And if you don’t know who Calvin and Hobbes are, go find them. Google. Local bookstores (not like Borders or anything. Like, local). Everywhere. Because Calvin and Hobbes are amazing.
And this is the man that Calvin was named after.
John Calvin~!
Skip back about a hundred yours from John Calvin. We have Jan Huss. Who was all “Is Mr. P-to-da-ope good?” And then he got killed. And so did a lot of his peeps. An so did John Wycliffe. And then Martin Luther accidentally the Reformation. And he didn’t like the indulgences, so he wanted to have an argument, but hey. So while Luther was over here in the Germany, Ulrich Zwingli was all up in the Switzerland but he and Luther were like “Well yeah but no.” Because Even though they were both reformists, they still had differing views. And this made a wall between the Lutherans and the other Protestants.
And the other protestants who followed Ulrich disagreed with Baptism and the separation of church and state. Then this dood come up and was named Menno was making the Anabaptists. And while they were all getting together, Henry VIII was like JUST GON MARRY ERRYBODY and to do that he needed to mess with the church a little bit. And he made himself the SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, which left Mr. P-to-da-ope very angry.
So look at this picture. LOOK AT IT. You see how stuff is screwing all the way up? While humanism was all big, God was also working on His stuff too. England and the west-ish area of Europe was being reformed.
JOHN CALVIN.
More than the rest before him, he solidified the rest of the movement. He was HUGE GIANT THING PERSON THING. He worked really hard at preaching, teaching, and writing. He was born in Northern France (Onhonhonhon~) and he was pushed to be a thriving member of the church. And at just 11, he went to college in Paris. Now I don’t know if that’s some sort of normal thing like if college was different or something, but that’s just impressive. But he got his masters at about 17, which is pretty impressive no matter what. He studied things like theology and law and shtuff, and he was pretty eloquent. And when he was in his young twenties, he converted to Christianity. He was teaching Protestant shtuffs in France. And France was not very kind to Protestants. And one of Calvin’s closest friends had to leave France, and Calvin joined him. And while John was running through Switzerland, he met this guy named
John was all humble and nice and stuff, and he didn’t get paid a lot because he didn’t want to, and he was all small and tiny and shtuff. But he was a strong preacher and everyone loved him. So that was good. He preached messages starting in Romans. However, Will and John weren’t perfect either. They set out to convert EVERYONE. Forcefully. And you know how that turns out.
After three years, John and Will got kicked out of the city. Will kept preaching and john settled down and married a nice old widow. However, the people who were hired to replace Will and John were really bad at preaching, so some people starting begging John to come back. So he didn’t really want to go, but he did anyways. So he went back ad kept preaching on the letters of Paul. So he started a very strict moral code, and made gambling, drinking, dancing, swearing, etc. etc. Adultery, Idolatry, and blasphemy were punishable by death. The others were just punishable by, you know, torture and imprisonment.
John did believe in separation of Church and state, but not too much. If that makes sense. It doesn’t really. So he created a group called a consistory. It had members from both the church and the state. They were basically churchy policemen, and they made sure everyone followed the moral code. For those who believed in Biblical teachings, then it was a wonderful place to live. There was a huge drop in crime, and everyone was happy. Sorta. You see, sometimes people took it a little too far. Three men were imprisoned for laughing at church. Some children were punished for eating cake during church. They were not allowed to have more than a certain number of plates on a diner table. Someone who wrote a bad note about John Calvin was tortured twice a day for a month, and then executed.
And there was this guy.
His name was Micheal, and he was one of the many executed. However, he was a true heretic. He was confusing many Europeans with Christ’s Deity, which is a fundamental belief of the Christian faith. And while Micheal was just passing through the city, And John saw him in the streets, so was captured and executed. He was put on trial, but no lawyer or means to defend himself. And he was proven guilty and set to burn. However, John didn’t want him to burn, and just wanted to behead him. Because burning hurts a lot worse than having a quick, clean beheading. Also, Micheal had to burn in green wood, which burns a lot slower and produces a lot of smoke and is worse in every single way.
This left a dark cloud over John’s conscience and name.
*cough*
Anyway.
He preached almost every day of the week, and he set up a university, and wrote a lot. However, he also got only four hours of sleep and ate once a day. So he wasn’t exactly healthy. He also grieved a lot when his wifeh died, which made it worse. He wrote another book called “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” He started it when he was in France, and dedicated it to Francis I.
So John Calvin fathered ANOTHER branch of Protestantism. Calvinism! The Pilgrims actually were Calvinists, also.
And er uh.
Soyeahtheend.
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