Back in February, I was doing a little reading up on church fathers. You know, those guys the western church holds in high esteem and with high, almost god-like regard. I already knew some less-than-savory things about Martin Luther, the [supposed] father of the reformation that, frankly, made my stomach turn, but thought I had better follow a few rabbit trails that kept coming up and see if I was able to find anything new, anything interesting.
Boy, did I find interesting. Wow!
Enter John Calvin and Martin Luther and their bff Michael Servetus. I obviously knew about Calvin and Luther -- I grew up in the Christian church, but the other guy was a no-name in my world. Wikipedia often comes in quite handy -- and if you don't trust them, they (usually) are well-sourced so that you are better able to do a little (or a lot) more research yourself.
On the surface Servetus is just a slightly-above-average guy of the mid-1500's ... but that is the end of the simplicity. The more intimate details of his life are like a Russian spy novel. Whether you love or hate him depends on whose version of the story you're reading. Servetus was most likely born in Spain, and is probably the namesake of the Catholic Saint Michael's Day (which is celebrated on his birthday), but that hasn't been substantiated (and frankly, doesn't really matter to me at all). More importantly, he was an early follower of the reformation, as well as a contemporary of John Calvin and Martin Luther, having worked, studied and written with them. Furthermore historically, he was a theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist, as well as the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in his book Christianismi Restitutio (published in 1533).
Even though I indicated that Calvin, Luther and Servetus were best buddies, I confess that was a poor attempt at sarcasm on my part. The three men did know each other, well, and they worked, at first - in cooperation. Later, that all changed when Servetus' views on certain accepted church doctrine began to evolve somewhat. From that point on they began to work against each other. In the end, two of them had a rather far-reaching hand in the third one's death, more specifically, his murder.
I won't spoil all the details for you. It's a tangled web of inquisition, aliases, travel and intrigue, prison escapes, stealth, as well as back-stabbing accusations and lying, religious intolerance, hatred, domination and shocking evil, all in the name of Christ -- just like any modern-day Hollywood thriller and too many true-to-life stories. And sadly, like most "entertainment" coming out of Hollywood, someone "gets dead" while others walk away free and unburdened by their own choice to do evil, and even attain great infamy and the worship and admiration of millions of unsuspecting followers. I'll let you figure out the who's who in this page-turner.
Oh! those rascally reformation church fathers. What paragons of divine sanction they were!
Read about all the intrigue and subterfuge for yourself -- and then do some follow-up research using some of the links at the end.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus
Boy, did I find interesting. Wow!
Enter John Calvin and Martin Luther and their bff Michael Servetus. I obviously knew about Calvin and Luther -- I grew up in the Christian church, but the other guy was a no-name in my world. Wikipedia often comes in quite handy -- and if you don't trust them, they (usually) are well-sourced so that you are better able to do a little (or a lot) more research yourself.
On the surface Servetus is just a slightly-above-average guy of the mid-1500's ... but that is the end of the simplicity. The more intimate details of his life are like a Russian spy novel. Whether you love or hate him depends on whose version of the story you're reading. Servetus was most likely born in Spain, and is probably the namesake of the Catholic Saint Michael's Day (which is celebrated on his birthday), but that hasn't been substantiated (and frankly, doesn't really matter to me at all). More importantly, he was an early follower of the reformation, as well as a contemporary of John Calvin and Martin Luther, having worked, studied and written with them. Furthermore historically, he was a theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist, as well as the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in his book Christianismi Restitutio (published in 1533).
Even though I indicated that Calvin, Luther and Servetus were best buddies, I confess that was a poor attempt at sarcasm on my part. The three men did know each other, well, and they worked, at first - in cooperation. Later, that all changed when Servetus' views on certain accepted church doctrine began to evolve somewhat. From that point on they began to work against each other. In the end, two of them had a rather far-reaching hand in the third one's death, more specifically, his murder.
I won't spoil all the details for you. It's a tangled web of inquisition, aliases, travel and intrigue, prison escapes, stealth, as well as back-stabbing accusations and lying, religious intolerance, hatred, domination and shocking evil, all in the name of Christ -- just like any modern-day Hollywood thriller and too many true-to-life stories. And sadly, like most "entertainment" coming out of Hollywood, someone "gets dead" while others walk away free and unburdened by their own choice to do evil, and even attain great infamy and the worship and admiration of millions of unsuspecting followers. I'll let you figure out the who's who in this page-turner.
Oh! those rascally reformation church fathers. What paragons of divine sanction they were!
Read about all the intrigue and subterfuge for yourself -- and then do some follow-up research using some of the links at the end.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus