In western history, the religious reform movement initiated by the religious reform leaders represented by Luther and Calvin profoundly changed the culture and history of Europe. As the Russian thinker C.H. bulgakov said in Heroism and Self-sacrifice, "The new personality of Europeans was born in the religious reform movement, and political freedom, conscience freedom and human rights and civil rights were also announced to the world through the religious reform movement." [1] However, it would be a big mistake to think that religious reform achieved religious tolerance and freedom of belief. Religious reform did not directly establish political freedom and religious freedom; On the contrary, the Reformation only "replaced that authority with this authority" and "they established the authority of holy books to replace the authority of the church, but their holy books must be based on the interpretation of Luther or Calvin". Therefore, it can be said that "the religious reform was not for freedom, but for certain dogmas" [2]. Zweig's masterpiece "The Right of Heresy" tells the history that Calvin, a Catholic heretic, founded a Protestant country in Geneva and persecuted heretics. Calvin established a theocratic government in Geneva, putting religious belief above public affairs. He posed as the representative of God and became the spokesman of God in the world, thus establishing his dictatorship. A large number of innocent people were burned to death and hanged at the stake and gallows, including famous scholars and Christians like Servit. As for the personal awakening and political freedom realized later, it was far from what the leaders of the religious reform at that time expected, and even they were deeply afraid.

In the wave of European Reformation, Farrell, known as "French Luther", rolled the stone of Reformation and destroyed the Catholic Church like a storm. However, facing the rolling boulder that is about to collapse, Farrier is at a loss in front of the ruins of the old order. At this time, Calvin, who became a pagan in the Roman church just because he advocated Lutheranism, went into exile here. Calvin, as a master of the Principles of Christianity, was invited by Farrier to Geneva and began to establish religious rule on the ruins made in Farrier.

Once religious fanatics enter the political operation level from the spiritual field and are endowed with certain practical power, their potential ideological autocratic thinking tendency is immediately exposed. In human history, the boundary between religious belief (thought) and secular politics has been blurred for a long time, and the respective power ranges of church and government have not been carefully sorted out for a long time. Religion involves the salvation of the soul, while politics aims at the management of secular affairs, which is firmly backed by legal violence. Whether it is religious affairs or political management, as long as either side takes a step toward the other side, it means violating and trampling on human freedom and dignity. The result of the integration of politics and religion is that political power invades and rules people's brains and stifles freedom of thought. As Zweig said: "As long as a dogma controls the state institutions and holds the political tools exercised by the state, it must immediately establish the rule of fear." In Calvin's eyes, God is the God who unconditionally decides people's destiny. People have no right. "Some people are destined to live forever, and some people will be sent to hell forever." The world exists for the glory of God, so the church must defend the glory of God. For this reason, in Calvin's view, the church must be above secular authority and become a spiritual government representing God's will. The church must rely on political power to build a paradise on earth according to God's revelation. He will expose his political ambition in public so directly: "I want to talk about the power given to the priest by the church in detail." Since they are appointed as the managers and declarers of God's will, they must dare to do anything, and they must be prepared to force the powerful people in the world to bow down before God and serve him. They must rule the noblest and meanest people; They will carry out God's will in the world, destroy Satan's kingdom, protect sheep and destroy wolves. They will persuade obedient people, condemn and destroy stubborn people. They can be tough or loose; They can lightning and thunder, all of which are based on the Bible. "[3] Here, Calvin infinitely expanded the power of the church and moved out of the Bible as a solid foundation for the power of the church. It seems that with the Bible, sending religious brothers to the stake to roast and kill them is really an indispensable means to safeguard the glory of God. Only in this way can Calvin, as a leader and master, gain the most sacred, centralized and unshakable power. When religious leaders gain administrative power, a belief and a dogma are turned into the only belief and dogma by violence. The characteristic of Calvin's dogma is to regulate people's daily life with various austere measures of asceticism. Once this creed is backed by violence, it will spread like weeds, go deep into citizens' private lives and deprive citizens of their personal free space. As a result, "no one can feel safe in Geneva, because the Inquisition announced that a person can commit a crime almost every time as long as he is breathing." Zweig deserves to be a master of narrative. In the process of describing history, some small historical details often reflect historical characteristics more truly and profoundly than any grand narrative. From Zweig's following description, we can fully feel the frightening and even suffocating horror: "A free man smiled at the baptism: three days in prison. The other Freeman was sleepy in midsummer and fell asleep during the sermon: sentence. Several workers have cake for breakfast, and only bread and water are allowed for three days ... two children are rude. At first, they were sentenced to burn at the stake, but later their sentences were reduced and they were forced to look at the woodpile. " [4] In short, everyone is preconceived as a sinner and must give up all his rights and accept the strictest monitoring and trial by the hand of God-the church. Under this reign of terror, informers grow like weeds, and people lose their sense of freedom and dignity.

