Authoritarianism or Liberty

then wouldn't we be publicly punishing people for having the wrong faith? Luther advocated that against the Jews. Calvin had people burned at the stake. The puritans persecuted and even killed the Quakers.

We can't be credible witnesses to the Gospel if we do not own up to the failures of those we have learned so much from. To whitewash their grievous sins would only prove that we to seek an authoritarianism over liberty.

C5, you have been here long enough to know my meaning here…I refer to the great principles of rule of law and constitutionalism.

The Reformers and Puritans were great men, but men of their times. They held a different view of the civil magistrate and his authority over the first tablet of the Law. You are quick to accuse them of sin & yet you advocate for a civil magistrate that violates the second tablet. Who has the greater sin?

I am just saying that before we put those reformers on pedestals and regard their words and lives as standards for us, that is before treating them as authority figures for our lives and times, we need to note that not all that they said and did belong on the pedestals that you advocate for them.

That includes the Constitution, which was at least in part a racist document. The Constitution was written by men and was written more to keep certain people in power more than anything else. For the purpose of Gov't, according to Madison, was "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." And he felt that power should be in the hands of "the wealth of the nation" "the more capable set of men."

See, both the reformers and the Constitution have failures and thus should not stand over us with absolute authority but rather we should weigh their words each time we apply them. And if there is exists other standards and examples that surpass that of the Constitution and the Reformers, we should embrace them at the points that they show their superiority and embrace the Reformers and the Constitution at the points that they show their superiority.

Finally, regardless of the civil magistrates one advocates for, they all violate God's law. To put sinners on pedestals is to embrace a human authoritarianism.

The Reformers exalted the authority of the Bible over the church and the state. As a result the English Puritans established the rule of law over the rule of kings. Their children in New England gave us American constitutionalism. Their firm belief based on the Biblical view of man was that man corrupts power because of his depravity. Thus, they instituted a system of checks and balances to restrain his abuse of power. The free church was established to maintain the doctrines of the Reformation among a free people.

No one is saying it is a perfect system. Unlike the liberal we say that no system of man is perfectible. According to Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony collectivism did in fact fail even among redeemed men. To propose it among the unredeemed is folly and fantasy and insanity since it has already been shown not to work.

Capitalism and private property have a theological base in the division of the land of Israel according to family. It is the best we can hope for in a fallen world. Form and freedom was realized in early American under Reformation influence.

Like Jeremiah we marvel that professing Christians deny these things.

State enforced socialism has its heritage in the autonomous wisdom of man. It fails because it is based on a humanistic view of man that denies the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and His doctrine.

the death nonsense to you? It isn't to me. Do you think protesting the words of a man who was a significant inspiration to Hitler in how he abused the Jews is nonsense? I don't. The reformers were more concerned with the divine right of kings than with liberty. Your wedding of American Constitutionalism with Reformed Christianity seems to have one purpose: don't question your authorities.

I'm sorry but when the Constitution was written, it contained a significant amount of racism against Indians and Blacks and offered no promise of equality for women. People had to work, suffer and die for these shortcomings and those shortcomings are no more relevant to the times than sexual mores are.

But let's talk about one of the Reformers for example. John Calvin said the following:

"But let us insist at greater length in proving what does not so easily fall in with the views of men, that even an individual of the worst character, one most unworthy of all honour, if invested with public authority, receives that illustrious divine power which the Lord has by his word devolved on the ministers of his justice and judgement, and that, accordingly, in so far as public obedience is concerned, he is to be held in the same honour and reverence as the best of kings."

From http://www.reformed.org/books/institutes/books/book4/bk4ch 20.html

BTW, there are more quotes than that one and in that quote, Calvin puts down those who he sees as confusing spiritual liberty with political liberty.

Your idea of the American right to overthrow tyranny does not come from Calvin.

The Calvinist learned the hard way that self defense is commanded under the 6th commandment.

The massacre at St. Bartholomew (about 1570) occurred a decade after Calvin died. After that event the Calvinists began to defend themselves and their liberty. Without the Calvinists, America would be like Latin America, and the socialists and Unitarians would have nothing to corrupt with their corrupt ideologies.

The church has a history. The Calvinists in colonial America have a history. Revelation 6:2 has a meaning.

‘And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.’

Who is it on the white horse and who are his enemies that are conquered?