Calvinisme Melahirkan Kekejaman?

[agus-gunawan]

Mempelajari calvinisme dari segi teologi dan sejarahnya sangat menarik. Di satu pihak terkesan memuliakan Allah dengan ajaran kedaulatan Allah. Tetapi menyimak sejarah tindakan2 Calvin di Geneva menimbulkan kengerian dan pertanyaan2 mengapa dipergunakan kekejaman terhadap orang2 yang berbeda pengajaran dari Calvin. Apakah bisa begitu kejam?

Frank Schaeffer dlm History of Christianity: Those who questioned Calvin's theology were dismissed by Calvin as "pigs," "asses," "riff-raff," "dogs," "idiots," and "stinking beasts." One morning Calvin found a poster on his pulpit accusing him of "Gross Hypocrisy." A suspect was arrested. No evidence was produced, but he was tortured day and night for a month until he confessed. Then his feet were nailed to a stake by which he hung in public for a day. Ultimately he was decapitated.Here was Calvin's justification for the execuation of the alleged "mocker," who had left the offending message on Calvin's pulpit: "When the papists are so harsh are not Christ's magistrates shamed to show themselves less ardent in defense of the sure truth?"

Mungkin kekerasan didorong sebagai aplikasi ajaran kedaulatan Allah di Geneva:

“Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In other words. he was as near like the "Sovereign God" of the "Institutes of the Christian Religion" as his health permitted."

Dl kasus Servetus, Calvin berkata ""If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight." (Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge h. 371).

Bukan hanya Servetus tp masih banyak lagi, misalnya: "Two other famous episodes concerned Jacques Gruet and Jerome Bolsec. Gruet, whom Calvin considered a Libertine, had written letters critical of the Consistory and, more serious, petitioned the Catholic king of France to intervene in the political and religious affairs of Geneva. With Calvin's concurrence he was beheaded for treason. Bolsec publicly challenged Calvin's teaching on predestination, a doctrine Bolsec, with many others, found morally repugnant. Banished from the city in 1551, he revenged himself in 1577 by publishing a biography of Calvin that charged him with greed, financial misconduct, and sexual aberration."(Steven Ozment, The Age Of Reformation 1250-1550

Apakah calvinisme membungkus kekejaman dalam sejarah awalnya sedemikian itu? Saya lagi mempelajari hal ini

[agus-gunawan]

Saya mendapat tulisan historian Phillip Schaff ini online edition. Saya kutipkan agak lengkat bagian yang relevan:

HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

CHAPTER XVI.


SERVETUS: HIS LIFE. OPINIONS, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION.


§ 157. Calvin’s Defence of the Death Penalty for Heretics.



The public sentiment, Catholic and Protestant, as we have seen, approved of the traditional doctrine, that obstinate heretics should be made harmless by death, and continued unchanged down to the close of the seventeenth century.

But there were exceptions. As in the case of the execution of the Spanish Priscillianists in the fourth century, the genuine spirit of Christianity and humanity raised a cry of indignation and horror through the mouths of St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Martin of Tours; so there were not a few in the sixteenth century who protested against the burning of Servetus. Most of these—Lelio Socino, Renato, Curio, Biandrata, Alciati, Gribaldo, Gentile, Ochino, and Castellio—were Italian refugees and free-thinkers who sympathized more or less with his heretical opinions. It was especially three professors in the University of Basel Borrhaus (Cellarius), Curio, and Castellio—who were suspected at Geneva of being followers of Servetus. For the same reason some Anabaptists, like David Joris, who lived at that time in Basel under the assumed name of John von Bruck, took his part. Anonymous libels in prose and verse appeared against Calvin. He was denounced as a new pope and inquisitor, and Geneva, heretofore an asylum of religious liberty, as a new Rome,1204 A hundred Servetuses seemed to arise from the ashes at Champel; but they were all inferior men, and did not understand the speculative views of Servetus, who had exhausted the productive powers of antitrinitarianism.1205

Not only dissenters and personal enemies, but also, as Beza admits, some orthodox and pious people and friends of Calvin were dissatisfied with the severity of the punishment, and feared, not without reason, that it would justify and encourage the Romanists in their cruel persecution of Protestants in France and elsewhere.