Author: 218.81.210. Reply to this statement.

-

Be careful of Calvin.

Calvin's dictatorship is a combination of ideological imprisonment and political violence. Regarding the distinction between state power and church power, there is a classic expression in Locke's On Religious Tolerance: "The state is a society composed of people, and people form this society only to seek, safeguard and enhance citizens' own interests." Political power comes from the people, and its duty is to manage secular affairs. On the other hand, the church is a group that people join voluntarily. People join this group because they think they can worship God in a way that God allows, thus saving their souls. " 5. The premise of the formation of the church is people's free will. The same is true of thoughts. The fundamental purpose of thought is to know the truth-however, because everyone has different understanding of the truth, this truth can only be expressed as his own truth at first. Therefore, the independent thought itself contains the tendency of diversification. Moreover, it is precisely because of the diversity of ideas that a society can have the friction, collision and even integration of various ideas and thoughts, thus making the society full of vitality and vitality to move forward continuously. Therefore, the regime that is really willing to obey the truth and God and fulfill the requirements of truth and God's revelation always agrees with and welcomes the diversified view of truth and ideological situation. Only Calvin, a leader with infinite greed and possessiveness for power, will do everything possible to stifle different ideas, cut the throat of shouting and wring the unyielding head. What dictatorships fear most is thought. Once Calvin established his theocracy and political leadership in Geneva, he never wanted to see different interpretations of the Bible in Geneva. As soon as he found out, he jumped at him and wouldn't stop until he tore each other to pieces. Therefore, when Servit, who is also a pagan of the Roman church, gave Calvin his anti-Trinity view in an attempt to get criticism and advice from the Protestant masters, he had put himself in the mouth of the evil wolf and put himself at the evil stake. "For a theorist in power, the main danger is that someone advocates an opposing theory." (Zweig) The most destructive and earliest step in the face of a country where politics and religion are integrated is the promotion of independent thought. Thought makes people get rid of ignorance, discover oppression and slavery, and thus find the spirit and ideological resources of resistance. The truly independent thought is critical in nature, because it is individualistic in nature. Therefore, in order to maintain his authority and master's throne, Calvin justifiably sent Servit to the stake in the name of God and burned him alive for half an hour! This kind of crime against God, humanity and freedom committed in the name of God will be forever engraved on the shame column of history.

Calvin's cruelty comes from his religious fanaticism and iron determination and self-confidence. Any dictator in history has a similar personality, that is, a strong self-confirmation, thus convincing himself that he is the only elector of God and the only son of truth, and he is a necessity. Only when they stand firm and clear the obstacles of dictatorship will they send people to the guillotine with an iron fist, which they think is a necessary means to defend truth and God. Max Weber once commented on Calvin's teachings: "For Calvin, the awesome fatwa did not develop from religious experience as Luther thought, but out of the logical needs of his own thoughts. Therefore, with the logical consistency of this religious thought becoming stronger and stronger, the importance of this theory has also been continuously developed. Its whole meaning lies in God, not in man. God does not exist for mankind. On the contrary, human beings exist entirely for God. " Moreover, "he feels that he is God's chosen agent, and he is sure that his soul will be saved" [6]. Represent yourself.

