biblical.

Despite being terribly wrong.

Augustine's sexual theology provides another illustration of why his enormous influence should not make his conclusions untouchable. Augustine explicitly affirmed that marriage was good. But he tied fallen sexual desire—concupiscence—very closely to original sin. He described sexual concupiscence as an evil resulting from the fall and connected it with the transmission of original sin. He argued that marital intercourse directed simply toward sexual pleasure rather than procreation involved venial sin, while regarding continence as superior to marriage. Many Christians today—including many who greatly admire Augustine—would not accept his assessment of normal marital sexuality. (Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.16–18, 27)

And that should teach us something.

Augustine's influence is also especially relevant to another subject examined extensively on this website: eternal punishment.

Augustine did not invent the doctrine of eternal hell. Christians before him had taught everlasting punishment. At the same time, other early Christians believed in various forms of universal restoration or understood God's punishment as ultimately corrective. (Augustine, City of God 21.17, 23; Tornau)

Augustine himself was clearly aware that Christians held these more hopeful views. In Book 21 of The City of God, Augustine directly discusses Christians who believed that people condemned to hell might eventually be released after a period of punishment. He also addresses Origen's belief in an even broader restoration. Augustine rejects these possibilities and forcefully argues that the final punishment of the wicked is everlasting. One of his central arguments comes from Matthew 25:46: if the “eternal life” promised to the righteous is truly endless, Augustine argues, then the corresponding “eternal punishment” of the wicked must also be endless. Augustine therefore became one of the most important and influential Western Christian defenders of everlasting punishment. His views on original sin, the condemnation of humanity, divine judgment, grace, and eternal punishment profoundly influenced later Western Christianity. (Augustine, City of God 21.17, 23)

We should distinguish carefully between what Augustine concluded Scripture teaches and what Scripture actually teaches. Augustine's interpretation must itself be tested. As I discuss in a later history article, many in the early Church disagreed with Augustine and believed God's plan was for all of humanity to be restored.

The same principle applies to everything discussed above.

None of this means Augustine was a false Christian.

It does not mean everything Augustine taught was wrong.

It does not erase his remarkable intellect, his love for God, his influence on Christian spirituality, or the genuine insights Christians can still gain from his writings.

It means something much simpler:

A brilliant, devout, enormously influential theologian can be seriously wrong.

We can learn from Augustine.

We can appreciate Augustine.

But we should not submit our theology to Augustine.

Our theology must ultimately be tested against God's Word.

2. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 A.D.)

The same problem did not disappear as Christian theology became increasingly sophisticated.

Thomas Aquinas is rightly regarded as one of the greatest intellectual figures in Christian history. His Summa Theologiae is an astonishing work of systematic thought, and his influence within Catholic theology remains immense. (Pasnau)

There is also much in Aquinas worth appreciating. He took both faith and human reason extraordinarily seriously and believed that truth discovered through reason could not ultimately contradict truth revealed by God. One of his most famous principles is that “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” Aquinas developed one of the most influential accounts of natural law in Western intellectual history, arguing that human beings can use the reason God has given them to recognize fundamental truths about good and evil. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2; I-II, q. 94; Pasnau)

His theological method also took objections seriously. Throughout the Summa, Aquinas regularly presents substantial arguments against his own position before attempting to answer them. (Pasnau)

Whatever conclusions Christians may reach about his theology, Aquinas was a brilliant thinker who devoted his extraordinary intellectual abilities to understanding God, Scripture, morality, and the Christian life.

Yet Aquinas also explicitly argued that persistent heretics should be put to death. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 11, art. 3)

His conclusion demonstrates how a theological system can produce an answer that appears logical, moral, and even faithful within that system while nevertheless being profoundly wrong.

Aquinas reasoned that corrupting the Christian faith was more serious than counterfeiting money. Since civil governments could execute counterfeiters, he argued, persistent heretics could even more reasonably be executed. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 11, art. 3)

His conclusion was unmistakable. Convicted heretics deserved not merely to be excommunicated but to be “severed from the world by death.” Aquinas then described the Church, after attempting to bring the heretic to repentance, delivering the obstinate person to secular authorities to be killed. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 11, art. 3)

Think about that.

