Why did John Calvin murder Michael Servetus?
To say he was a psychopathic murderer is a tad extreme. I’m no Calvninist, but it’s fairly easy to see that the Protestant Reformation was an era of extremes. Servetus took a lot of risks and was reckless. He more or less put John Calvin in a position where he either had to take extreme action or allow his society to collapse from the inside because it could not respect his authority. Given the choices, Calvin had Servetus killed. I don’t condone it, but if you understand the action in its context you can see that this was no mindless, joyful murder. Consequently, reaction to the death of Michael Servetus probably sparked the beginning of religious tolerance in Europe.