Under these circumstances Calvin felt it to be his disagreeable duty to defend his conduct, and to refute the errors of Servetus. He was urged by Bullinger to do it. He completed the work in a few months and published it in Latin and French in the beginning of 1554.1206 It had an official character and was signed by all the fifteen ministers of Geneva.1207

Beza aided him in this controversy and undertook to refute the pamphlet of Bellius, and did so with great ability and eloquence.1208

Calvin’s work against Servetus gave complete satisfaction to Melanchthon. It is the strongest refutation of the errors of his opponent which his age produced, but it is not free from bitterness against one who, at last, had humbly asked his pardon, and who had been sent to the judgment seat of God by a violent death. It is impossible to read without pain the following passage: "Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories?"

Calvin’s plea for the right and duty of the Christian magistrate to punish heresy by death, stands or falls with his theocratic theory and the binding authority of the Mosaic code. His arguments are chiefly drawn from the Jewish laws against idolatry and blasphemy, and from the examples of the pious kings of Israel. But his arguments from the New Testament are failures. He agrees with Augustin in the interpretation of the parabolic words: "Constrain them to come in" (Luke 14:23).1209 But this can only refer to moral and not to physical force, and would imply a forcible salvation, not destruction. The same parable was afterwards abused by the French bishops to justify the abominable dragoonades of Louis XIV. against the Huguenots. Calvin quotes the passages on the duty of the civil magistrate to use the sword against evil-doers (Rom. 13:4); the expulsion of the profane traffickers from the temple (Matt. 21:12); the judgment on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1 sqq.); the striking of Elymas with blindness (13:11); and the delivery of Hymenaeus and Alexander to Satan (1 Tim. 1:20). He answers the objections from the parables of the tares and of the net (Matt. 13:30, 49), and from the wise counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34). But he cannot get over those passages which contradict his theory, as Christ’s rebuke to John and James for wishing to call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:54), and to Peter for drawing the sword (Matt. 26:52), his declaration that his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and his whole spirit and aim, which is to save and not to destroy.

In his juvenile work on Seneca and in earlier editions of his Institutes, Calvin had expressed noble sentiments on toleration;1210 even as Augustin did in his writings against the Manichaeans, among whom he himself had lived for nine years; but both changed their views for the worse in their zeal for orthodoxy.

Calvin’s "Defence" did not altogether satisfy even some of his best friends. Zurkinden, the State Secretary of Bern, wrote him Feb. 10, 1554: "I wish the former part of your book, respecting the right which the magistrates may have to use the sword in coercing heretics, had not appeared in your name, but in that of your council, which might have been left to defend its own act. I do not see how you can find any favor with men of sedate mind in being the first formally to treat this subject, which is a hateful one to almost all."1211 Bullinger intimated his objections more mildly in a letter of March 26, 1554, in which he says: "I only fear that your book will not be so acceptable to many of the more simple-minded persons, who, nevertheless, are attached both to yourself and to the truth, by reason of its brevity and consequent obscurity, and the weightiness of the subject. And, indeed, your style appears somewhat perplexed, especially in this work." Calvin wrote in reply, April 29, 1554: "I am aware that I have been more concise than usual in this treatise. However, if I should appear to have faithfully and honestly defended the true doctrine, it will more than recompense me for my trouble. But though the candor and justice which are natural to you, as well as your love towards me, lead you to judge of me favorably, there are others who assail me harshly as a master in cruelty and atrocity, for attacking with my pen not only a dead man, but one who perished by my hands. Some, even not self-disposed towards me, wish that I had never entered on the subject of the punishment of heretics, and say that others in the like situation have held their tongues as the best way of avoiding hatred. It is well, however, that I have you to share my fault, if fault it be; for you it was who advised and persuaded me to it. Prepare yourself, therefore, for the combat."1212

[PlainBread]