One of the most celebrated theologians in Christian history could study Scripture extensively, reason carefully, construct one of Christianity's most sophisticated theological systems—and conclude that another Christian who persistently believed the wrong doctrine should die.

Most Christians today would find that conclusion horrifying.

And rightly so.

Aquinas was not unintelligent.

He was not careless.

He was not indifferent to morality.

His position actually followed logically from assumptions he believed were biblical: theological error could destroy souls; protecting souls was more important than protecting temporal life; governments could punish grave wrongdoing with death; therefore persistent heresy could justly receive the death penalty. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 11, art. 3)

Within that framework, the conclusion made sense.

I believe the problem was the framework.

That is one of the reasons Aquinas is such an important example of Christian fallibility.

Extraordinary intelligence does not make a theologian infallible.

Careful logic does not guarantee that the assumptions underneath the logic are correct.

A lifetime devoted to theology does not guarantee that every conclusion will reflect God's character or God's Word.

And being accepted for centuries as one of Christianity's greatest theological authorities does not change that.

I do not make this point to dismiss Aquinas.

Nor am I arguing that because Aquinas was disastrously wrong about the execution of heretics, everything else he believed must therefore be wrong. That would be equally bad reasoning.

My point is much narrower:

Aquinas's theological prestige cannot establish that Aquinas was right.

If a theologian of his intelligence, learning, seriousness, and influence could become convinced that Scripture and Christian morality permitted the killing of persistent heretics, then Christians should be very cautious about treating the authority of any theologian as a substitute for examining an argument ourselves.

“Aquinas taught this” cannot settle a theological question.

Neither can “Augustine taught this,” “Calvin taught this,” “Luther taught this,” or even “the greatest theologians in history taught this.”

We can listen to them. We can learn from them. We can respect their intelligence and be grateful for what they saw clearly.

But they remain human.

They remain fallible.

Christian tradition, theological brilliance, and centuries of consensus must therefore still be tested against the ultimate question:

Is this actually revealed in God's Word?

3. Martin Luther (1483–1546 A.D.)

There is much about Luther I admire.

Whatever one thinks about every aspect of Luther's theology, his courage during the Reformation was extraordinary. He challenged some of the most powerful religious institutions of his day and insisted that Christian teaching itself could be questioned when it did not correspond with Scripture. He emphasized the authority of Scripture, attacked serious abuses within the Church, and helped make the Bible far more accessible to ordinary Christians through his German translation and his use of the vernacular. (Lobenstein-Reichmann)

Luther also cared deeply about education. He urged civic leaders to establish and support schools and argued that education should not be reserved primarily for clergy or the wealthy. Significantly for his time, he advocated schools for both boys and girls. His expectations for women's education still reflected the limitations of the sixteenth century, but his insistence that girls should be educated at all—and should themselves learn Scripture—was important. He wanted ordinary Christians to be able to read, understand their faith, and engage Scripture for themselves. (City of Worms)

His influence extended far beyond theological debate. The Reformation helped stimulate education and literacy, vernacular Bible reading, congregational participation in worship, and Christian hymnody. Luther himself wrote hymns and encouraged ordinary Christians to sing their faith together rather than leaving worship primarily in the hands of clergy. His work helped reshape Christian worship, education, and biblical access for generations. (Lobenstein-Reichmann; Loewe 69–89)

None of this means Luther was right about everything. He was a complicated man, and there are aspects of his writings and legacy that deserve serious criticism. But Christians do not have to believe that every part of a person's theology or character was correct in order to recognize where that person displayed courage, insight, or faithfulness.

Luther himself is therefore an example of something beautiful:

Christians sometimes need to challenge inherited Christian consensus.

The fact that a belief has been widely accepted, taught by respected leaders, or embedded in Christian tradition for centuries does not by itself prove that it is true. Luther's great contribution was not simply that he replaced one set of theological conclusions with another. It was that he helped reopen the question of authority: when Christian tradition and Scripture appear to conflict, Christians must be willing to return to Scripture and examine what they have inherited.

