Today marks the 463rd anniversary of the martyrdom of Michael Servetus (October 27th, 1553). I continue to have a hard time comprehending how an individual can feel that they do the work of God when brutal execution is carried out upon individuals possessing "other opinions" regarding doctrinal confessions. In the case of Servetus and Calvin, it was the doctrine of the Trinity.
How are people comfortable with a god who will torture someone eternally for merely having wrong opinions or beliefs about his "nature" or relationship to his son? Those who claim to be people of the Scriptures must bend, twist, copy, paste, contort and distort that to which they pay verbal obeisance in order to come to that perverted conclusion.
Unfortunately, those who wield the metaphorical (and other times literal) sword and spear for the sake of persecuting those having heterodox opinions are convinced they do so with the authority of God and their reading of the Sacred Writings. They feel they stand with the Almighty in the destruction of the "ungodly," i.e. those who don't believe as they do.
Does God disdain all those we do?
If so, what period of Christianity, and what particular vein?
Was Christianity (used here anachronistically) in its early form (meaning Jesus and Apostles) a set of creeds and beliefs to which one must subscribe? ("Believing" in the "Lord Jesus Christ" was a recapitulation of Moses' salvation upon his people as well, howbeit with differences - Ex 14:31).
If so, why is there no record of such?
Why does the book of Acts depict something quite different as having set their world on fire?
Why is it that the concerns of so many labeled "Christian" today reflect little of Jesus' actual teaching and purpose?
Why aren't more Christians asking these questions?
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