Scholars of all shapes, sizes, and persuasions give adulation, accolades, and applause to the one they call the greatest theologian and thinker in church history. One author wrote that it's impossible to underestimate the importance of the man, Augustine.
Not so fast: Augustine believed baptism was necessary for salvation. So was the Lord's Supper. He rejected the literal 6-day creation and a literal Millennial Kingdom. He jumped on Luke 14:23 and one word in the verse, the word, "compel." "Compel" is in the parable Jesus told about a king inviting people to his feast, but was not satisfied with the response, so he ordered his messengers to go all over the place and"compel"people to come.
Augustine took "compel" to mean torture them, whip them, drown them; kill them if necessary. Not only that, but Augustine unleashed the rancid smell of "TULIP" on the world before there was "TULIP," because John Calvin said his theology came from Augustine.
It's strange that Augustine recommended torture to force people into the kingdom, yet believed in unconditional election, so one would wonder what the purpose of torture was, since, according to unconditional election, no one has a choice in the matter of salvation anyway, tortured or not, since God decided the fate of everyone in eternity past before we all were born.
Michael Servetus denied the Trinity. In 1552, the Spanish Inquisition took action against him, but he escaped. Later, the French Inquisition declared Servetus worthy of death but had to burn him in effigy, due to his escape. In August 1553, Servetus went to Calvin's Geneva where he was recognized and at Calvin’s request was imprisoned by the city magistrates.
His trial lasted through October, at which time the Council of Geneva condemned him to death. Servetus was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553. The Calvinists and the Catholics both wanted him dead, but the Calvinists got to him first. Calvin agreed with the sentence of death by burning, thus staining his name down through the centuries.
All that because of a misunderstanding of one word in the Bible and Augustine, who knew very little of Greek got it wrong. The word conveys urgency. It's alternate meaning of "urge" fits in the contest of the character of God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." It fits with the Bible's statement "God is not willing that any should perish . . ."
Because of Augustine and Calvin, it's no wonder that unbelievers who know history fear Christians who want, without biblical warrant, to go into all the world and take over governments. The church is not a nation and is never called a nation in the New Testament.
God has not granted the church civil power, legislative power, and rightly so.
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