Originally Posted by agus-gunawan

Frank Schaeffer dlm History of Christianity: Those who questioned Calvin's theology were dismissed by Calvin as "pigs," "asses," "riff-raff," "dogs," "idiots," and "stinking beasts." One morning Calvin found a poster on his pulpit accusing him of "Gross Hypocrisy." A suspect was arrested. No evidence was produced, but he was tortured day and night for a month until he confessed. Then his feet were nailed to a stake by which he hung in public for a day. Ultimately he was decapitated.Here was Calvin's justification for the execuation of the alleged "mocker," who had left the offending message on Calvin's pulpit: "When the papists are so harsh are not Christ's magistrates shamed to show themselves less ardent in defense of the sure truth?"

Wah, kejam bangeettt!! *kompor*

[JC4Life]

Calvin memang termasuk "kejam", harap dibedakan dengan wacana yang hendak dibangun (mungkin): Calvinisme melahirkan kekejaman.

John Calvin matinya juga dieksekusi/disiksa sampai mati, kok. eating his own medicine, maybe.

[Zoro_Roronoa]

@TS : coba dibahas dengan pemikiran Anda.
saya lihat kok lebih banyak copy-paste nya

[agus-gunawan]

Data lengkap diberikan dulu supaya pengambilan posisi dan kesimpulan berdasar fakta akan kuat dasarnya. Untuk sementara bisa saya simpulkan bagi saya: Calvin itu megalomaniac (membunuh sekitar 50an orang di Geneva) akibat daripada teologinya.

kalau mau sekedar terlihat kejam sih gampang. pilih satu anak abg, yang mana aja, dari latar belakang pendidikan apa aja, agama bebas, pure random, dan kasihlah AK-47 lengkap dengan sekotak peluru beserta cara menggunakannya dan tunggulah sebulan. minimal akan ada satu orang yang mati.

[Kelana]

Dengan cara berpikir yang sama, Kekristenan juga dapat dibilang melahirkan kekejaman. Atau, Allah melahirkan kekejaman. Data? Lihat, misalnya, kisah perebutan Kanaan oleh bangsa Israel.

[agus-gunawan]

Originally Posted by Kelana

Dengan cara berpikir yang sama, Kekristenan juga dapat dibilang melahirkan kekejaman. Atau, Allah melahirkan kekejaman. Data? Lihat, misalnya, kisah perebutan Kanaan oleh bangsa Israel.

Allah berhak menghukum mati orang dan bangsa; tetapi Calvin membunuh orang yg berbeda teologi. Ini beda

[Kelana]

Originally Posted by agus-gunawan

Allah berhak menghukum mati orang dan bangsa; tetapi Calvin membunuh orang yg berbeda teologi. Ini beda

Ya tentu saja berbeda. Tetapi dalam level konseptual dapat dikatakan bahwa Allah dan Calvin (dalam kasus bunuh-bunuhan ini) sama-sama kejam, bukan? Bukankah Allah memerintahkan pasukan Israel (di bawah Saul) untuk menghabisi sebuah bangsa termasuk anak-anak? Bukankah Allah yang membuat hati Firaun jadi keras?

[JC4Life]

Originally Posted by supernis

kalau mau sekedar terlihat kejam sih gampang. pilih satu anak abg, yang mana aja, dari latar belakang pendidikan apa aja, agama bebas, pure random, dan kasihlah AK-47 lengkap dengan sekotak peluru beserta cara menggunakannya dan tunggulah sebulan. minimal akan ada satu orang yang mati.

ga juga, nis, yang otak bisnis nya jalan...dia jual tuh AK 47, beli iPOd dsb.

[JC4Life]

Originally Posted by agus-gunawan

Data lengkap diberikan dulu supaya pengambilan posisi dan kesimpulan berdasar fakta akan kuat dasarnya. Untuk sementara bisa saya simpulkan bagi saya: Calvin itu megalomaniac (membunuh sekitar 50an orang di Geneva) akibat daripada teologinya.

Luther juga 'menghabiskan' kaum Annabaptis.