It is terrible to believe in the role of "God". "God" is a noun endowed with moral significance. The repeated use of this moral term is often just a means of propaganda, thus forming a cohesive force to satisfy the selfish desires of propagandists. People are always fragile, small and limited. With the help of God's light, people can establish firm faith and strong support of inner spirit to a certain extent. However, if a member of mankind, even a priest or a pope, attempts to "represent" God, or even believes that he is the only hand of God to control, dominate and even save the world, and establishes a paradise on earth with this belief, then he can only move towards absolute dictatorship and realize the real kingdom of Satan. Once Calvin confirmed that human beings exist for God and he himself is the representative of God on the earth, Zweig said: "As long as their hearts are full of' ideals', theories and systems, thousands of people will be sentenced to death as usual." "Calvin will treat' criminals' severely as the key to his system. From his philosophical point of view, it is God's mission to persistently implement such a system. " [7] Calvin regarded his own interpretation of the Bible as the only correct interpretation, and burned all those who had different interpretations with him, so as to clamp the scholar's mouth. Moreover, Calvin used administrative power to promote his religious thoughts and occupied all the public spaces in Geneva. In order to realize his "gospel life", in the first five years of Calvin's rule, Geneva, with a population of only 1.6 million, hanged 13 people, beheaded 10 people, burned 35 people and 76 people were driven out of their homes. Prisons are more crowded and cannot accommodate so many prisoners. When Servit, a Spanish anti-Trinity Christian scholar, gave his independent interpretation of the Bible to the Protestant master, he never tolerated different ideas in Geneva, and finally sent Servit to the stake in the name of protecting the glory of God. The killing of Protestant heretics shocked the humanities at that time. At this time, Sebastian Castellio stood up and angrily accused Calvin's tyranny in On Heresy: "Oh, Creator, King of the World! Did you see these? ..... organize such a massacre and strip your people like that. Are they really your servants? When you witness these atrocities, people shout your holy name, just as you are eager to eat human flesh. -Are you really at King's Landing at this time? What would Satan do if you, Christ, really ordered all this? What a terrible blasphemy it is to claim that you will order Satan to do evil things!

Author: 218.81.210. Reply to this statement.

-

3 be careful of Calvin

Those things can only be realized by the will and concoction of the devil, but people put them in the hands of Christ. How humble and arrogant! [8] Locke said: "No matter who he is, if he is willing to be under the banner of Christ, the first and overriding thing for him is to fight against his own evil and selfish desires. "Burning people with different opinions in the name of God is the biggest blasphemy to God, because any church is heresy to other churches, and any independent thought is heresy to mainstream ideology. However, no authority, whether it is political power or church, whether in the name of truth or in the name of God, has the right to declare an idea as heresy, to imprison the voice of this idea, and to cut off the brains of thinkers. Any heretical thought and its expression are all things in the field of thought, so they are free and inviolable.

In Calvin's eyes, anyone who disagrees with him is among those killed. Servit died on the pilgrimage, and Calvin had to deal with Sebastian Castellio who defended Servit. Sebastian Castellio died of poverty and illness in Calvin's encirclement and suppression, which avoided the ending of Servit. His spiritual courage, his faith and obedience to God and truth, and his tolerant temperament make this name dazzling in western history. In the confrontation between conscience and violence, violence is always the earliest winner. Such was Sebastian Castellio's struggle against Calvin. Sebastian Castellio's appeal for justice cannot shake a dictatorship in Geneva. Calvin continued his unbridled religious rule in Geneva, and Sebastian Castellio left only a few small books and a tombstone erected for him by his 300 students. The tombstone reads: "Dedicated to our famous tutor, thanking him for his profound knowledge and commemorating his pure life." At the same time, in the struggle between conscience and violence, conscience is always the ultimate winner. Any dictatorship, no matter how brilliant and impregnable, is actually only a moment of power, from Zhou Liwang to Qin Shihuang, from Calvin to Stalin. Calvin cruelly destroyed individual freedom, but after a strange historical process, the concept of political freedom was born. Protestantism became a ladder to rationalism and helped the success of freedom-far from what Calvinists could have predicted at that time, but it was beyond their control.

By 1903, the concept of freedom of thought and belief had long been established during the Enlightenment, widely recognized by modern countries and written into the constitution, and religious power and political power had long been clearly distinguished in modern countries, drawing their own boundaries. Calvinists in Geneva, driven by their conscience, set up a memorial to atone for Calvin, a "great religious reformer", and called it "the sin of his time" [9]. However, the ghost of Calvin still lingers in this complex world, and the ideological imprisonment similar to Calvin's rule is still deeply rooted. Calvin should not be forgotten, but should be regarded as a typical historical figure of dictatorship, so as to establish our historical reference system and be alert to the modern resurrection of this lingering ghost!

Precautions:

[[1] C. H. bulgakov, Peng Zhen, Zeng Yuping. Heroism and self-sacrifice. See Road Signs Collection, Yunnan People's Publishing House, February 1999.

[2] [9] Bo Lei, translated by Song, History of Free Thought, Jilin People's Publishing House, 1999, 12 Edition.

[3] [4] [7] [8] By Zweig, translated by Zhang Xiaohui: The Right of Heresy, Jilin People's Publishing House, 2000, 1.

[5] Locke, Wu Yungui translation: On religious tolerance, The Commercial Press, 1996.

[6] Max Weber, translated by Xiao Yu and Chen Weigang: Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, Joint Publishing Company, 1987.