That willingness can be frightening. It can invite criticism. It can disrupt institutions and relationships. And those who challenge consensus can themselves still be wrong in important ways.

But sometimes questioning inherited consensus is not rebellion against the Christian faith.

Sometimes it is an attempt to be more faithful to it.

But Luther also demonstrates that a reformer can reform one area and remain terribly wrong in another.

The German Peasants' War of 1524–1525 grew out of serious and longstanding grievances. Many peasants lived under forms of serfdom or were burdened by heavy rents, compulsory labor, tithes, restrictions on the use of common lands, and increasing demands from their lords. In some regions, serfdom restricted peasants' freedom to move, marry, and control their own labor. When representatives of the movement produced the Twelve Articles in 1525, their demands included the abolition of serfdom, restoration of access to common lands, relief from excessive dues and labor obligations, fairer treatment under the law, and the right of communities to choose their own pastors. These were not simply violent rebels looking for an excuse to attack their rulers. Much of the movement began with organized protest, petitions, negotiations, and demands for reform rooted in what the peasants believed were principles of Christian justice. Luther himself initially acknowledged that many of their grievances were legitimate and sharply rebuked princes and nobles for their oppression of the poor. (Lotzer; Appold 14–57; Schaff, vol. 7)

As the uprising spread, however, portions of the peasant movement did become violent. Castles and monasteries were attacked, property was destroyed, and some people were killed. Luther opposed that violence and had initially urged both rulers and peasants toward peace. But when the conflict escalated, his own rhetoric became appalling. (Appold 14–57; Schaff, vol. 7)

In Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, Luther called upon authorities and others to “smite, slay and stab” rebels and compared them with mad dogs. He even described dying while suppressing them as a blessed death performed in service to God's command. (Zimmer) (Luther, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes”)

Even more disturbing are Luther's later writings about Jews.

Earlier in his career, Luther had hoped better Christian treatment of Jewish people might contribute to Jewish conversion. Later, after those hopes largely failed, his rhetoric became vicious. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

In his 1543 On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther proposed that rulers “set fire to their synagogues or schools.” He also advocated destroying Jewish homes, confiscating religious writings, restricting rabbis, forcing labor, and ultimately expelling Jews. (Jewish-Christian Relations Council) (Luther, “On the Jews and Their Lies”)

Those writings are indefensible.

But I do not think the appropriate conclusion is:

Luther therefore contributed nothing good to Christianity.

The better conclusion:

A person can courageously recover important truth while remaining profoundly wrong about something else.

Luther challenged centuries of religious authority.

And then Luther himself became a religious authority whom later Christians also needed to challenge.

That should make every Christian theologian humble.

It should also make Christians today committed to studying God’s Word for themselves, like the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures to see whether “these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

People—even respected leaders and theologians—remain fallible.

God’s Word is not.

4. John Calvin (1509–1564 A.D.)

John Calvin provides another particularly important example because his influence on Protestant Christianity remains enormous. (Watt, Consistory)

There are aspects of Calvin's life that deserve acknowledgment. Calvin himself had experienced religious exile, and Geneva became an important refuge for Protestants fleeing persecution elsewhere in Europe. Calvin helped support and shape systems of poor relief that cared for refugees and others in need. Geneva's refugee funds provided food, money, medical assistance, and other forms of support to people who had arrived in the city with little or nothing. That assistance was not always restricted to Calvinists; surviving records show help being given at times to destitute Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Jews, and others. (Chung-Kim 4–17)

Thank God for that.

But Calvin was also profoundly fallible, and some aspects of the Christian society he helped construct in Geneva should deeply trouble Christians today.