Perang Salib atas perintah otoritas gereja saat itu juga menimbulkan banyak sekali korban jiwa, toh Yerusalem malah 'jatuh'.

Say bilang, wacana "nanggung" yang lu coba bangun adalah: Calvinisme Melahirkan Kekejaman.

Jawabannya TIDAK.

Tetapi John Calvin adalah karakter yang kejam? Kemungkinannya di atas 50%.

[shengshu]

Originally Posted by agus-gunawan

Data lengkap diberikan dulu supaya pengambilan posisi dan kesimpulan berdasar fakta akan kuat dasarnya. Untuk sementara bisa saya simpulkan bagi saya: Calvin itu megalomaniac (membunuh sekitar 50an orang di Geneva) akibat daripada teologinya.

Not only Calvin.

How about Hitler, Napoleon, Soeharto, Gajah Mada, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Osama bin Laden,Imam Samudra, dkk?
they did the same.

akibat nafsu dan keserakahan manusia kemudian ideologi maupun ajaran agama disalah gunakan dan jadi kambing hitam.

klo korban si Calvin cuma 50 orang mah, masih kalah sama korbannya Imam Samudra di Bali kemaren.

[Luke_tlc]

Originally Posted by shengshu

Not only Calvin.

How about Hitler, Napoleon, Soeharto, Gajah Mada, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Osama bin Laden,Imam Samudra, dkk?
they did the same.

akibat nafsu dan keserakahan manusia kemudian ideologi maupun ajaran agama disalah gunakan dan jadi kambing hitam.

klo korban si Calvin cuma 50 orang mah, masih kalah sama korbannya Imam Samudra di Bali kemaren.

setuju.................... tumben shenshu isa lurus juga...............

sekarang kalo masalah perbedaan cara pandang isa bunuh orang mah udah dari jaman dolo kale.................. kalo pengen yang kejem ya Kain yang bunuh 1/4 penduduk dunia........ sekarang yang dibahas sebenarnya apa seh intinya??? ini sekedar menyerang salah satu sisi atau share pemikiran??? kalo menurut ane yang masih cupu dalam hal seperti ini...... daripada membahas perbedaan dan saling menyerang tanpa jelas gini........ kenapa ga cari satu solusi yang terbaik hidup bersama n saling menghargai.......... toh jika nanti semua sama belum tentu tidak ada perpecahan............

[Zoro_Roronoa]

Originally Posted by supernis

kalau mau sekedar terlihat kejam sih gampang. pilih satu anak abg, yang mana aja, dari latar belakang pendidikan apa aja, agama bebas, pure random, dan kasihlah AK-47 lengkap dengan sekotak peluru beserta cara menggunakannya dan tunggulah sebulan. minimal akan ada satu orang yang mati.

OOT bentar: jadi inget film Battle Royale

[agus-gunawan]

Originally Posted by JC4Life

Luther juga 'menghabiskan' kaum Annabaptis.

Perang Salib atas perintah otoritas gereja saat itu juga menimbulkan banyak sekali korban jiwa, toh Yerusalem malah 'jatuh'.

Say bilang, wacana "nanggung" yang lu coba bangun adalah: Calvinisme Melahirkan Kekejaman.

Jawabannya TIDAK.

Tetapi John Calvin adalah karakter yang kejam? Kemungkinannya di atas 50%.

Bagaimana sampai ke perkiraan diatas 50%? Apa dari jumlah yang dia bunuh?

[agus-gunawan]

Originally Posted by shengshu

Not only Calvin.

How about Hitler, Napoleon, Soeharto, Gajah Mada, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Osama bin Laden,Imam Samudra, dkk?
they did the same.

akibat nafsu dan keserakahan manusia kemudian ideologi maupun ajaran agama disalah gunakan dan jadi kambing hitam.

klo korban si Calvin cuma 50 orang mah, masih kalah sama korbannya Imam Samudra di Bali kemaren.

Berapa banyak nyawa dicabut baru masuk kategori kejam? Stalin berkata membunuh jutaan itu cuma soal statistik.

