A humble view of religious freedom

I noted previously that I appreciated a couple of people in the Reformations period, because they had a moderate view of human ability to be right. I have a man crush on Sebastian Castellio. I'll quote the passage I read, "Concerning Heretics," in full (quoted from "The European Reformations Sourcebook, edited by Carter Lindberg, pp. 182-3).

"The true fear of God and charity are fallen and grown cold. Our life is spent in contention and in every manner of sin. We dispute, not as to the way by which we may come to Christ, which is to correct our lives, but rather as to the state and office of Christ, where he now is and what he is doing, how he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and how he is one with the Father; likewise with regard to the Trinity, predestination, free will; so, also, of God, the angels, the state of souls after this life, and other like things, which do not need to be known for salvation by faith. . . . Nor if these are known do they make a man better, as Paul says, 'Though I understand all mysteries, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.' This perverse curiosity engenders worse evils. Men are puffed up with knowledge or with a false opinion of knowledge and look down upon others. Pride is followed by cruelty and persecution so that now scarcely anyone is able to endure another who differs at all from him. Although opinions are almost as numerous as men, nevertheless there is hardly any sect that does not condemn all others and desire to reign alone. Hence arise banishments, chains, imprisonments, stakes, and gallows and this miserable rage to visit daily penalties upon those who differ from the mighty about matters hitherto unknown, for so many centuries disputed, and not yet cleared up.

"If, however, there is someone who strives . . . to live justly and innocently, then all others with one accord cry out against him if he differ from them in anything, and they confidently pronounce him a heretic on the ground that he seeks to be justified by works. Horrible crimes of which he never dreamed are attributed to him, and the common people are prejudiced by slander until they consider it a crime merely to hear him speak. Hence arises such cruel rage that some are so incensed by calumny as to be infuriated when the victim is first strangled instead of being burned alive at a slow fire. This is cruel enough, but a more capital offense is added when this conduct is justified under the robe of Christ and is defended as being in accord with his will, when Satan could not devise anything more repugnant to the nature and will of Christ."

This was written in 1554, which makes me rejoin my chorus of, "There is nothing new under the sun!" Interestingly, and thankfully, we don't often kill dissenters these days, so at least that's some progress. But we still shout each other down, call each other idiots, and assume only the best about ourselves. It's interesting, Theodore Beza, John Calvin's successor in Geneva saw this call for religious liberty as "a most diabolical dogma, because it means that everyone should be left to go to hell in his own way" (cited from Lindberg, p. 163). Beza seemed to be a mostly tolerant person. He presented the Reformed position at the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 in such a winsome and conciliatory way that he had the Catholic delegation eating from his hand until he said something a little too harsh about the Eucharist. However, his statement about Castellio and religious liberty is pretty disturbing. It plays right in with the idea from this time period that, because the Catholic church is the establishment, and because the Lutheran church is too firmly rooted to be extirpated, we'll have these two get along. But anything else (radicals, Anabaptists, etc.) has no right to exist. Was there not a chance that the Lutherans could learn from some of the smaller sects? Or does this just confirm my suspicion that then, as now, religion is inextricably tangled with power and politics? It makes me shudder to answer the question, because Jesus seemed to hand power to his enemies to show them that he truly held it. But we constantly walk away from his path. We continue to fight the battles of Jesus with the weapons of his enemy, and we wonder why the war is going so badly. Please, everybody, stop.