The Fantasy of Geneva

My wife likes to watch old episodes of the TV show “Fantasy Island,” courtesy of Comcast Cable’s “On Demand” feature. A recent episode involved a couple who wanted to escape all of the ills and rudeness of contemporary society and go back to the “good old days.” They felt that things in the past had to be better than things right now. Mr. Roarke, in his seemingly infinite wisdom, decided to place them in colonial Salem. What these people found was a society overburdened by rules and harsh punishments, all seemingly at the whim of the leader of the town. The climax of the story, of course, was when the island guests were to be burned at the stake. The lesson learned was that things were not always better yesterday and that things are not as bad today as we think they are.

We live in a hedonistic culture. We look around and are surprised by what we see on television. We look at society as getting more and more morally corrupt and wonder how to fix it. We assume that things must be getting worse, but can be reminded otherwise by looking at the moral perversions in Greek or Roman culture. Even the Bible contains surprising details of moral failure. If you do not believe me ask Lot’s house guests when you get to the other side of this life. My point is that there are conservatives in every culture that believe that the moral decay that is happening in their culture is the worst that has ever occurred, even though it has been bad in the past too.

When I watch MTV to keep up on where contemporary culture is heading, it is only a matter of time before I cannot take it anymore and my stomach begins to churn. It is this same feeling that Calvin no doubt had concerning Geneva. The city was a party city in moral decay. When Calvin was given the authority to do so, he attempted to rid the city of this decay by instituting rules for his church members that prevented the things that caused moral issues in Calvin’s mind. Things like drinking and dancing were outlawed and a curfew was placed upon the city by the city’s council. The punishment for breaking Calvin’s rules was disfellowship from the church community. We can imagine how the party people must have felt by simply imagining how the party people of today would feel – Calvin was run out of the town! Today, people like Christopher Hitchens attack people like Jerry Falwell for having morals and speaking up about them. Keep in mind that this is for only talking about morals. Imagine if they actually made their own laws! We see a glimpse of what today’s reaction would be through following the hatred toward groups like Focus on the Family’s political arm that attempts to influence (not create like Calvin) legislation.

Calvin was eventually asked back and instituted the same rules he had in place previously, but this time he eventually gained the support of the people when Servetus was executed and the ideas of his followers were defeated.

This church-influenced style of government made its way into other geopolitical locations including the American colonies as experienced by the fictional “Fantasy Island” guests above. Could a government like this last a long time? Definitely, and it could be even stricter! Think about religions other than Christianity!