Geneva should not be inaccurately portrayed as though Calvin were an absolute dictator who personally controlled every civil decision. He was not. Geneva had councils and magistrates with genuine authority of their own, and Calvin sometimes fought bitterly with them. The Consistory—the religious disciplinary body Calvin helped establish—could admonish people, investigate their behavior, and exclude them from Communion, while civil punishments such as fines, imprisonment, banishment, and execution formally belonged to Geneva's magistrates. (Witte 245–80; Watt, Consistory)

That distinction matters.

But it does not remove Calvin's responsibility for the religious system he helped design, lead, defend, and influence.

Calvin's Ecclesiastical Ordinances helped establish the Consistory, whose pastors and elders regularly investigated the lives of ordinary Genevans. Historian Jeffrey Watt, after extensive study of the surviving Consistory records, describes its disciplinary reach as “far more intrusive” than that of the Catholic Inquisition. People were summoned over drunkenness, dancing, blasphemy, arguments, sexual behavior, religious beliefs and practices, gambling, songs, and other aspects of personal life. Even ordinary quarrels could bring someone before the Consistory. (Watt, Consistory 1–14, 39–68)

This was not simply a church preaching high moral standards.

It was an intensive system of religious and moral discipline that reached deeply into people's private lives.

People could get into trouble for dancing.

People could be punished for gambling.

Church attendance and religious instruction were enforced.

Children were required to attend catechism. Genevan authorities even regulated religious practices surrounding children and prohibited customs they considered remnants of Catholic superstition. (Watt, Consistory 69–99)

Three men who laughed during a sermon were reportedly imprisoned for three days. Children were punished for remaining outside church during the sermon to eat cakes. One man was imprisoned for several days during a dispute over what name he would give his own child. Dancing could result in fines or imprisonment. (Watt, Consistory 69–99; Schaff, vol. 8)

And the intrusion reached deeply into family life. Watt's study concludes that the Consistory sometimes exhorted women to obey even violently abusive husbands. (Watt, “Women” 429–39)

Think about what this meant in practice.

A Christian governing system was concerning itself not only with violence, theft, or other crimes against one's neighbor, but with whether people danced, what songs they sang, whether they attended the approved religious instruction, how they practiced their faith, how they behaved within their marriages, and even their personal quarrels.

Watt observes that most of the matters handled by Calvin's Consistory would not even fall under judicial authority in the modern Western world. They were largely matters we would now regard as private behavior rather than crimes. (Watt, Consistory)

And the Consistory did not operate in isolation. Church discipline and civil government existed alongside one another. The Consistory could investigate and discipline; the civil authorities possessed the power to fine, imprison, banish, and—in the most serious cases—kill. (Witte 245–80)

The penalties could therefore become extraordinarily severe.

Sex outside marriage could result in imprisonment. Repeated or aggravated adultery could become a capital offense, and executions for adultery did occur. Modern scholarship confirms that Genevan authorities pursued illicit sexuality rigorously and, on rare occasions, sentenced adulterers to death. (Watt, “Sex in Geneva” 210–31)

Calvin himself believed the death penalty for adultery could be justified from Scripture. Commenting on biblical law, he wrote that “the law of God commands adulterers to be stoned.” (Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Gen. 38:24)

People were also executed by Geneva's civil authorities for alleged witchcraft. It is important to note that witchcraft prosecutions ordinarily belonged to the Small Council rather than Calvin's Consistory; nevertheless, the Consistory investigated alleged magic and superstition and operated within the same religious society. (Watt, “Magic and Witchcraft” 215–44)

Some defenders of Calvin understandably point out that Geneva existed in the sixteenth century and that severe criminal and religious punishments were not unique to Calvinists. That historical context matters.

But historical context does not make these practices good.

Christians today would rightly be horrified by a government imprisoning people over dancing, coercing religious conformity, policing private disagreements, or executing people for adultery, witchcraft, or theological error.

And yet this was a Christian society deliberately attempting to order itself according to what its leaders believed Scripture required.

That is precisely why Geneva matters for my argument.

Sincere Christians can become absolutely convinced that their interpretation of Scripture is righteous while building systems that later generations of Christians recognize as profoundly wrong.

And then there was heresy.

That brings us to Michael Servetus.

