"Pay attention to keep away from the false prophets, such ones as come to you with the clothing of sheep, yet from inside they are plundering wolves. You will know them by observation from their fruits. They don't collect bunches of grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? Thus every single good tree makes beautiful fruits, yet the rotten tree makes deranged fruits. A good tree can't make deranged fruits neither a rotten tree make beautiful fruits. Every single tree not making a beautiful fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire. Therefore at least, you will know them by observation from their fruits." Matthew 7:15-20
Why do I have such a distinct problem with Calvinism? Out of any theological system, this is the one which disturbs me the most lately, and it is the one with which I have the most problem. It’s ironic, because my ancestors were Puritans in the American New England colonies in the sixteen hundreds, and the Puritans were Calvinist to the core in many respects. There are actually several answers to this question, but the primary and chief answer has to do with John Calvin and Geneva.
When John Calvin and like minded people came to Geneva in the sixteenth century, they wanted to set up a “City on the Hill” of God’s people based on the theology Calvin himself had outlined in his “Institutes of Religion.” What they set up, however, was a cult like occupation of Geneva with Calvin being the chief “prophet” and magistrate. An analogue might be Brigham Young’s governance of the Mormon colonies in Utah, which were also set up with a similar goal in mind to Calvin’s and his followers, also based on the theological instruction of its chief “prophet” using his own writings as the chief means of interpretation of Scripture, even taking precedence over it where Scripture disagreed. Another irony is that Calvin wasn’t even trained as a theologian, and had no formal education in Scripture or theology. He was trained as a lawyer and in humanism, and his collegiate work was all in preparation for the legal career which his father wanted him to have. Any access to even Martin Luther’s writings at the time would have been Latin translations from the German, and Calvin was a Frenchman.
Under Calvin’s influence and direction, an intensive persecution of anyone who didn’t believe the theology which Calvin taught occurred. Penalties were levied for having your fortune told by Gypsies, for laughing during preaching, making noise during church, passing tobacco during the service, settling a bet on Sunday, and even for the inability to recite prayers. Abbeys were converted into hostels and taverns that only sold drinks when church wasn’t in session. Church was held on weekdays as well as Sundays. A goldsmith was punished for making a chalice for the Mass, a barber for tonsuring a priest, and still another man was punished for saying that the pope was a good man. The town Council in Geneva even forbade the christening of children with the names of Catholic Saints. The nuns from a convent in Geneva were given the choice, either get married (thus breaking their vows to God) or be expelled. They chose exile. All Catholics were eliminated from the government, and one magistrate was forced to say, “The Mass is bad” on pain of banishment. Any denial of predestination meant banishment; any denial of immortality or the Trinity meant execution by beheading or being burned at the stake. Anyone who questioned the governing regime was punished through fines, torture, banishment, or death. Wherever Calvinism spread, this same punitive and murderous legalism spread with it, all in the name of Christ. England under Oliver Cromwell was another example, as well as life in the Puritan colonies of the Americas (Salem Witch Trials?).
Anyone who has read the teachings of Jesus Christ for himself should recognize how abhorrently opposed to what Christ taught this “fruit” of John Calvin’s labor is. Jesus Christ taught us to love God, love one another, love the person next to us, and to love our enemies. He taught us to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and give over our shirt as well when our coat was asked for. He taught us to not judge, or else we would be judged, and that if we didn’t forgive, we wouldn’t be forgiven. And St. Paul wrote also that it wasn’t our place to judge those on the outside of the church in 2 Corinthians.
The actions of John Calvin, his compatriots, and those who took up his name and banner are far more kin to those of the Pharisees who dragged a woman they accused of being caught in the act of adultery, without the required other party, in front of Jesus as a trap for him, not caring if she lived or died. They are the actions of those who sought to kill Jesus every time He healed someone on the Sabbath, and spread misinformation and lies about Him even themselves knowing who He was and from Whom He came. They are the actions of those who held an illegal trial and threatened a riot if the Roman governor didn’t acquiesce to their demands for His blood. And what is the most disturbing is that, just like the Pharisees and Sadducees, they did it claiming the name of God and His deliverer (in the Pharisees’ case, Moses; in the Calvinists’, Jesus Himself). Even today, those Calvinists I have encountered have presented themselves as far from Christlike, but arrogant, prideful, believing that they alone are the elect of God and everyone else who disagrees with them is predestined to hellfire and there’s nothing which can be done about it. Those I have observed demand that everyone submit to the theology, rules, and moral codes they deem fit in order to create once more Calvin’s vision of a “City on a Hill” wherever they might find themselves. Like the Pharisees who assumed that because they were “children of Abraham” they were the chosen, and whom John the Baptist corrected on that notion, they assume that no matter what sadistic, legalistic, and antichristlike actions they take that they will inherit the Kingdom of God. They are concerned only with proclaiming their election to everyone, and making converts to this twisted belief system, whom they then turn into twice the sons of Gehenna they themselves are.
Jesus said, you will know a tree by its fruit. And the fruit which has been produced by John Calvin’s tree is diseased and rotten to the core. There is no love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, courtesy, or self-control involved, and any time anyone brings up Christ’s explicit commands to love, those who follow Calvin immediately protest and attack that person as though they had said something abominable to their ears. Whatever real fruit Jesus Christ might have with them is so polluted with Calvin’s twisted and serpent-born teachings that it cannot ripen to what He would want.
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