[agus-gunawan]

KEKEJAMAN CALVIN MENURUT PARA AHLI SEJARAH:


CALVIN MENIRU PAUS

Para calvinis harus mengakui fakta sejarah yg dicatat Cross berikut ini: "The Reformers themselves . . . e.g., Luther, Beza, and especially Calvin, were as intolerant to dissentients as the Roman Catholic Church. (Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1383). Will Durant dl sejarah Reformasi memberikan analisis serupa: "Calvin was as thorough as any pope in rejecting individualism of belief; this greatest legislator of Protestantism completely repudiated that principle of private judgment with which the new religion had begun. He had seen the fragmentation of the Reformation into a hundred sects, and foresaw more; in Geneva he would have none of them." (Durant, 473)

58 ORANG DIBANTAI

Sejarawan Will Durant mengingatkan bhw di masa pemerintahan Calvin di Geneva antara 1542--1546, "58 persons were put to death for heresy." (Durant, 473). Calvin menganut eksekusi rajam mati terhadap nabi palsu: "The father should not spare his son . . . nor the husband his own wife. If he has some friend who is as dear to him as his own life, let him put him to death." (Calvin, Opera, vol. 27, 251; Sermon on Deuteronomy 13:6-11)

DIPANCUNG KARENA MENULIS POSTER

Kasus James Gruet adalah contoh lain dr kekejaman tsb. Para sejarawan menulis sbb: "In January, 1547 in Calvin's Geneva, one James Gruet, a kind of free-thinker of dubious morals, was alleged to have posted a note which implied that Calvin should leave the city: He was at once arrested and a house to house search made for his accomplices. This method failed to reveal anything except that Gruet had written on one of Calvin's tracts the words 'all rubbish.' The judges put him to the rack twice a day, morning and evening, for a whole month . . . He was sentenced to death for blasphemy and beheaded on July 26, 1547 . . . Evangelical freedom had now arrived at the point where its champions took a man's life . . . merely for writing a lampoon!" (Huizinga, 176; bd. Daniel-Rops, 82-83). Detil dr Will Durant menambahkan sbb. ttg Gruet: "Half dead, he was tied to a stake, his feet were nailed to it, and his head was cut off." (Durant, 479)

DIBUNUH KARENA RIBUT

In May 1555, a drunken riot occurred, precipitated by a group which objected to the excess of foreign refugees in Geneva. Dissidents of Calvin were termed "Libertines." The brothers Comparet, two humble boatmen, were executed and pieces of their dismembered bodies nailed on the city gates. (Daniel-Rops, 192). The Comparet brothers, with Calvin's approval, were tortured . . . Under the rack they said the riot had . . . been premeditated, but denied this again before their execution. A number, including Francois Berthelier, were beheaded . . . Several others were banished, and the wives of the condemned were likewise driven from the city. (Harkness, 48). All the other leaders of the party took flight and were sentenced to death in their absence. (Daniel-Rops, 192)

CALVIN BANGGA MEMBANTAI SERVETUS

1561 Calvin menulis surat kpd Marquis Paet, chamberlain Raja Navarre sbb.: "Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard." (David Benedict, A General History. . . vol 1:186).

Apakah perbedaannya dengan Hitler, Soeharto, Stalin dll? Sepertinya nga beda!

Originally Posted by JC4Life

ga juga, nis, yang otak bisnis nya jalan...dia jual tuh AK 47, beli iPOd dsb.

mending tembak aja yang jualan ipod, terus dia dapet ipod buat dirinya sendiri DAN banyak ipod lainnya untuk dijual atau buat modal pdkt ke cewek2/cowok2 yang dia taksir

[JC4Life]

Originally Posted by supernis

mending tembak aja yang jualan ipod, terus dia dapet ipod buat dirinya sendiri DAN banyak ipod lainnya untuk dijual atau buat modal pdkt ke cewek2/cowok2 yang dia taksir

jangan, dari penjualan AK47 satu unit aja, udah bisa dapat beberapa iPod kan?