Servetus was a nonviolent physician and Christian theologian who rejected the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and held a number of other unconventional theological beliefs. (Schaff, vol. 8)

His case is sometimes described in a way that makes Calvin seem only incidentally involved: Geneva's civil government executed Servetus, Calvin was merely a pastor, and Calvin actually “showed mercy” by requesting that Servetus be beheaded rather than burned.

That description leaves out far too much.

Calvin had wanted Servetus stopped years before Servetus ever arrived in Geneva. (Schaff, vol. 8)

In 1546—seven years before the execution—Calvin wrote privately to his fellow reformer William Farel about the possibility that Servetus might come to Geneva: (Calvin, letter to Farel, 13 Feb. 1546, qtd. in Schaff, vol. 8)

“If he shall come, I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail.”

That statement is difficult to soften.

Then Servetus actually appeared in Geneva in 1553. (Schaff, vol. 8)

Calvin himself later acknowledged what happened next. Writing about Servetus's arrival, he stated that “at my instigation” one of Geneva's magistrates ordered Servetus imprisoned. (Calvin, qtd. in Schaff, vol. 8)

Calvin was therefore not a distant theological consultant who became reluctantly involved after somebody else arrested Servetus.

He wanted Servetus detained.

He helped formulate the theological case against him.

He participated extensively in the proceedings.

And he wanted a death sentence.

Only days after Servetus's arrest, Calvin wrote to Farel: (Calvin, qtd. in Schaff, vol. 8)

“I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed upon him.”

Calvin’s only mercy was that he requested Servetus be beheaded rather than burned alive. (Schaff, vol. 8)

Calvin was not asking Geneva to spare Servetus's life.

He was asking Geneva to kill him in a less torturous way.

Beheading may have been less agonizing than being burned alive, but choosing between two methods of killing a nonviolent theologian for his beliefs is a horrifying definition of “mercy.”

Geneva's magistrates ultimately rejected Calvin's preferred method. (Schaff, vol. 8)

Michael Servetus was burned alive on October 27, 1553. (Schaff, vol. 8)

He was killed because his theological beliefs were judged heretical.

I believe that execution was evil.

A Christian theologian should not be killed because he reaches the wrong conclusion about the Trinity—or about any other Christian doctrine.

And what makes Calvin's involvement still more disturbing is what happened afterward.

Calvin did not publicly repudiate the principle that had led to Servetus's death. In 1554, he published a lengthy defense of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine and of the right of civil magistrates to punish heretics with the sword. He defended the justice of what had happened to Servetus. (Schaff, vol. 8)

I wish the historical record showed Calvin later repudiating this principle. It does not. What survives instead is his defense of the execution.

Calvin’s record is another reason Christians should resist treating any theologian’s authority as self-authenticating. His theological claims, like those of every Christian teacher, must still be tested carefully against Scripture.

And Servetus's case is particularly relevant to my own study because his rejection of the Trinity places him much closer to some of the questions I am asking than most of the historical figures discussed in this essay.

But I want to be very clear about my argument.

I am not arguing:

Calvin supported the execution of an anti-Trinitarian; therefore the Trinity is false.

That would not be good reasoning.

Calvin could have behaved horribly toward Servetus and still have been correct about the Trinity.

My argument is much narrower:

Calvin's theological prestige cannot establish that Calvin was right.

Here was an enormously influential Christian leader who spent his life studying Scripture and nevertheless became convinced that Christian faithfulness allowed a government to kill another man for theological error.

He could read the Bible.

He could preach the Bible.

He could devote his life to theology.

And he could still be profoundly, terribly wrong.

That is precisely the point.

The same principle applies when Calvin speaks about human depravity, predestination, eternal punishment, the nature of God, or anything else.

I believe significant parts of Calvin's theological system portray humanity far too negatively and God's purposes far too harshly. Many Christians strongly disagree with me.

But neither Calvin's reputation nor mine can settle that disagreement.

We have to go back to Scripture.

People—even brilliant, influential, sincere Christian leaders—remain fallible.

God's Word is not.